Funding · Scotland
SAAS standard student support for AHP courses (Scotland)
SAAS standard student support for AHP courses (Scotland) is administered by Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS). No academic year is recorded against these rates, so none is stated here. No cash amounts are published for its elements, so this page sets out the conditions rather than a total. 10 of the allied health professions on this site qualify.
What it is
Scotland has no separate NHS bursary for most allied health professions. Scottish-domiciled students on AHP degrees studying in Scotland get the ordinary SAAS package: SAAS pays the tuition fees direct to the university on a non-repayable basis, and living costs come from a means-tested bursary plus a student loan. SAAS names separate funding packages only for paramedic, nursing and midwifery courses, so the other AHPs sit within standard undergraduate support.
The elements below are separate awards under one scheme, and they are conditional in different ways. Some are flat payments made to everyone on an eligible course; some are assessed against household income; some reimburse costs you have already incurred and are worth nothing to you unless you incur them. Reading the scheme as a single headline figure is the mistake that leads people to budget for money they will never see.
A single total for this scheme cannot be computed from the published figures. Several elements — Tuition fees paid by SAAS and Living-cost bursary and student loan — are described in the scheme rules without a rate attached, or the rate is set individually. This page publishes what is stated and leaves the rest blank rather than estimating it; the administering body will give you a figure for your own circumstances.
- Nation
- Scotland
- Administered by
- Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS)
- Routes funded
- Undergraduate degree
- Elements
- 2
What each element pays, and on what condition
The amount column is the figure the administering body publishes. Where it is blank, no rate is published — either the award is assessed individually or the guidance sets limits rather than a single sum.
| Element | Amount | Basis | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuition fees paid by SAAS | Not published | academic year | SAAS pays fees directly to the college or university and they are non-repayable if you study in Scotland. You must apply every year. Students studying elsewhere in the UK instead apply for a Tuition Fee Loan of up to £9,790. No fee amount for study in Scotland is stated in the SAAS Key Facts leaflet, so none is recorded here. |
| Living-cost bursary and student loan | Not published | academic year | You can apply for a bursary and a student loan for living costs. How much you get depends on household income and whether you are assessed as a young or an independent student. The SAAS Key Facts leaflet publishes rate tables but is undated, so specific amounts are not recorded here against an academic year. |
Work out what you would get
This is arithmetic on the scheme’s own published figures, and nothing else. Elements published on the same basis — here, per academic year — are added together. Where the scheme publishes more than one rate for the same payment, only the highest is counted, because you can only receive one of them. Elements published on a different basis are listed separately below and not added, because adding a per-claim reimbursement to an annual grant would produce a number that means nothing.
A total appears only where every element in the group carries a published figure. If one does not, the components that exist are still shown and the total is left uncomputed. That is the honest position: an incomplete sum presented as a total is worse than no total at all, because you would budget against it.
Every eligible profession
- Tuition fees paid by SAAS — no figure published
- Living-cost bursary and student loan — no figure published
No amount is published for any of these elements, so there is nothing to add up. The scheme is real and the entitlements are real — the rates are simply assessed individually rather than published as a table.
Applies identically to these 10 professions.
Who qualifies
The scheme funds the undergraduate degree route . If you are training by another route, this is not the scheme that applies to you — compare the routes for your profession before you apply.
- Dietitian — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
- Occupational therapist — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
- Operating department practitioner — what the job is · undergraduate degree and degree apprenticeship
- Orthoptist — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
- Prosthetist/orthotist — what the job is · undergraduate degree and degree apprenticeship
- Physiotherapist — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
- Podiatrist — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
- Diagnostic radiographer — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
- Therapeutic radiographer — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
- Speech and language therapist — what the job is · undergraduate degree, pre-registration master’s and degree apprenticeship
What does not qualify
Exclusions decide more applications than entitlements do. Read them before you commit to a course on the assumption that it is funded.
How it works with student loans
Unlike England, tuition is paid by SAAS rather than borrowed, so Scottish-domiciled AHP students studying in Scotland take on student debt only for living costs. Students must apply to SAAS for the loan; SAAS assesses entitlement and passes it to the Student Loans Company to pay.
This is the part applicants most often get wrong, and getting it wrong is expensive: apply for the wrong student finance product and you can end up with less money, no entitlement to the scheme on this page, and a course already under way. Check which product your specific course is designated for with the university before you submit anything, because designation is set course by course rather than by the award name.
How to apply
Applications go to Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS), not to your university, and most schemes run to a deadline set from the start of the academic year. Apply as soon as you have an unconditional place — several elements are assessed from the start of the year and cannot be backdated indefinitely.
How this compares with the rest of the UK
The same course can be funded on four different bases depending on where you study. If you are choosing between universities in different nations, this is a bigger financial difference than tuition fee headlines suggest.
The other nations
- NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF) — England · 2026/27
- Undergraduate-rate student finance for pre-registration postgraduate (MSc/PGDip) courses — England · 2026/27
- Postgraduate Master's Loan (England) — England · 2026/27
- NHS Wales Bursary Scheme — Wales · 2026/27
- Department of Health (NI) healthcare bursary for AHP students — Northern Ireland · 2026/27
- Degree apprenticeship funding (England) — England · 2026/27
Carry on from here
- All funding schemes — Every scheme across the four nations
- Compare training routes — What each route costs and what it pays
- Every approved course — Filter by nation to see which funding regime applies
- NHS pay bands — What you earn once you are registered
- Degree apprenticeships — The salaried alternative to student funding
- Sources and licensing — Where these figures came from
Where this page’s data comes from
Figures published by Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS). Rules change every academic year — confirm with the scheme’s own guidance before you rely on any figure here.
- HCPC register summary and registrant snapshots (aggregate)Health and Care Professions Council · No open licence stated; HCPC copyright · checked 3 September 2026
- saas.gov.ukCited page
- mygov.scotCited page