Our new Carnegie Masters Grants are designed to help graduates in Scotland, who otherwise couldn’t afford it, meet the costs of postgraduate study.
They are aimed at talented students from low-income Scottish households and are intended to equip graduates with the skills and expertise to meet current and emerging national skills gaps.
You might have finished your undergraduate and are thinking of next steps, or you might be considering a career change, if so we might be able to help.
Each grant is worth up to £10,000 towards the cost of tuition fees, helping to bridge the gap between the value of postgraduate loans from the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS), and the cost of many masters courses.
A grant will only be awarded if you have first applied for the full loan entitlement available to you from SAAS.
How does it work?
Carnegie Masters Grants provide additional support to students in receipt of a postgraduate loan to cover the cost of courses with high tuition fees.
As an example, you might wish to undertake a MSc in Computational Geoscience, where the fee for study is £12,960.
After applying for, and receiving, the maximum SAAS postgraduate loan of £7,000, they could then apply for a Carnegie Masters Grant. Their successful application would then meet the difference of £5,960 and would be paid direct to their university
Before you apply
To be eligible to apply, you must:
Have a meaningful connection to Scotland.
Come from a low-income household.
Demonstrate you cannot meet the top-up costs.
For the best chance of success with your application, please read our Application Guide, which contains frequently asked questions, full eligibility criteria, evidence requirements and more.
Should you have any questions not answered by the guide, please get in touch with us via the email below.
How to apply
All applications for the Carnegie Masters Grants should be submitted through our online portal.
For the current year, the portal will open on :
Friday, 1st May 2026
and close on :
Friday, 31st July
More Information
Sometimes putting this evidence together can take a while, as such we recommend that you should factor this in when applying.
As a part of your application, you will be required to answer questions detailing how a grant would benefit you, and the wider impact you might hope to achieve. Your answers will play an important part in whether you are successful or not.
To find out more about eligibility, evidence and how to write a successful application, please see our Application Guide.
Please note that late applications will generally not be accepted.
After applying
You will be notified of the outcome within three weeks of submitting your application, provided that you have supplied all the necessary evidence.
If you are successful, the award will be transferred directly to the university you have applied to, there will be no need for you to take any further action.
Should you have any questions about the application process, please contact grants@carnegie-edfund.scot