What is #FixOurFunding?

FixOurFunding is our campaign to address poor medical school funding for English domiciled medical students, who are typically eligible for the lowest funding of any UK nation. 

Inadequate funding is causing real financial hardship.  In our 2025 medical student finance survey, 90% of students told us the funding they receive doesn’t cover their day-to-day costs. And this is jeopardising their studies, with almost half of those who responded to the survey telling us they’ve considered leaving their courses and quitting medicine. 

We’re calling on the Government to step up and ensure better financial support for students through all their years of study. 

• Ensure both undergraduate and graduate students are eligible for full SFE maintenance loan provision for all years of study.
• Improve access to funding via the NHS Bursary, including improving the claims process, and exploring new sources of funding.

Why is the situation worse in England?

There are big disparities in medical student funding across all four nations (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and the funding is highly fragmented. English domiciled medical students studying an undergraduate course in England are eligible for the lowest funding of any UK nation. 

In England, this is most notably due to the reduction in funding provided by Student Finance from year 5 onwards for undergraduate-entry and from year 2 onwards for graduate-entry, when students become eligible for the NHS Bursary. This results in an overall drop of £3,979 of available financial support in these years. This is visualised below.

During NHS-bursary-funded-years, English medical students entitled to the highest rate maintenance loan receive 57.7% less funding than Welsh students receive.

English domiciled medical students receive £24,782 less funding towards living costs during a 6-year undergraduate (including intercalated year) than Welsh domiciled students, as they are entitled to full student finance provision.

What your medical student committee is doing

Find out more about what your MSC is doing to fix student funding.

Lobbying  

The Committee has written multiple times to Ministers in both the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care outlining how disadvantaged medical students are by the existing rules governing student finance and calling for a joint meeting to discuss our proposals.    

We have also continued to engage with the NHS Business Services Authority and Student Finance England to familiarise them with our asks, and to work to streamline existing processes. 

To take our campaign to the next level, we need your help to make sure our voices are heard. Our campaign must be loud and demand the attention of the government so we can create the change we need to fix our funding.  

Read our medical student finance guide

What you can do

You can take action now to help support our campaign.

Share our campaign

Download and share campaign images and messaging on your Instagram, using the tag #FixOurFunding.

Join our day of action 

There will be a major day of action in London on the afternoon of 19 March, plus many additional events, linked to local medical schools, across England on the same day. Let us know if you’re planning to join us and be part of the campaign to stop the drop. Sign up now.

Strengthen our numbers

Urge fellow medical students to join the BMA.

Student finance calculator

Our student finance calculator helps pre-NHS bursary medical students estimate the drop in funding they’ll face when transitioning to NHS Bursary-funded years. 

For undergraduate students on a five-year course, this typically happens in their fifth and final year. If you are in your first, second, third or fourth year, entering your current funding will show you the drop you receive in your fifth. 

Graduate students on a four-year course will experience a drop in funding in their second year, then another in their fourth year due to the shorter course length. If you are an English domiciled graduate student, enter the funding you receive(d) in your first year to understand the drop in your second year onwards. The calculator  will show the amount you will receive in your fourth, final year.

Medical student funding is highly variable between students and universities, so this calculator provides an estimate only and should not be used to make budgetary decisions. You can visit Student finance calculator - GOV.UK to understand your exact individual figures.

Student finance survey 2025

The results from the 2025 survey of medical student finances are troubling. In the last survey, conducted in 2022, 44% of medical students reported running out of money during the academic year. Just three years later 92% of survey respondents told us their funding doesn’t cover basic livings costs.

Real hardship is caused by the massive drop in funding that both undergraduate and graduate students experience when they stop receiving full Student Finance maintenance funding and transition into NHS bursary funded years.

Medical students responding to our 2025 survey told us that their average drop was £3,674, even higher that our initial estimate of £2,766 (based on analysis of data from the Student Loans Company. This means that medical students are struggling financially: 

• More than 60% of students reported spending less on essentials and over half of students reported having to use their overdraft to pay for basic purchases. 
• 85% of students feel their financial situation is detrimental to their overall educational attainment. 
• Over 43% of students have considered leaving the course due to financial pressures.
• Almost two thirds of students are more likely to move and work abroad where pay is higher.
• Students who received free school meals in primary school are far more likely to report that their financial situation is detrimental to their academic attainment  at medical school.