There is no evidence that the recently announced loan scheme for PhD students will widen participation in doctoral research, according to a study.

The findings instead reveal that funding in the form of studentships is a ¡°crucial¡± part of a potential PhD candidate¡¯s decision to enrol and students are unlikely to want to add a further three to four years of loan debt to their personal finances. As a result, PhD loans may not be ¡°the right way to approach the situation¡±.

Chancellor George Osborne announced a scheme of incomecontingent loans of up to ?25,000 to support PhD students in his March Budget statement. This was in addition to an already-announced scheme that will offer taught master¡¯s students loans of up to ?10,000 from 2016-17.

Ad¨¦l P¨¢sztor, a lecturer in sociology at Newcastle University, presented the findings of the research, which looked at how financial considerations affect the decision to do a doctorate, at the British Sociological Association conference in Glasgow earlier this month. She conducted the work with Paul Wakeling, a senior lecturer in the department of education at the University of York.

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It included in-depth interviews with 53 people, some of whom were current doctoral students and others who had not pursued a PhD, from four universities: a highly ranked institution, a new university and two Russell Group universities.

¡°Our interviewees consistently made the point that [non-loan] funding was crucial to their ability to enrol in a PhD,¡± Dr P¨¢sztor told Times Higher Education.

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None of the students interviewed were asking for loans, they were all looking for direct funding, she said. ¡°After you spend at least four years in higher education, you don¡¯t want to add another three or four years¡¯ worth of loans,¡± she said.

¡°There is no evidence base to suggest that this is the right way to approach the situation,¡± she added.

The research also looked at funding for master¡¯s courses as these are now seen as ¡°an unavoidable stepping stone to a PhD¡±, she said.

Dr P¨¢sztor and Dr Wakeling found that there was a divide between students from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds in terms of access to master¡¯s study.

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Many students said that they turned to their families for financial backing or took a break from study to earn the money to cover the cost of a postgraduate master¡¯s. But not everybody could afford to do that, nor were they willing to take up master¡¯s-related commercial loans or a credit card, which is seen as ¡°bad debt¡±, Dr P¨¢sztor added.

Nevertheless, the government loans are likely to be ¡°welcomed¡± by graduates who want to complete a master¡¯s to ¡°stand out in a crowded graduate labour market¡±, she said.

Master¡¯s students may be willing to take on some ¡°extra financial hardship¡± for a year. ¡°But a three- to four-year PhD which results in uncertain labour market outcomes requires a very different lifestyle commitment,¡± she explained.

¡°Therefore, when it comes to increasing participation at doctoral level, there are grounds to believe that loans will be less effective than at master¡¯s level,¡± she said.

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holly.else@tesglobal.com