By Liz Lightfoot. After you get the green light for your PhD comes the tricky issue of working out how to pay for it. The euphoria that accompanies the moment you find out your research proposal has been accepted by a university can quickly give way to panic over where the funding will come from. The university is the first place to start, as the seven research councils allocate funds to departments rather than individuals. Universities also offer their own scholarships but competition for these is fierce. Most doctoral students either work part time to fund their studies or find a mixture of smaller grants from charities, organisations or industry. Read more...

By Natalie Gil and Alexa-Jane Moore. Can a part-time job help when you graduate or should students be fully focused on their studies? Two students debate the issue. There's no way I could have held down a part-time job as an undergraduate. With relatively short eight-week terms, at least three essays constantly on the go, and a never-ending reading list, on top of the extra-curricular commitments so crucial for one's CV, I would have burned out. Read more...

By Shiv Malik and Richard Adams. Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Treasury secretary, said to favour scrapping entire £327m fund that supports poorer students. The fate of the student opportunity fund – which supports students from disadvantaged backgrounds attending university – will be decided on Thursday after a stalemate between the Treasury and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis) over cutting the £327m fund. Read more...

By Brian Mathews. Our spring semester begins next week. It’s always a shock to the system when the students return to campus. This is especially exaggerated in a small town like Blacksburg where they account for over half of the population. I have several blog posts in the pipeline, but today I wanted to tie a few loose ends together. More...

By Beckie Supiano. At-risk young people who had a mentor aspired to attend college and enrolled at higher rates than did their peers without mentors. That’s according to a survey commissioned by the National Mentoring Partnership that was scheduled for release on Monday. About three-quarters of at-risk young adults (ages 18 to 21) with a mentor reported that they had always planned to go to and graduate from college, compared with 56 percent of those who didn’t have a mentor. More...

By Eric Hoover. The Common Application’s Board of Directors has hired a consulting firm to conduct a “complete and expeditious review” of the organization’s structure and technology, according to emails the board recently sent to members. As Nancy Griesemer, an independent college counselor and blogger, first reported on Monday, the board held an “off-cycle” meeting in December to discuss the technical problems that have dogged the revamped online application since last summer. More...