Lowri Roberts talks about scholarships at Bournemouth University and how she no longer has any postgraduate funding worries…

Here at BU, they do all they can to help you, whether it’s advice on your work, accommodation or with your finances. One of the most daunting aspects of postgraduate study for many of us is the cost of it all. How am I going to afford all the tuition fees on top of the cost of living? Well, here at BU there are several funding options available to you.

Bournemouth University offers something called the Academic Excellence Scholarship which basically means if you achieved a 65% or higher in your undergraduate degree, regardless of where you studied (doesn’t have to be at BU), then you are eligible to receive it. The award is a value of £2000 that is deducted from your tuition fees when you come to paying for your course, however you chose to do it (online is easy)! The amount, however, isn’t the best thing about the award. The best thing is that there is no need to apply for it, meaning there’s no tedious application process or confusing forms. When you are accepted on to your postgraduate course at BU, they’ll look at your grades and give the award to those deserving of it. It gets better too! There’s an unlimited number of awards available, which means you don’t have to compete with anyone but yourself to get that 65% or higher. It’s a great incentive to do well in your undergraduate degree and it isn’t down to luck whether you are chosen like so many other scholarships, it’s down to your sheer hard work which makes it that much more rewarding in my opinion.

I studied my undergraduate degree here at BU in BSc Archaeology and had always known I wanted to stay and do an MSc in Maritime Archaeology. This gives me and any undergraduate BU student thinking of continuing their studies here an advantage. To encourage you to stay at BU, current students are offered a 20% discount off their postgraduate course and a further 5% off if they pay on time! This is a quarter of the fees you no longer have to worry about paying for, regardless of any other scholarship you receive. Again, like the Academic Excellence Scholarship, there was no need to apply for the discount; it was automatically deducted from my fees when it came to paying for the course.

This means that as a BU student that worked hard in my undergraduate degree, I was given a 25% discount and a separate £2000 off my tuition fees, eliminating any doubts I had about funding my postgraduate degree.

You can see all the scholarships available to you on the Bournemouth University website.

Good luck!