Students offered thousands to defer degree in medicine

STUDENTS have been offered £10,000 to defer their medical degrees after a record number of applications.

Exeter University has written to school leavers who have been offered a place to study medicine this autumn to ask if they are prepared to delay the start of their course for a year.

In exchange, they would be handed £10,000 in cash which they could spend on “preparing” themselves to start university, as well as free accommodation for their first year.

The move comes after a record number of students applied to study medicine this year – a rise of more than 20 per cent on 2020.

Medicine is one of the most competitive degrees, with the number of places capped by the Government at about 7,500 students each year.

Prof Mark Goodwin, Exeter’s deputy vice-chancellor, said it had seen a significant increase in students who had prioritised the university as their first choice for medicine.

“We want to deliver a really high quality student experience, and deliver those safe and secure NHS placements so we can train the number of doctors the government asks us to train,” he told the BBC. “Places to study to be a doctor are limited, partly because of the large subsidy needed from public funding to meet the high cost of around £180,000 for a medical degree.”

Universities are bracing for another summer of chaos with huge levels of grade inflation expected after exams were scrapped for the second year in a row owing to the pandemic.

Students will receive A-level results based on teachers’ predictions and it is expected that a higher proportion than normal will receive top grades next month.

This means universities will have more students who have met the terms of their offer and as such expect to take up a place to study this autumn.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “I suspect many universities will need to think creatively about how to accommodate more students.

“They have got to make sure they have the space and staff to deliver a good experience. Exeter University’s cash incentive to defer could be the first of many similar stories.”

Dr Katie Petty-siphon from the Medical Schools Council said the rise in applications has made it harder for universities to judge the number of offers.