Once you fully enrol onto your programme of study, you are liable to pay tuition fees. Changes to your study can affect your tuition fee liability and the amount you are required to pay.
The following information is for students paying the Home rate of tuition fee. If you pay the overseas rate of tuition fee , please read the tuition fee information on our visa and fee implications page.
If you withdraw from your programme completely, or take time out from your studies (‘interrupt’) your tuition fee liability is as follows (this information is taken from the Queen Mary Tuition Fee Regulations):
Your tuition fee liability for the current academic year will be calculated on a pro-rata basis, based on the interruption of study or withdrawal date that is agreed with your supervisor, academic school, and the Research Degrees Office (RDO). Once this date is agreed, and you have submitted your interruption form to the RDO, contact the Queen Mary Fees Office for advice about your tuition fee liability: fees@qmul.ac.uk . There is more information about how the pro-rata fee is calculated in the Tuition Fee Regulations.
You may have set up a fee payment plan to pay your tuition fee in instalments, in line with your loan payment dates. These payments should stop once Student Finance England are notified of your interruption or withdrawal. If the loan payment is stopped and you were relying on this to pay any remaining tuition fee, you will need another source of income to pay this. You will be unable to re-enrol and rejoin your course in the future if you have an outstanding tuition fee debt. Our Postgraduate Funding Implications page has more information about how the loans are affected by withdrawing or interrupting studies.
This information is taken from the Queen Mary Tuition Fee Regulations:
Postgraduate students can pay their tuition fees:• in full before or at enrolment • in instalments, with 50% paid before enrolment and the remaining 50% by 31st January (for programmes starting in September) • there is a charge of £150 if a student fails to make payment by the due date • in instalments, with 50% paid before or at enrolment and the remaining 50% by 30th April (for programmes starting in January) • There is a £50 non-refundable charge for paying by instalment.
If you interrupt studies, when you resume you may end up paying more tuition fee for your course than expected as a tuition fee is normally charge for any retake period where attendance is required.
For example, If you interrupt during Semester 1 and resume your studies the following year at the start of Semester 1, you would be liable to pay 100% of the total annual tuition fee for the academic year when you return.
However, if you interrupt interrupt at the end of Semester 1 and the following year resume your studies on or after the start of semester 2 with no re-take period, you would be liable to pay 50% of the total annual tuition fee for that academic year.
In addition, The Tuition Fee regulations explain that in normal circumstances if a student interrupts their programme of study, they would be required to pay the fee of the new cohort they are joining. This is likely to be a higher fee than you originally paid. However if the student is prevented from doing so by any protected characteristics then they would be allowed to return to their programme, by paying the continuing students annual fee increase. The reason for the protected characteristics must be made clear at the point of interruption. This is explained in the Queen Mary Tuition Fee Regulations point 14.
Taught Masters students who start their course in September and who wish to interrupt after the May exams but before their project period can do this once the exam period is over. The deadline for interrupting in these circumstances is towards the end of June. Please confirm the date with your School. In this circumstance on return the following year a student will pay the difference between the annual tuition fee payable in their year of interruption and the annual tuition fee payable in the year of resumption. The amount of this increase is confirmed by the Fees Office in June each year and this will be an additional cost to meet.
Student Finance England do not provide any additional payments of Masters Loan for a repeat period of study. If you did not receive the full amount of Masters loan in the year that you interrupted your studies, the unpaid balance will be remain available to you providing you resume your study within 2 academic years. Payments pick up from the point they stopped.
If you normally rely on the Student Finance England Postgraduate Loan to pay your tuition fees and your remaining Masters Loan entitlement does not cover the tuition fee payable for the year of your return, you will need to consider other ways to pay this. You can read more information about how Postgraduate Loans are affected in our Postgraduate Funding implications information.
The Fees Office has confirmed that students can set up a new fee payment plan to pay their fees in line with any remaining Student Finance England postgraduate loan payments that are due. The Fees Office will require new Student Finance England documentation to prove the amended loan payment dates for the year of return. However if the loan does not cover the full tuition fee due, students will need to pay the difference in order to re-enrol.
Your tuition fee liability for the current academic year will be calculated on a pro-rata basis, based on the date that your supervisor, academic school and the Research Degrees Office have agreed you can resume your studies. You will be charged the same annual rate of tuition fee as a new student starting the course, which may be a higher fee than you originally paid for that academic year of your course. Contact the Queen Mary Fees Office for advice about your pro-rata tuition fee liability once you know what your resumption of study date is: fees@qmul.ac.uk
If you are going to take longer to complete your studies than is normally required for your programme, you may want to contact the Queen Mary Fees Office to check your tuition fee liability at fees@qmul.ac.uk . You may also want to contact any external organisation such a Student Finance England or Queen Mary department that pays your studentship, to find out how this funding will be affected incase you will need to pay fees yourself when you resume your studies. Research students should contact the Queen Mary Research Degrees office.
If you are interrupting your studies, any excess fee that you have paid during the year of your interruption of study will normally be retained by Queen Mary and credited towards your tuition fee liability for the academic year you resume your studies.
If you withdraw from Queen Mary and you have paid more than your actual tuition fee liability for your period of study, you may be eligible for a partial refund of the excess amount of tuition fees paid. The refund arrangements are set out in Section 14 of the Queen Mary Tuition Fee Regulations. Contact the Fees Office to enquire about this.