The Student Room Group

PGCE Funding Questions

Does anyone know if it's possible to still receive the maintenance grant for the PGCE if you've already completed a masters course? Am I correct in thinking it's possible to get both the PGCE bursary (£9000) and maintenance grant (£3250) at the same time?

Also, is it possible to pay the PGCE bursary directly to the university for the course fees? I've heard that this is given £1000 at a time over a number of months? Or is it given as a lump sum payment?


Thanks for the help :smile:

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
Yes you can. It's seperate funding. Not sure about the bursary and course fees. It's all different for students from Wales.


Also, is it possible to pay the PGCE bursary directly to the university for the course fees? I've heard that this is given £1000 at a time over a number of months? Or is it given as a lump sum payment?

QUOTE]

As far as Im aware each university will do the bursary differently, but Im fairly certain you cant use it to pay the course fees. Most universities will split the bursary over the course of the PGCE (so 10 months) so that you have money for expenses, materials, resources, transport costs etc.
Reply 3
I've been wondering about this too...

I know you can get the PGCE bursary (£5,000-£20,000 depending on subject and degree classification), tuition fee loan (£9,000) and maintenance loan (£3,575 or more), but I'm not sure about a maintenance grant from the SLC.

Maintenance grants are means tested, so I'm not sure what happens if you're getting a PGCE bursary as well. If you get the maximum bursary of £20,000, does that mean you're no longer entitled to the maintenance grant? (Not that you'd need it, but it'd still be nice! :P )

The bursary is paid in installments, so you can't use it to pay tuition fees off in one go. Better to get a student loan for the fees - you can always pay it off if you have money left from your bursary/maintenance grant at the end of the year, right?
Does anyone know if the PGCE course fees have been officially confirmed yet? I am starting a Primary PGCE at Hull in September and was led to believe it was £9000, yet on the university's website it says post graduate course fees for 2012 are £3828. Confused!!
Reply 5
Original post by pintsizedblondie
Does anyone know if the PGCE course fees have been officially confirmed yet? I am starting a Primary PGCE at Hull in September and was led to believe it was £9000, yet on the university's website it says post graduate course fees for 2012 are £3828. Confused!!


the amount of fees depend on what the uni are willing to charge.
As someone else has said as a reply to this, email them, that's the only way you will get 100% confirmation.
Reply 6
Hello all,

I have a question about funding for 2012. I've got a place on an MFL PGCE in September and I'm wondering if the £12k/£15k/£20k bursaries are definitely available to all candidates with the right degree qualification? I don't want to start in September and discover that I'm not getting any money!

Thanks!
Reply 8
Original post by jenny_dot
Hello all,

I have a question about funding for 2012. I've got a place on an MFL PGCE in September and I'm wondering if the £12k/£15k/£20k bursaries are definitely available to all candidates with the right degree qualification? I don't want to start in September and discover that I'm not getting any money!

Thanks!


Hi,

I'm also starting an MFL PGCE in September, and I asked my university for a letter confirming the bursary (in case I decided to move house and needed to prove to estate agents that I had an income for the year since I wouldn't pass their credit checks). They wrote me a letter stating that I will be "in receipt of a training salary of £20,000, payable in nine monthly installments."

So it looks like it's pretty definite. :smile:

They also asked me for bank details along with various other forms I had to fill in, so they'll be able to pay the money in. I know not all universities have done this yet - they might ask for your bank details on the first day of the course instead.
Reply 9
Thank you Keziah!
Reply 10
Original post by Keziah
Hi,

I'm also starting an MFL PGCE in September, and I asked my university for a letter confirming the bursary (in case I decided to move house and needed to prove to estate agents that I had an income for the year since I wouldn't pass their credit checks). They wrote me a letter stating that I will be "in receipt of a training salary of £20,000, payable in nine monthly installments."

So it looks like it's pretty definite. :smile:

They also asked me for bank details along with various other forms I had to fill in, so they'll be able to pay the money in. I know not all universities have done this yet - they might ask for your bank details on the first day of the course instead.


that's a bit worrying...it's a bursary, surely? not a training salary - the term salary implies taxation and NI contributions needing to be made which I am under the impression isn't the case?

Can anyone confirm? Any current or past students had to pay tax on their bursaries?

Slightly freaked out as I'm about to start a PGCE also and am a parent so there are implications regarding tax credits etc. if bursaries are actually salaries!
Reply 11
Hey Alex

It's definitely tax free - the below is from the tda website:


You could get £20k tax-free for courses starting in 2012.

Www.education.gov.uk

Cheers!
Reply 12
Original post by alexnatseb
that's a bit worrying...it's a bursary, surely? not a training salary - the term salary implies taxation and NI contributions needing to be made which I am under the impression isn't the case?

Can anyone confirm? Any current or past students had to pay tax on their bursaries?

Slightly freaked out as I'm about to start a PGCE also and am a parent so there are implications regarding tax credits etc. if bursaries are actually salaries!


Yeah, it's still definitely tax free.

