Postgraduate master's course

Postgraduate Master’s Loans for English and Welsh students are only available for full 180 credit postgraduate master’s courses. These can be either taught or research-based and in any subject area.

If you offer part-time versions of your full-time courses, the time English students take to complete the part-time version must be no more than twice the amount it takes to complete the full-time equivalent. Otherwise, it cannot be a designated course.

For example, if you offer a 1 year full-time course as part-time over 3 years, there can be no designation of the 3-year part-time version for English students. You must not add non-designated courses to CMS.

The course must lead to a master’s qualification. The most common are:

• MSc (Master of Science)
• MA (Master of Arts)
• MPhil (Master of Philosophy)
• MRes (Master of Research)
• LLM (Master of Law)
• MLitt (Master of Letters)
• MFA (Master of Fine Arts)
• MEd (Master of Education)
• MBA (Master of Business Administration)

There are many different types of master’s degree, but they all must meet the outcomes the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has set out.

These are set out in 'The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ), 2018' and 'The framework for qualifications of higher education institutions in Scotland 2001'.

When you set up a postgraduate master’s course, the Qualification dropdown will give you the following options:

• taught master’s
• research master’s
• Master of Architecture (postgraduate Student Finance England and Student Finance Wales courses)
• Postgraduate Certificate (postgraduate Northern Irish courses only)
• Postgraduate Diploma (postgraduate Scottish and Northern Irish courses)

The following course types are ineligible for a Postgraduate Master’s Loan:

• undergraduate-funded courses
• postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) courses
• Scottish Master of Arts (MA)
• Master of Architecture (where parts 1 and 2 are completed as a single course)
• English postgraduate healthcare courses
• integrated master’s courses which will continue to receive undergraduate funding
• doctoral courses (PhDs)
• other postgraduate-level courses (such as PGCert and PGDip) for English and Welsh students