Overview
In addition to the bespoke support offered by the We Care team, we offer the We Care Postgraduate Bursary which awards £2,500 cash to eligible postgraduate students. This award is typically made for one academic year and is valued at a total of £2,500. The bursary is paid in four instalments of £625 and is intended to financially support eligible students while they study at postgraduate level.
Who is eligible?
1. You must be a ‘Home’ or 'Overseas Island' student on an eligible course.
The Government classes all students as ‘Home’ or ‘International’. This status determines which tuition fees you pay, and which scholarships and bursaries you may be eligible to receive. Overseas Island; Isle of Man and the Channel Islands students are eligible. International students are not eligible.
If your course is funded by the Enhanced Learning Credits Administration Service (ELCAS), you are not eligible.
2. You must apply for and meet the conditions of your offer, then successfully enrol onto an eligible course.
You must be a full-time postgraduate student on a taught course, paying full tuition fees. The bursary is for eligible students based at City Campus, Sir Tom Cowie at St Peter’s Campus, or the Northern Academy of Music Education (NAME).
You must be studying a full-time taught postgraduate course which starts in academic year 2026/27.
The following University of Sunderland courses are not eligible for this bursary:
- Continuous Professional Development (CPD) courses
- Apprenticeship courses
- English for Academic Purposes (EAP) language courses
- PhD Doctor of Philosophy courses
- Sunderland Online courses (except for BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing (Blended))
- Corporate and Professional Education Team (CaPE) courses
3. You must meet the University’s definition of being care-experienced or estrangement
Care-experienced students
You must have been care-experienced in the UK at some stage in your life, and for any length of time, or been in care, for example, looked after by the local authority. This includes the following:
- Spent time in the care of the local authority (e.g. foster care or children’s home)
- Privately fostered
- ‘Looked after at home’ under a supervision order
- In kinship foster care (where a friend or family member becomes the foster carer). Kinship care through a formal arrangement, recognised by a Local Authority, and could be prior to a Special Guardianship Order
If you are care-experienced but your personal circumstances do not match any of the criteria outlined above, please contact the We Care team at care.contact@sunderland.ac.uk or call 0191 515 2216 for further guidance.
Estranged students
The term ‘estranged student’ is used to refer to students who are studying without the support of a family network. You must be irreconcilably estranged from both parents/carers. This means:
- You have had no contact with your parents/carers for at least 12 months and this is unlikely to change or;
- You can demonstrate on other grounds that you are irreconcilably estranged from your parents/carers (e.g. exceptional circumstances or assessed as independent by Student Finance England (SFE) or by a Local Authority because you are estranged from both parents/carers).
You must be under the age of 25 on 1 September 2026.
Should your circumstances change during your studies, you will be required to advise the We Care team.
For estrangement cases that cannot be confirmed by SFE, proof of evidence of ‘genuine estrangement’ would need to be provided from another professional body or person. All applications from estranged students are assessed on an individual basis.
You will not be considered estranged on the basis that you (i) live separately from your parents/carers, (ii) have recently fallen out with your parents/carers, or (iii) you parents/carers are unwilling to complete income assessment forms or support you financially.
If you are unsure if you meet any of the criteria outlined above, please contact the We Care team at estranged.contact@sunderland.ac.uk or call 0191 515 2216 for further guidance.
If you choose not to disclose your care-experienced or estranged status at application or enrolment stage, you can inform the We Care team directly using the information above. All correspondence is treated as strictly confidential. The information you give will only be used within this team to assess your eligibility for the bursary and associated support.
How to apply
If you have applied for an eligible course in autumn 2026 and shared that you are care experienced or estranged as part of your application, you do not need to apply for this bursary. You will be contacted by the We Care team with details of the support on offer, including the We Care Postgraduate Bursary. You will be asked to provide evidence of your care experience or estrangement. Once this is received, a provisional award offer can be made.
Payments will only be made when your evidence has been supplied and verified. Payments cannot be backdated. The deadline for evidence to be sent to, and verified by, the We Care team is 10 December 2026. We are unable to process any evidence received after this date but instead can provide details of the Student Support Fund.
You may apply for this bursary at any point throughout your course; however, payments will only be made once an application has been received, and your evidence has been supplied and verified. Please note, payments will not be backdated.
