I am presenting at a conference in a few months' time and have secured some funding from my department - but it only just covers travel fees not the conference/accommodation. The conference organizers are offering a fee waiver to hard-up students - would you go for it? I feel a bit embarrassed as I am probably not as hard up as some students (am married and have a house but also have loads of kids to support :p ) and feel guilty as I am leaving them to go on a conference and also depriving them of the money! My PhD funding is finished though so I feel hard up. I suppose I am asking: how poor do you have to be to ask for a fee waiver and are there any other ways of finding funding?

Are you serious!? Of course go for it. And then put the amount on your CV as external funding won to attend conference!

I agree with Larrydavid. By 'hard-up students' do they not just mean that students in general are hard-up, as we don't have the full-time salary or things like set department allowances for conference travel which senior colleagues benefit from? Especially as you're presenting, and you've already applied for what funding you can from you're dept., I'd say you might be exactly the sort of person the waiver is designed for? Surely no harm in applying anyway, good luck!

I went to a conference in Canada during my part-time PhD. I can't work, and have no income, but my husband has a good income. Didn't stop me applying for financial help though. We couldn't really afford to pay for additional PhD costs on top of those already there. So I applied for a travel grant from the conference organisers, and got that, $US 500, which paid for most of my transatlantic airfare. And I asked my department if they could help too, and they gave me 100 pounds, which covered my conference fees. I still had to cough up for accommodation, though staying in student halls of residence kept that cost down. And we had to pay for my husband's travel costs too, as my carer due to disability reasons. But we weren't as out of pocket as we could have been.

The moral of the story is go for it!