Funding help

Smudge_pot

I have just been accepted to a Masters in Galway, but I would like some information as regards funding. I didn't get a grant for my undergraduate, and since then I have taken a year out, during which I have been on Jobseeker's. As far as I am aware I am not eligible for the grant to pay my postgrad fees because I have not been independent from my parents for long enough. NUI Galway offers scholarships of 2,000 euro to postgrads who got a first in their degree, but only if they were receiving the grant during their undergraduate. The unfairness of it really rankles. All right, so it would be nice to get my fees paid by the government but hopefully I will have enough saved from my dole to cover the fees. However I got a first in my undergraduate but am denied a scholarship because I didn't get the grant before, which is really annoying. (I realise this is an issue specific to NUI Galway.) My mother is over the income level for the grant, but she is being taxed a hell of a lot. In September, my two brothers and I will all be in college, none of us receiving the grant. My question would be whether there are any other grants or scholarships that people know of that could help me.

gutenberg

Unless it's a research Master's, then I'm afraid you might be stuck. The likes of the IRCHSS/IRCSET don't fund taught courses unless it's part of an integrated PhD/Masters programme; they don't fund students doing a taught Master's.

And yes the grant system is in need of major reform, especially at the postgraduate level where it all becomes a bit of a mess...