The Queen Mary Bursary helps undergraduate students who are in most need of financial support with the costs of studying.
         
The amount of the bursary you will receive each year depends on your household income. Your household income will be assessed during your application for UK government student finance. No separate application for the Queen Mary Bursary is required.

If you are eligible to receive the Queen Mary Bursary you will not have to repay it.

Please note that all international students and those EU nationals who are only eligible for a tuition fee loan will not be eligible for a Queen Mary Bursary.

Medicine and Dentistry students are eligible for the Queen Mary Bursary in years where tuition fees are funded by a student loan or by the students themselves. Students in NHS funded years are not eligible for the Queen Mary Bursary. 

Applying for the Bursary for 2023/24

You do not need to make a separate application for the Queen Mary Bursary. To receive a Queen Mary Bursary, you must have applied to your regional student funding authority for income assessed UK government financial support for higher education students. The regional student funding authorities are:

Student Finance England
Student Finance Wales
Student Finance Northern Ireland
Student Awards Agency for Scotland

If you are applying for student support for the first time you also need to ensure that your regional student funding authority has verified your information, finalised your financial assessment and confirmed this to you and the Student Loans Company before we can assess you for a bursary. If your student finance assessment is still provisional, please contact Student Finance to enquire why.

The final date that we will assess you for a bursary is 31 July 2024 and it is your responsibility to ensure that we receive all the relevant information from Student Finance by this date and assessments during peak periods can take in excess of 8 weeks of submission of a complete application. Student Finance have their own deadlines for applications, you have nine months from the beginning of the academic year to apply for all funding. This is calculated based on entry period, and for QMUL courses in 2023/24, you will have until 31 May 2024 to apply.

You will receive notification, via your online Student Finance portal, once you have been approved for the Queen Mary Bursary. You should receive a text message from Student Finance telling you there is 'new correspondence'. Approvals will take place once you have fully enrolled and will be ongoing throughout the year. Most people will get their notification between September and November. 

Getting income-assessed if you have already applied for student finance

If you have an account for 2023/24, because you have taken out a fee loan or a non-means tested loan, you can request to be means tested. You and your financial sponsor(s) will need to send some forms to Student Finance. You do not have to take any loans if you do not want to do so, and you can enter zero for the amount of loan requested.

• Visit SFE Household Income Assessment
• Download Include household income for an application made in 2023/24 - this needs to be completed by you 
• Download PFF2 form for parents and partners of students applying in 2023/24 - this needs to be completed by your financial sponsor(s)
• If you do not want to take out the maintenance loan write on the form that you are requesting a full income assessment for bursary purposes only 
• Return the completed forms together to the address on the form

Once the assessment has been completed we will automatically assess you for a bursary. You must ensure that your financial information reaches us before 31 July 2024 in order to be assessed for a bursary this year.

Getting income-assessed if you have not applied for student finance

If you have not previously applied for any loans for the current academic year, you will need to make an application to Student Finance. You can do this online if you want to be means tested for loan purposes too, however, if you do not wish to take out any loans, then you will need to submit a paper PN1 or PR1 to Student Finance. You will also need to include a covering letter if you do not want loans (or means-tested loans) to let Student Finance know that you are requesting an income assessment for bursary purposes only. You cannot apply online and have to submit a paper PN1 or PR1 - these forms are available to download here: https://www.gov.uk/student-finance-forms 

If your funding or assessment is from one of the other UK regional funding authorities, please contact them directly to discuss the process for getting your household income assessed. Full contact details can be found on the links above. 

Receiving the bursary

When you have been assessed for a bursary you will receive an award letter. You will be sent an email confirmation asking you to login in to view your award letter in 'All Messages' in your email inbox on the Student Finance online portal. The letter will detail the amount of money you are due to receive and the dates it is due to go into your bank account. It will also detail the bank account where the money will be paid. This is the account your student loan maintenance payments are made to, and should you wish to amend this, you will need to contact the number on the letter. 

The amount of bursary you may be eligible for is determined by the student funding cohort you are in. This is usually determined by when you started your current course, but if you have previously withdrawn, suspended or transferred from a higher education course prior to starting your current course you might be covered by the bursary rules for the year in which you started in higher education.

Standard payment dates for the bursary are 50% in the third week in November, and 50% in the third week of March.