Hi everyone, thanks for the replies. They are greatly appreciated.

I do suspect my motives slightly. Perhaps I would feel happier if I just change jobs? And I need to consider possible career paths if I decided to do more studying. But at the moment I feel like this is something I want to do, even if for its own sake.

Hello Everyone

I am thinking of trying to do a PhD in the humanities (philosophy or social sciences) but I am not sure it will be worth my time applying, given principally my grades and lack of funds.

I am 30 years old and have been working at a supermarket for about 7 years. After I left uni I never had any idea what I wanted to "do" with my life, so I took the first job I could find after graduation and kind of stuck with it. Somehow 7 years have passed. Anyway, I have a 2.1 in Politics (not a great 2.1 either) and a Merit in my Masters (just missed out on a distinction unfortunately, did much better there).

I've been thinking about going back to uni half-seriously for a while but assumed I would never get funding and that people wouldn't want to take students on with less than a First. But having read a bit on this forum I notice that I may have misjudged some of this. Mine aren't bad grades at all, just not excellent. I also notice that there will be 25k government loans available from next year, so I might be able to take that for study and work part-time for the rest of the money.

So my questions: am I right in now thinking I have a reasonable chance of doing this? Or is it still a tall order? I guess I have to decide what I have to lose.

Any feedback will be appreciated, thanks.