U.K. college offers medical students $13,700 in cash to defer their degree

July 26, 2021: -The U.K.’s University of Exeter offers students who want to study medicine a £10,000 bursary and free first-year accommodation to defer their place due to increased demand to look at the medical school.

In addition, to offer students a financial incentive to defer their spot to study medicine at the university in southwest England, the college also gives them the option to check a post-graduate program before beginning their medical studies in 2022.

University of Exeter Deputy Vice-Chancellor Mark Goodwin said there had been a “significant upturn” in the number of students to pick the college as their first choice to study medicine this year.

The government of the U.K. subsidizes the cost of studying specific health care courses, such as medicine, typically a five-year course. Meaning it only allocates a certain number of places to study medicine at U.K. colleges each year.

The cost of a medical degree to the U.K. taxpayer is estimated to be nearly £185,000, according to the Medical Schools Council, an organization that represents U.K. medical schools.

According to MSC data, several applications to study medicine in 2021 rose by nearly 21% in the last year. By comparison, the data published by MSC showed applications to study medicine increase by close to 6% between 2019 and 2020, which indicates an overall increase in demand for the course in 2021.

It said the few available places to study medicine remained the same in 2021 at 9,500, as in 2020, but that the government has funded 450 different classes for those students who were required to defer their place last year.

Goodwin said the “number one priority is ensuring the students that study with us enjoy the good quality, safe and fulfilling education.”

Coronavirus lockdowns in the U.K. saw colleges move lectures online, with many students studying from university accommodation that they had already paid for, and some were even forced to isolate themselves in halls of residence. Students expressed anger at certain universities’ handling of infection outbreaks and that fees remained the same despite courses being taught online.

The disruption prompted some students to rethink their plans to go to college in the fall of 2020. A small study of 516 students conducted by London Economics, published in May 2020, found that 28% of respondents said they did not intend to go to university in the fall last year if their chosen college was not operating as usual and still had many Covid-19 restrictions in place.