A master’s degree in the UK is rarely cheap. Tuition alone can run well into five figures, and living costs in a city the size of Nottingham sit on top of that. Nottingham Trent University postgraduate masters scholarships exist for exactly this problem. They do not hand out cash. They cut the bill, sometimes by as much as half, before you enrol.
NTU, based in Nottingham, England, runs two main routes for taught master’s funding: one for students who pay home fees, and a larger scheme for international students. Both are competitive. Both require an offer first. And both are applied as a tuition fee reduction, not a stipend you can spend on rent. That distinction matters when you budget.
The university says these awards can save up to 50% on postgraduate tuition fees, and that the same ceiling applies across UK and international schemes.
Scholarship Summary
- Host Country: United Kingdom (England)
- Host University: Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Nottingham
- Scholarship Category: Masters Scholarships
- Eligible Country: All Countries
- Scholarship Benefits: Partial Tuition Fee, Living Stipend, etc.
- Scholarship Deadline: UK students starting January 2027: Wednesday 18 November 2026, 16:00 GMT. International students starting January 2027: Wednesday 30 September 2026, with a final deadline of Saturday 31 October 2026, 16:00 GMT. The September 2027 international scheme opens later. Always confirm dates on the official pages, because rounds close and can change.
Why These Awards Get Attention
NTU has built a reputation for employability and teaching quality rather than pure research prestige. It has been named University of the Year several times across different UK rankings in recent years, and it draws a large international cohort. For applicants comparing fee waivers, the practical question is simpler: how much comes off the invoice, and what do you have to do to get it?
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The answer splits by fee status.
- Home students can apply for a postgraduate masters scholarship worth up to 50% off tuition on eligible courses.
- International students can apply for awards from £2,000 up to 50% of first-year fees, including country-specific pots and a competitive Excellence Scholarship.
- Subject awards, including an MBA Excellence Scholarship, sit alongside the main schemes.
- Alumni may stack a 20% loyalty discount, but the combined reduction is capped at 50%.
None of these cover living costs. UK students can still look at the government postgraduate master’s loan, currently up to £13,206 from Student Finance England, which can be used toward fees and living costs. That loan is separate from the NTU award. Funding options are set out on NTU’s funding your studies page.
What The UK Postgraduate Masters Scholarship Actually Pays
For January 2027 entry, applications are open for home-fee students. The award is a fee reduction of up to 50%, adjusted at enrolment. Placement years are excluded. Part-time students receive the reduction proportionally at the start of each academic year.
Eligibility is narrow and clear.
- You need an offer for an eligible course starting in January 2027.
- You must be classed as a Home student for tuition fees.
- You cannot already have your fees fully or partly paid by an employer, the government, or another funding body.
- The course must be a new postgraduate programme. Current NTU students can apply only when they move onto a new postgraduate course.
- Apprenticeships, MBA, GEMBA, EMBA, GDL, SQE, LPC, BTC, and exchange students are excluded.
Eligible courses span architecture and the built environment, art and design, music and media production, business, law LLMs, computing, psychology, and more. Distance-learning routes are not eligible. The full list is on the eligible courses page. Some Nottingham Law School professional courses are outside this scheme but may qualify for a separate Law School award.
The deadline for January 2027 entry is Wednesday 18 November 2026 at 16:00 GMT. Forms received after that time are not considered. You must already hold an NTU ID from your course offer before you submit the scholarship form. Selection is based on the written application. There is no interview. Results are normally sent within five weeks of the deadline.
Full rules are on the UK postgraduate masters scholarship page.
If you also qualify for the alumni discount, you can apply for both. The two together cannot reduce fees by more than 50%. The same cap applies if you hold another university bursary, except for a full-fee award or a Sport Scholarship.
International Awards: Fixed Sums And The 50% Excellence Route
International applicants face a different menu. NTU’s international scholarships for January 2027 are open, and the September 2027 round is due to open later. Awards are fee reductions applied once you enrol, after you have accepted your offer and met its conditions.
The headline competitive award is the NTU Excellence Scholarship: 25% or 50% off first-year master’s tuition, judged on the strength of the application. NTU illustrates the 50% level as a reduction in the region of £9,150 to £12,500, depending on the course fee, and the 25% level as roughly £4,525 to £6,250. Those figures move with the published fee for your programme.
Below that sit country and school awards, and two awards any eligible international master’s applicant can seek.
- NTU International Scholarship: £2,000
- NTU International Merit Scholarship: £3,000
- Country awards for Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Latin America and the Caribbean, Malaysia, the Philippines, Serbia, and Turkey: £4,000
- Country awards for Europe, Korea, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Taiwan: £5,000
- Taiwan STEM Scholarship: 50% off tuition
- High achiever awards, criteria vary: Bangladesh £3,000, China Star £3,000, India Prestigious University Award up to £4,000, Sri Lanka £3,000, Sub-Saharan Africa £3,000, Thailand £4,000
You submit one form and are considered for every award you qualify for. A short application covers the smaller merit awards. A higher-value award needs the full form, including an essay of about 500 words on your achievements, goals, and interests. NTU asks for original writing and states that AI-generated content is not accepted. High achiever awards also need a graded transcript.
