Compare offers, scholarships and the real cost of your degree

Create one row per exact course, campus and intake. Record the award, duration, conditions, acceptance deadline and payment schedule. Do not compare a three-year tuition total with a four-year total without accounting for the extra year. For pathways, include every required location and ask which fees are charged by which institution.

• Published charges: tuition and compulsory fees from the official schedule for your intake.
• Personal estimates: housing, food, commuting, equipment, travel and other living costs based on your situation.
• Unresolved costs: items whose amount or inclusion still needs confirmation.

For overseas stages, include the costs of preparing to travel and living abroad. If charges are in another currency, show the exchange rate and date used, and allow for changes. Keep estimates visibly separate from institutional fee quotations.

Record whether funding is applied for automatically or requires a separate application. Check the value, duration, renewal conditions and exclusions. A first-year tuition reduction is different from an award covering the whole programme. Keep pending scholarships out of your confirmed affordability calculation, and compare what the course costs if they are not awarded.

Identify the grades, documents or other requirements still outstanding. Read the current offer and payment documents for cancellation and refund terms and obtain written answers where anything is unclear. Make sure the payment recipient and instructions are those published by the institution. Do not assume one university’s conditions apply to another.

Ask the student to describe three academic reasons for the preferred course and one compromise they are willing to accept. Ask parents to identify the practical concerns that remain. If the answer rests mostly on a name or a possible scholarship, return to the curriculum and budget. A confident choice can acknowledge a trade-off.

Save the official sources, written clarifications, offer documents and a dated budget together. Note who will complete the next action and when. Our programme comparison sheet and application readiness checklist provide a simple starting point.