To be eligible to apply for support you must:
- meet our residence conditions as set out in The Students' Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2007 (as amended);
- be studying a course that we support; and
- not have received support from UK public funds for a previous vocational postgraduate course.
For more information on courses that we do and do not support and how previous study affects the support available, please see the relevant section of the site.
To meet our residence conditions you must have been ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom , the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man for the three years immediately before the relevant date (the first day of the first academic year of your course). For the majority of students who start their course in the autumn term, the relevant date is 1 August. You must also be ordinarily resident in Scotland on the relevant date.
If you study a postgraduate course in the session immediately after you complete a first course of higher education, you should apply to the organisation that gave you support for your first course. We cannot act as an alternative source of support if the proper award-making organisation will not support you. For example:
- If you are an English student who was funded by your local education authority (LEA) for a degree at a Scottish institution and now want to study a postgraduate course in Scotland , you must apply to the LEA for support. As you were only living in Scotland to study, this does not count as ordinary residence.
If you are a Scottish student who was funded by us for a degree course at a university in England and now want to study on a postgraduate course anywhere in the UK, you should apply to us for support.
If you start a postgraduate course after a break in study of one year or more, you should apply to the award making body in the area that you are resident on the relevant date. Returning at weekends or for holidays in Scotland does not count as ordinary residence.