Hi there,

I am sure this is the most boring question to reappear on this site. However, i must ask... I am a Scottish student beginning an LLM in International Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and Terrorism Law, at Lancaster, in October- Can anyone, please, suggest possible funding opportunities? I am currently drowning in dead ends! Any help would be most gratefully appreciated.
Thank you.

Actually, because so many of the participants are international students, you'd be surprised how few times I have seen this asked!

If it is a taught LLM, rather than an LLM by research, your options are limited and look a little like the following:

You could look into scholarships offered by the university you intend to attend but these are fairly rare and would only usually cover your fees- leaving the burden of living costs.

You could consider graduate study loans. These can be up to £25k and are offered by at least Natwest and HSBC, if not a few other banks. However, although a load of literature offers these, I'm not at all sure how easy they are to come by at the moment.

You could consider a career development loan. I believe they can be up to £8k and see the Government paying the interest until you graduate but are only available on certain conditions of which I'm not overly sure.

You could look into educational trusts of which you are eligible to apply. These are few and far between and only seem to offer a few hundred pound or so, so not a main source of funding.

After the recent AHRC grading, some suggest that funding will become available to taught LLM programmes in the form of the block grant. The amount each institution will be awarded has not been released yet, or the rules around how it must be spent, so you might need to do some digging. I think I'm right with that, but someone might be able to correct me.

Unfortunately, most of us UK students have to stump up most, if not all of the cash for taught programmes and, depending who you opt for and your circumstances, often this means that 21/22 year old graduates are asked to find anything betwen about £12k and £25k under the floorboards after just amassing a huge amount of debt doing a first degree. With the first degree being somewhat 'devalued' nowadays and many options for the aspirational lawyer (particularly the Bar and academia) almost requiring such qualifications, this is a difficult time. Working for a year or two is always an option, if you're a youngster- I've taken that option and, if nothing else, it will save me being ridiculously poor for a number of years! Hopefully, anyway..

Enough with my rant!Hope that helps...

Thank you for your reply, i appreciate it.

I wish i knew postgraduates were meant only for the affluent before i accepted my place.

Now enough with my ranting.

Thank you again for your time