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Financial support

At Trinity, we recognise that having secure funding throughout the length of your degree is crucial to ensure you can complete your studies without concern about money, and enjoy the rich cultural, social and sporting life that Cambridge has to offer.

Many of the bursaries listed below have been funded directly by our former students, and we hope that today’s beneficiaries may likewise go on to find ways to support the next generation of students. We have one of the most generous systems of financial support for students available in the UK, and are always keen to further develop and extend the current system with the help of our alumni.

The information below is principally for undergraduate students at the College. Please see this separate page for information on Trinity’s postgraduate student awards.

  • The Cambridge Bursary Scheme.  This is the main Cambridge-based system for giving additional funding to UK students, and is for students at any Cambridge college. Students from families with household incomes of up to £62,215 will receive a Cambridge Bursary. A full bursary of £3,500 per year is available to students with a household income of up to £25,000. In addition, students who receive the Cambridge Bursary who were eligible for free school meals from their local authority receive an additional ‘Educational Premium’ of £1,000 per year. The value of the bursary to households with an income between £25,000 and £62,215 is on a sliding scale. See this page for further details.  To receive the Cambridge Bursary, you must apply for financial assistance to the UK Student Loans Company. This is done through your regional student finance body (Student Finance England, Student Awards Agency for Scotland, Student Finance Wales or Student Finance Northern Ireland) which makes an assessment of your family income. You may decide not to take out a loan, but the assessment they make is necessary for you to receive the Cambridge Bursary.
  • The Trinity Maintenance Grant. All Trinity students who receive the Cambridge Bursary will also receive from October 2022 the Trinity Maintenance Grant. For the year 2023-24, the value of the Grant is set at a single rate of £4,455 per year. This is a three-year pilot scheme, and applies for the duration of your time (normally up to four years, though for Medicine, up to six years) as an undergraduate student at the College. We are also offering the Grant to students who applied to Trinity, but were offered a place by another College through the ‘Winter Pool’ or the ‘August Reconsideration Pool’. More details are available here.
  • The Trinity International Bursaries. Trinity offers new International Bursaries to up to fourteen overseas students per year. The awards are for students who cannot otherwise afford to come to the University of Cambridge. These can be ‘full bursaries’ – that is, they cover the payment of your fees and maintenance expenses. Out of the students who need a bursary to finance their studies, the selection of these awards is on the basis of academic merit. One bursary per year is reserved for overseas students who come from groups who are highly underrepresented in Trinity. Five bursaries per year are reserved for students from countries of the EU and the rest of mainland Europe, and these are designated as Trinity International Bursaries (Europe). These bursaries are offered only once a decision is made on whether to offer you a place at Trinity. If you receive an offer, you will also then be sent an application form for the International Bursaries.
  • The Trinity International Bursaries for European Women in STEM subjects. For a trial three year period from 2022, we will be offering one additional bursary per year specifically for European women who are studying for a degree in Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Engineering or Computer Science. You will be considered for this Bursary automatically if you apply for the Trinity International Bursary, if you are eligible.
  • Cambridge Trust Bursaries. These are for students at any Cambridge college, and are usually partial awards of financial support, although there are a very small number of country-specific or region-specific full awards as well. See the Cambridge Trust website for details. We will send you an application form after you receive an offer for admission. 
  • Jardine Scholarships. Students who are resident in certain countries of East and Southeast Asia may be eligible to apply for full scholarships from the Jardine Foundation. To be considered, you need to apply directly to the Foundation, so please check their website for details of eligibility and deadlines.

In addition to the funding packages for maintenance and fees, Trinity has a range of other smaller funds, awards, prizes and programmes available to its students. These include:

  • The book and study equipment allowance.
  • Language bursaries to enable you to take an intensive language course over the summer vacation. Up to 20 such bursaries are available per year.
  • The Trinity College Summer Studentship Scheme, which funds (i) internships or work experience, and (ii) educational projects which are supervised, during the summer  vacation.
  • Exchange studentships offer opportunities to study at other universities. These typically are fully paid studentships, offered in collaboration with our Exchange partners, which in 2023-24 include:
    • the University of Chicago Exchange
    • the French Exchange (the École normale supérieure, Lyon and Paris)
    • the German Exchange (German Studienstiftung)
    • the Peking University Exchange Studentship in Beijing, China
    • the Rice Exchange (the Abraham-Broad Exchange) with Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA
    • the Virginia Exchange (the Lenox-Conyngham Scholarship) with the University of Virginia, USA.
  • Hardship funds are available via your College tutor and are decided on an individual basis. These are available particularly if your family’s financial situation has changed unexpectedly since your arrival in the College.
  • The Projects Fund to support you to pursue special projects – for example expeditions, plays, publications, or travel abroad with a particularly worthy or interesting purpose.
  • The Dunlevie Fund to give you an opportunity to undertake ‘life-enhancing activities’, such as cultural or sporting engagements.
  • A wide variety of prizes for, among other things, essays on specified subjects, light or humorous verse, piano performances and aphorisms. There are a large range of Tripos prizes related to performance in exams.
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