To assess and compare the financial assistance availed among dentistry, management and engineering students of Udaipur city, India and; to evaluate various factors associated with the loan acquirement. Material and methods: A combined quota and two stage random sampling procedure was executed and a questionnaire was used to record socio-demographic information and financial assistance availed by students. Results: The final sample size accounted to 575 students, among whom 20.3% availed financial assistance in the form of loans for their studies. Nearly four fifths (82.10%) took loan from government banks and a mere 1.70% of the subjects took a loan of more then 6 lacks. Frequency of financial assistance was more than twice in dentistry (27.52%) in comparison to engineering stream (12.62%). Among dental students, the percentile of students who acquired a loan amount between 4-6 lacks was higher than those who availed below 4 lacks, while in other courses there were no subjects who availed loans of more than 4 lakhs Conclusions: Majority of the students availed loans from government banks and none of the subjects received grants or scholarships.

Keywords: Financial assistance; dental students: management students; engineering students; bank loans