Standard 5-year course as a graduate?

Years 1-4: £9000 per year fees - no tuition fee loan available
Year 5: NHS bursary to cover fees.

So you'll need £36K available to pay fees.

Even if the funding for graduate entry medicine is removed (which I don't think will happen), it's still a shorter course than the 5 year degree so it will still be the less expensive option.

Ouch. :P That would be a definite drain on the already sparse resources...:P Out of curiosity, what makes you believe the GEM funding will remain?

Several reasons:

1) I have no faith in the Labour Party, but I trust them slightly more than the Coalition when it comes to student funding: if they return to power it is highly unlikely that they will remove GEM funding.

2) If the Coalition Tories stay in power, the existing set up they have for GEM is actually working (assuming SFE actually does its damned job and doesn't lose people's applications). There's no reason to pull the funding: GEM students represent a source of income, not a drain.

3) Graduate entry medical students represent 10% of all medical students (this figure may be old and the current number higher). You cannot simply pull the plug on several thousand students in an in-demand profession like medicine.

4) There are rumours that the future of medical education in the UK is heading more and more in the American direction i.e. medical school might become entirely graduate entry in the future. There is no sense therefore in making life for graduate entry students unnecessarily difficult when the current graduate entry programmes may be acting as guinea pigs for future government policy.

5) Previous campaigns by students in 2010/11 successfully lobbied the Health Secretary for adequate GEM student funding, there's no reason why this shouldn't happen again after 2015. Graduate entry will still remain a popular choice amongst BA/BSc students: there is no loss of demand on the part of the "consumer".

The above are all my personal opinions and speculations, but that's how I see it anyway.

I was going to create a new thread regarding this, but I thought it would be more apt to just ask here. Does anyone have any idea as to when announcements regarding funding for 2016 entry and beyond will be made (for GEM)?

When hell freezes over. I've found awaiting funding news from this Government futile; I wouldn't expect it ever -- it'll come when they decide it suits them!

Not to be pessimistic...