Dear fellow postgraduates,

I hope you are well. I have decided after many months of consideration to leave my PhD. Will I have to pay back any of the maintenance grants/RTSG or tuition fees I have received over the years?

Any information would be greatly appreciated :)

Anyone? please I would be really grateful for any advice

Hi Runner,

Expecting people to reply in less than thirty five minutes is a bit much to be honest.

Anyway, you will find the answer to your question in the ESRC Postgraduate Funding Guide. I'm almost certain you don't have to pay the grant/tuition fees back.

Hi Button,

thanks for the reply. Apologies for the 30 min message after my original post, I was a in a bit of a panic at the time lol.

Any other fellow PhD's have an idea on whether I will need to pay anything back? Or is Button's view the consensus of everyone in the forum?

Many thanks for the support, and good luck with everyone's studies :)

Hi,
Don't quote me on this but I am pretty sure that the repurcussions of you leaving will be felt by your university rather than you - i.e. you won't have to pay anything back but the uni will loose out on the number of funded awards it gets from the ESRC in future.
I have heard of someone who took a funded PhD with the intention of not completing/doing the work but just to contribute to the household income while she looked after her small child - she left at end of 3rd year and did not have to pay anything back.

Hope everything works out for you