Deadlines for January 2027 international entry are Wednesday 30 September 2026, and a final deadline of Saturday 31 October 2026 at 16:00 GMT. Late forms after the final deadline are not considered. Applications that miss an earlier round are rolled to the next one. You should hear within five weeks of the deadline you were assessed against.
The full country list, exclusions, and form are on the international scholarships page.
See Also:
- Newcastle University International Scholarships 2027: Over 1,000 Awards and How to Claim Yours
- Nottingham Trent University Postgraduate Masters Scholarships
- Faculty for the Future Fellowship 2027: Up to $50,000 a Year for Women in STEM Who Plan to Go Home and Teach
Who Cannot Apply
Both schemes share hard exclusions. Read them before you spend an evening on the form.
- You must already hold an offer. A scholarship application cannot go in with, or before, the course application.
- You must be starting the first year of a new course. Continuing students and students repeating a year are out.
- Sponsored students, where an employer or government already pays all or part of the fee, are not eligible.
- Distance learning, PGCE, social work routes linked to NHS funding, SQE courses, and several professional law courses are excluded from the main schemes.
- You generally cannot hold two NTU fee reductions that together exceed 50% of first-year fees.
- The award is not a cash payment and does not cover a placement year.
International students also need to be classed as overseas for fee purposes. Home students need home-fee status. If you are unsure which you are, settle that before you apply. Fee status is not something the scholarship panel reclassifies.
How to Apply Without Wasting The Deadline
The sequence is the same for both routes, and people miss it.
- Choose an eligible master’s course and apply through the NTU applicant portal.
- Wait for an offer and an NTU ID number.
- Open the correct scholarship form: UK or international. Do not use the wrong one.
- For a higher-value international award, write the essay yourself and keep it specific to the course and to what you will contribute.
- Submit before 16:00 GMT on the deadline. A form sent at 16:01 moves to the next round, or is rejected if that round was the last.
- Accept the course offer and meet its academic and English-language conditions. The reduction is applied at enrolment, not when the scholarship email arrives.
January 2027 starters can browse courses on the January start masters page, which also points to the live scholarship rounds.
If you defer, transfer, or withdraw, the award does not automatically follow you. NTU treats the scholarship as tied to the original offer. A new course means a new application, and only if that round is still open.
What The Scholarship Does Not Solve
A 50% fee cut is significant. It is not a full funding package. International master’s fees at NTU vary by subject and are published on each course page and on the international tuition fees page. Even after a large award, you still need funds for the remaining fee, a UK student visa, the immigration health surcharge, and living costs in Nottingham.
Budget for rent, food, local transport, and course materials on top of whatever is left of the tuition bill. NTU publishes living-cost guidance for international students alongside its fee pages. Treat the scholarship as a discount on one line of the budget, not as income.
UK applicants should also check whether a postgraduate loan, an alumni discount, or a subject award changes the picture. The loan and the scholarship can sit together. An employer-funded place usually cannot.
Other NTU Awards Worth Checking
The main schemes are not the only money on the table.
- MBA Excellence Scholarship from Nottingham Business School, for UK and international candidates who can show ambition and leadership.
- Dr Pauline Polkey Masters Scholarship, for eligible postgraduate offers in the relevant academic year.
- Nottingham Law School professional courses scholarships, worth up to half the fee on selected professional programmes, on a separate timetable.
- Sibling Loyalty Reward: a 20% fee discount if a sibling is also at NTU. This is requested by email to international@ntu.ac.uk with birth certificates and both NTU ID numbers, not through the main form.
- GREAT Scholarships have been offered at NTU in previous cycles for selected countries, including Egypt, Nigeria, and Vietnam, at £10,000. These are a British Council route with their own deadline, so check the current Study UK listing rather than assuming the cycle is open.
Research students should not use these taught-master’s forms. Doctoral funding is listed separately on NTU’s PhD fees and funding pages.
A Practical Way to Judge Your Chances
NTU does not publish a fixed number of master’s awards each year, and it does not rank applicants by a single test score. Competitive awards, especially the 50% Excellence Scholarship and the UK fee reduction, go to the strongest written cases. Fixed-value merit awards are wider but still require a valid offer and an on-time form.
A strong application usually does four things.
- It names the course and links your academic record to it.
- It shows evidence, not adjectives: grades, projects, work, publications, or impact.
- It explains what you will do with the degree, in a specific sector or research area.
- It is written in your own words and stays inside the word limit.
Apply in an earlier round if you can. Later rounds still work, but courses can close, and the final deadline is a hard stop.
Check The Source Before You Rely on a Date
Scholarship pages move. The January 2027 UK deadline of 18 November 2026 and the international final deadline of 31 October 2026 were published on NTU’s own pages at the time of writing. September 2027 international awards were not yet open. If you are reading this later, treat those dates as a starting point and confirm them here:
Nottingham Trent University postgraduate masters scholarships will not pay your rent. They can, if you already hold an offer and you apply before the clock runs out, take a serious share of the tuition off the table. For a January 2027 start, that clock is already running.
Official details sit on the postgraduate masters scholarships hub.
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