If you are eligible for the We Care Bursary, you'll also be offered an additional pastoral support package.
Assessment and awarding process
After you have applied for your course, the We Care team will contact you with details of the We Care Postgraduate Bursary. We will request evidence to verify your status so that a provisional bursary offer can be made. You will need to provide confirmation from your Local Authority or Student Finance England of your eligibility for this bursary.
Once your care-experienced or estranged status has been verified, you will be provisionally awarded the bursary and invited to a welcome meeting at the start of the academic year. The We Care team will finalise bursary payments and outline the additional support package at the welcome meeting.
Students applying to study a subsequent postgraduate course, after the completion of their first, will not be eligible for this bursary.
Receiving the bursary
The We Care Postgraduate Bursary awards £2,500 cash to eligible students for each year of full-time study, based on academic progression. This bursary is typically received for one year of postgraduate study. The bursary is paid in four instalments of £625 on the fifth working day of November 2026, January 2027, April 2027 and July 2027.
The award of this bursary is subject to the following:
- You commence your course in academic year 2026/27
- You enrol as a full-time taught postgraduate student
- You attend a welcome meeting with the We Care team
- Your academic progression i.e. attendance and engagement with your course
Students with a Tuition Fee Payment Plan
Students who are paying their tuition fees through a university-approved payment plan will only receive the We Care Postgraduate Bursary if the total amount they have paid in tuition fees is equal to or greater than the total amount of bursary received. Bursary payments will be paused if a student owes more in tuition fees than the value of the bursary instalment due. Payments may resume once tuition fee payments have reached the required level.
Students with a Tuition Fee Payment Plan
If you are paying your tuition fees through a University-approved payment plan, you will only receive We Care Bursary instalments if the total amount you have paid in tuition fees is equal to or greater than the total amount of bursary received. Bursary payments will be paused if you owe more in tuition fees than the value of the bursary instalment due. Payments may resume once tuition fee payments have reached the required level.
Additional information
If you have not registered on your course within three weeks of the course start date, the bursary offer will be withdrawn.
If you do not supply us with the required information to verify your eligibility by 10 December 2026, the scholarship or bursary provisional award will be withdrawn.
If you withdraw from your course before receiving a bursary payment, the award will be withdrawn. If you withdraw after a payment is made, the University will not seek reimbursement however, you will not receive any further instalments.
The award is conditional on you maintaining satisfactory engagement and making academic progress on your course in the reasonable opinion of the Programme Team.
The University agrees to pay you, the student, all awards, and payments that are due to you whilst you are on your course of study. If a bursary payment is made to you in error, the University reserves the right to recover any awards or overpayments from you. This may result in you being asked to repay an award if it was paid to you in error. It is also your responsibility to ensure all awards and payments you receive are accurate. Any payment discrepancies will be rectified by the University of the student.
If you repeat a year of the same course, the award will not be paid in the repeated year.
If you transfer to another course and repeat a year, the award will not be paid in the repeated year.
If you are on a placement year or studying for a year and not paying full fees, the award will not be paid during that year.
If you take a leave of absence (LOAB), your bursary payments will be paused until you return and progress academically.
If you are in debt to the University to the value of £50 or more, you will not receive payment until the debt has been cleared.
All payments will be made into your UK bank account. It is your responsibility to enter your bank details and ensure these are kept up to date. If you fail to enter your bank details to enable payments to be made to you before your course end date (or the date of leaving your course if earlier), all scholarships, bursaries, and payments will be withdrawn.
As part of the admissions process, the University will verify various aspects of a UCAS or direct application to determine that you should be classed as ‘Home’. The following criteria will be verified:
- Declared nationality
- Country of birth
- Area of permanent residence
- Date of entry into the UK (if applicable)
- Location of previous education provider
Disclaimer
Every effort is made to ensure that all details included in these guidance notes are correct at the time of writing. They are intended to act as an information source only, and in no way should they be considered legally binding or guarantee an award.
The University will not be deemed to be in breach of any legal or contractual obligations due to changes to eligibility criteria beyond the reasonable control of the University. It should therefore be noted that these guidance notes are regularly reviewed and are naturally subject to change, sometimes without notice. The University’s decision is final.
Published: 26 September 2025