I wish the MFin fees were lower but they are set in line with the market. And student fees are the main source of revenue for Cambridge Judge Business School. The School gives some scholarships and of course there are various external options.
But they’re fiercely competitive. I’ve noticed a number of applicants over the years who include scholarships in their intended funding. Our decision on offering a place is not affected by the applicant’s funding plans. But in some cases the applicant is being unrealistic.
The most common reason is that they don’t have a high enough academic grade. All Cambridge scholarships (including the MFin ones) are limited to applicants with the equivalent of a UK first class degree. Loosely speaking this is a GPA of 3.7 (we do distinguish between different universities and countries to reflect grade inflation, using guidance from the University of Cambridge Board of Graduate Studies). But that is only a start. Most people who get scholarships do better than this i.e they are ranked very high in their class and have performed exceptionally. Nobody with a GPA of 3.6 or UK 2.1 degree is going to get a Cambridge scholarship. The standard for Gates is very high indeed, typically people need 3.8 or higher to be even considered for short list.
It’s not a happy message to give but scholarship funding is very hard to get. We’re working to increase our scholarship resources so we can offer more help to people from lower income countries where salaries are much lower and where servicing a large student loan would be very hard. But for most people a combination of student loans, savings and support from friends and family is going to the normal way to fund an MFin.
MFin Student
The school is indeed doing its best to help applicants from low-income countries. My annual salary constituted only about 15% of the tuition fees. The scholarship I received(my GPA is 4.92/5) has been a very significant assistance to me for which I am so grateful to the JBS and the Scholarship Committee.
Now, looking at the degrees and the qualifications of my class peers, I do definitely agree that the selection process and the competition is indeed fierce in terms of scarce resources available.
I hope that more and more applicants from developing countries will have the great chance to be in the MFin class and experience Cambridge.