I think they may have written training salary specifically because I'd explained why I needed the letter. A couple of years ago, when we first moved in together, my partner and I really struggled to get the estate agents to accept us on the basis of my part-time job and his saving. So I was worried I'd have a similar problem if I decided to move for the PGCE, because many estate agents have an "employed only" policy. I explained this to the course admin on the phone and this is probably why they chose to phrase it like that.
Original post by alexnatseb
that's a bit worrying...it's a bursary, surely? not a training salary - the term salary implies taxation and NI contributions needing to be made which I am under the impression isn't the case?

Can anyone confirm? Any current or past students had to pay tax on their bursaries?

Slightly freaked out as I'm about to start a PGCE also and am a parent so there are implications regarding tax credits etc. if bursaries are actually salaries!


Its tax free.

Everyone on my PGCE got a pay slip from our university each month as you're "paid" from the university rather than from student finance/the government/whoever so it seems like its easiest for them to process it as though you're an employee. However you do not pay tax/NI on any of the bursary and it doesn't count towards your tax free allowance or anything like that.
Reply 14
thanks guys. It is a bit of a nightmare with the tax credits people who don't seem to know whether or not the bursary is income for tax credit purposes - I have made three phone calls on this issue so far, with two saying it is and one saying it isn't. If it was taxed, that would have solved it....ah well, one day someone will open their handbook on the right page and I'll get a definitive answer!
Reply 15
Original post by alexnatseb
thanks guys. It is a bit of a nightmare with the tax credits people who don't seem to know whether or not the bursary is income for tax credit purposes - I have made three phone calls on this issue so far, with two saying it is and one saying it isn't. If it was taxed, that would have solved it....ah well, one day someone will open their handbook on the right page and I'll get a definitive answer!



I was under the impression that the only student income that effected TC was the ADG?

If this helps, on page 13 of the notes it says:

"5.6 Other income
Do not fill in this box if your other income is:
less than £300
a maintenance payment
a student grant, bursary or loan."

Seems pretty comprehensive to me. I'm not planning on including it myself.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/tc600-notes.pdf
Original post by oxymoronic
Its tax free.

Everyone on my PGCE got a pay slip from our university each month as you're "paid" from the university rather than from student finance/the government/whoever so it seems like its easiest for them to process it as though you're an employee. However you do not pay tax/NI on any of the bursary and it doesn't count towards your tax free allowance or anything like that.


It's going to be pretty obscene for those getting the 15-20k bursaries..... works out as MORE per month than a lot of teachers get after tax......

15k = 1.6k per month for 9 months
20k = 2.2k per month for 9 months :eek:

I'm going to be on M5 next year, earning 29.2k pre-tax, but that's going to be more like 1.7k per month post-tax.

In fact, in order to get the take-home monthly income on the 20k bursary, you'd have to have a job earning around 42k a year before tax. :eek:
Reply 17
Original post by gingerbreadman85
It's going to be pretty obscene for those getting the 15-20k bursaries..... works out as MORE per month than a lot of teachers get after tax......

15k = 1.6k per month for 9 months
20k = 2.2k per month for 9 months :eek:

I'm going to be on M5 next year, earning 29.2k pre-tax, but that's going to be more like 1.7k per month post-tax.

In fact, in order to get the take-home monthly income on the 20k bursary, you'd have to have a job earning around 42k a year before tax. :eek:


I think I read that we get it paid in slightly differently to everyone else - it might have been either 9k or 12k divided between the 9 months (so 1k-1.3k), and then the rest of it in 2 lump sums in January and at the end of the course.

I'm hoping this will make me better at saving it - I can pay my rent and other living costs with the monthly payments and then put a lump sum in my savings.

But yeah, it is a crazy amount of money, but I'm not going to complain about it!
Original post by Keziah
put a lump sum in my savings.


I got buy happily on 9k, so you should be able to save an awful lot. Really good idea to stash as much of it aways as you can, short of AST or leadership scale you're never going to see that much money again.
Reply 19
Original post by nati_jade
I was under the impression that the only student income that effected TC was the ADG?

If this helps, on page 13 of the notes it says:

"5.6 Other income
Do not fill in this box if your other income is:
less than £300
a maintenance payment
a student grant, bursary or loan."

Seems pretty comprehensive to me. I'm not planning on including it myself.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/tc600-notes.pdf



Hi Nati,
yes, this is how I understood it. However, I read something on bursaries only being discounted if they were for specific purposes (such as the childcare grant being for childcare costs) and not if they were given for 'general living expenses'. Unfortunately, I am now struggling to find that link for you to have a look at but I'll keep trying to see if I can find it again! The Tax Credit people have been less than helpful in that there just doesn't seem to be a name to this bursary that they can check against on their list - one of the women I spoke to just didn't get it at all and kept asking me if it was an NHS bursary (went round in circles with her for about 20 minutes until I gave up!) and said I don't have teaching bursaries on my list. Grrrr! There must be thousands of parents doing PGCEs!

Quick Reply

Latest