PhD Loans Update - New Details Emerge

If you're a regular reader of this blog, chances are you know something about the UK's upcoming PhD loans. First announced in 2015, these will offer up to £25,000 for doctoral students from 2018.

A lot's happened since 2015 though. Masters loans have been introduced, the government has changed, Brexit is on the horizon and further higher education reforms are planned.

Meanwhile updates on PhD loans have been curiously quiet. In fact, when I spoke to prospective students at our FindAPhD LIVE! events a couple of weeks ago, the most I could say was that they were still happening. That and promise to update when more information became available.

Well, more information is available, with the government launching a new consultation that sheds much more light on its plans.

So, as promised, here's a full explanation of the new details. For a simple summary of the plans as they stand, take a look at the updated PhD loan guide in our funding section.

The good news is that many of the key details of the PhD loans scheme haven't changed.

They're still worth up to £25,000, they're still aimed at English students and they're still due to arrive in time for the 2018-19 academic year.

Key changes

The biggest change to the PhD loans concerns their compatibility with Research Council studentships.

• Research Council funding - Unfortunately, you'll no longer be able to combine a PhD loan with any form of Research Council studentship. Previous announcements suggested that students with a 'fees only' award could still apply, but this is no longer the case. The two funding systems are now completely separate.
• Repayment - The loans are still income-contingent, repaid once students are earning over £21,000 a year. But the rate for this has now been dropped from 9% to 6%. If you have already have a Masters loan the two debt amounts will be combined, with one 6% 'postgraduate loans' payment.

Not being able to combine PhD loans with Research Council funding may be dissapointing to some students, particularly those who are only eligible for fees-only awards.

However, it also makes the system simpler. Instead of having to manage two separate funding and finance streams you'll now know that PhD loans are available if (and only if) you don't succeed in winning Research Council funding.

New details

So, changes aside, what's new? Quite a lot, actually - and most of it's very welcome. In particular, we've finally got clarification on age-restrictions, qualification types and a few fiddly issues such as integrated or combined courses.

Here's a quick run-down:

• Age-cap - The PhD loans will only be available to students aged 59 or under on the first day of their course. This is essentially the same as the restriction on Masters loans, which are available to applicants 'under 60'.
• Course length - There won't be a hard distinction between full-time and part-time PhDs, but students will need to state their intended completion time in advance. This can't be longer than six years.
• Qualification types - The PhD loans will be available for PhDs and equivalent qualifications. That means any degree at level 8 of the UK's Higher Education Framework for Higher Education Qualifications. Put simply, that means professional doctorates such as DBAs and EdDs will be eligible, as will variants of the PhD such as the DPhil.
• Integrated courses - Previously, there was some potential for confusion over the eligibility of Masters qualifications offered 'within' a PhD. This has been clarified. You'll need to declare your intended 'exit qualification' when applying for a loan. If this is at PhD level, it will be eligible. Your programme can award an MRes, MPhil or other course along the way, but the total course can't last longer than six years and you can't apply for an additional Masters loan for qualifications 'within' your PhD.

Nothing here is especially surprising, but all of it is welcome.

The best place to get a full run-down of the current loan plans (and a detailed FAQ) is still our separate PhD loan guide. As always, we'll be updating that whenever new information emerges (including information on doctoral loans elsewhere in the UK).

For the purposes of this post, here's a quick summary of the loans as they stand right now:

That's the current state of play as of November 2016. Again, for more information, check out our dedicated PhD loans guide. You can also sign up to our newsletter for important updates.

What happens next?

The government has launched a consultation on the PhD loans, to run until the 16th of December.

All main aspects of the loans are up for discussion and interested groups and individuals are invited to take part and share their views. That includes current or prospective students, like you.

Once the consultation is completed the government will publish its response and confirm what its ultimate plans are.

When will the response be published?

The government hasn't committed itself to a date, but we can use last year's Masters loan consultation as a guide.

This launched in March 2015 and ran until May 2015, with results published in November.

That gives a full timescale of roughly six months, following which we'd see a PhD loan response published next June.

That would mean that full details of the loans would be ready for students completing a Masters (or Bachelors) in 2017-18 - ideal for those considering a PhD when the scheme launches in the following (2018-19) academic year.

Of course, this is just my estimate - it's perfectly possible that the government could respond sooner, though it probably won't want to take much longer.

How likely are these plans to change?

If you'd stopped me at one of our events last month and asked about PhD loans (as a few students did) I'd have said I expected an age-cap and for clarity on integrated qualifications. But I wouldn't have known the government was about to remove eligibility for all Research Council-funded students.

It's likely that we'll see more changes to the scheme - 2018 is a couple of years away, after all.

However, if the Masters loans are anything to go by, further alterations are likely to be positive. Last year the government launched a very similar consultation for its Masters loans and it soon became clear that there was a significant call for the initial age-cap (then set at 30) to be relaxed. And it was.

And what about Brexit?

According to the government's own plans, the UK will probably leave the EU in 2019 at the earliest. That means that the UK will still be an EU member when the PhD loans are launched, but potentially only for the first part of the first year of the scheme.

Whatever happens, the UK almost certainly won't be an EU member by the time the first group of students graduate with a PhD loan (around 2021).

So, does that matter? Not necessarily. As things stand the loans are only going to be available to UK nationals (and only to those ordinarily resident in England).

It's possible that EU students could become eligible as a result of the UK's Brexit negotiations (or through extending finance and funding assurances through to 2018-19).

If you ask me, the government is leaving some room for this by referring in its plans to 'other students that meet the loan’s eligibility and residency requirements in place' when the loans are introduced.

We'll have to see.