As a student, you may not be personally responsible for paying your fees (it could be your parents, or a Government sponsor for example) but you do need to know how much needs to be paid, what it is for, and where, how and when it needs to be paid! And, just perhaps, how you may be able to supplement your income, either with a scholarship or by working part-time!
The following information should help you find out all you need to know:
A tuition fee is payable for every programme of study at the University of Bristol (with the exception of incoming Erasmus exchange students). The amount that is payable varies, depending on the programme. Please select the relevant information from the following:
If you are not sure whether you will be liable to pay tuition fees at the overseas rate, please consult our guidelines on fee status.
If you apply to Bristol, your fee status will be confirmed when an offer is made. We may ask you to complete a fee status questionnaire so that we can determine your fee status correctly. This is a quite lengthy questionnaire that needs to be fully completed and returned to us. The information we require includes nationality, country of domicile, parental work permits, vacation details etc with accurate dates. Once the information has been received, you will receive confirmation of your fee status for the University of Bristol, should you decide to accept our offer.
You will need to allocate funds for living expenses while you are in Bristol. This varies from person to person, depending on where you live (the type of accommodation and the area of the city), how many months of the year you plan to stay in Bristol, and your lifestyle!
The Student Funding Office has some useful guidelines for estimating the cost of living. As an approximate estimate, we suggest that for an academic year (9 months) in Bristol, you would need between £6,500 and £8,200. For a full year, this amount would need to be increased to an amount between approximately £9,000 and £10,800. These estimates include everything except tuition fees and international travel.
The International Advice and Support team also has some tips on where to go shopping, council tax and driving in the UK.
Please be aware that competition for scholarships is always very strong, and if you do decide to apply for one, you must follow the application procedures exactly. You should also plan well in advance, as deadlines are often quite early in the academic year.
Information on scholarships available to international students applying to Bristol is provided by the Student Funding Office. Some of the scholarships are offered exclusively by the University of Bristol, and others are administered by external organisations. There may be other scholarship schemes operating in your country, and we strongly recommend you do some of your own research to find out, as they may not be quite as competitive as the internationally administered schemes.
The International Office at Bristol has approximately 15 international undergraduate scholarships (for selected countries) and 10 international taught postgraduate scholarships (for students from any country) to give away each year. These scholarships are for students who are liable to pay the higher rate tuition fees.
Before you apply for any scholarships, please check the application deadline (all schemes are different) and also whether you are eligible to apply. Most scholarships on offer in the UK that state they are for international students are usually intended for students from outside the European Union, and who will pay the higher tuition fee rates. Who pays the higher tuition fees?
If you are an European Union student, there is also some information on financing your studies which may be of help, though scholarships, unfortunately, are very few and far between. If you are a European Union national intending to apply for a postgraduate programme at Bristol, our Postgraduate Admissions Office have provided some additional guidelines on funding for postgraduate study.
International students (from outside the European Union) who have a student visa that is valid for six months or longer, are currently entitled to work for up to 20 hours a week during term time, and up to 40 hours a week during vacations. It is possible to find part-time work in a whole variety of different places in Bristol, but most UK students, for example, tend to work in cafes, bars, restaurants and shops (there are plenty of these in central Bristol). It is very unlikely that you would be able to find a part-time job that relates to your programme of study, and you are quite likely to earn just the legal minimum wage, which for adults of 21 years or over, is currently £5.73 per hour (less for those aged between 18 and 21). The work is unlikely to be glamorous, and you cannot cover your living costs by working on this part-time basis. Nor can you support your student visa application by stating that you will work once you arrive in the UK.
As our programmes of study at Bristol are very demanding, we strongly recommend that you do not take on a heavy workload of paid employment. Being able to demonstrate that you can ably manage your time between studying and paid work is certainly a good thing, but it is never worth the risk of letting your studies suffer. You also need to factor in time to relax, eat and sleep! We suggest that you take on just a few hours of paid work per week to begin with, see how you cope and then add extra hours if it is appropriate.
The University's Job Shop, housed at the Careers Service on Priory Road, is a good place to start looking for work, though it can also be worthwhile visiting recruitment agencies and reading local newspapers to find vacancy information.
The Student Funding Office can give advice on scholarships, emergency short-term loans, the cost of living and on budgeting your finances so they last throughout the year.
The office is open from 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday and is located on the Ground Floor of Senate House.
The University's Finance Office will be your main point of contact for fee invoices and the payment of fees. Any enquiries regarding the payment of fees, including how to pay, and paying in instalments, should be made directly to the Finance Office, which is located in Senate House.