Career Development Loans (CDLs) are a Government-funded scheme to help people who are doing vocational training courses. If it ain’t vocational, then you won’t qualify.

Most undergraduates don’t qualify anyway because you can only get a CDL for a course that the LEA or NHS won’t fund. (It doesn’t matter if you don’t get funding from your LEA, just whether the course qualifies.) However, CDLs can be helpful for some postgrads and students doing courses of two years or shorter. (Or three years if it includes a year’s work experience.) If the course lasts longer than that, you may still get a CDL to fund part of it.

The scheme is run through three of the high street banks - Barclays, The Co-operative Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland - who will lend between £300 and £8,000 to cover up to 80% of your course fees (or 100% if you’ve been unemployed for three months or more at the time you apply) plus any other necessary costs (books and materials) and living costs if your course is full-time.

The government (in the form of the Learning and Skills Council) is behind the scheme and they pay the interest on CDLs while you’re training and for one month after you’ve finished. You then have to repay the loan to the bank at a fixed amount of interest, over an agreed amount of time.

Talk to all the banks offering CDLs before going with any one of them. You don’t have to have an account with them already and they do offer slightly different terms and conditions. You can only apply to one bank in the first instance, though you are free to apply to the others if your application is rejected.

For more info go to www.lifelonglearning.co.uk/cdl - but if that doesn’t hit the spot, give the helpline a bell on 0800 585 505 for a free booklet about the Career Development Loans. Or to find out more about applying go to www.direct.gov.uk/cdl

• Banks
• Boosting your income
• Other sources of cash
• Bank loans

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