Financial Help / Bursaries

bursarylady it was about three - four years ago my friend was moaning don't know what the situation is now. Their published accounts will tell you. If I was paying the full whack I wouldn't begrudge an extra £500 pa but I suppose some might.

I think you'll find most people have less than £15k in the bank...

Xoanon, you misunderstood me! No, it's not lol-worthy that some people have less thank 15k in the bank! I lol at the friends of mine who have little savings but live like if they had lots - restaurants, holidays - and it all goes on the credit card. It's kind of ironic, cause the people I know with savings they try not to spend them and go out less. So it's just ironic. But all this was in my mind, not in my post...

I didn't know about Eton's bursary pot being increased from fees? Surely they have a huge network of wealthy successful old boys...

Bursarylady I have less than £15k in the bank. And no I don't consider my job secure (nobody's job is secure). I'm so pleased that you think that's lol-worthy.

At my DS's school bursaries are funded by old boys etc etc but I clearly remember a friend with a DS at Eton moaning a few years ago because they'd been told the fees were being increased to put more money in the bursary pot.
If you think about it if there's 1200 boys at Eton and you add £500 pa onto the school fees for bursaries which in the grand scheme of the things is peanuts I doubt most parents would even notice another £166 on their termly bill, our extras fluctuate by that much every term. Then that brings in £600 000 towards bursaries that's 17 100% bursaries a year. Seems a good way of raising money to me.

Very few schools have endowments. The majority of bursaries are financed by current fee payers. 1st XV schools excepted.

It's not fair to ask other parents to support you when you have options about supporting yourself.

fugacity, bursaries do not come from fees. Parents do not support another child's bursary. Schools have foundations, they fundraise, sometimes there is old church money, trusts, etc.

I agree with all of the above about the OP's massive equity on the hosue, NO WAY you will get a bursary with that. But I don't understand why people are focusing on her 15K in the bank. You can't even pay one year fees with that. And surely everyone needs a buffer for a rainy day. Frankly, living in London and supporting a family on 24k is not an easy job. Do all of you who focus on the 15K have less than that in the bank? I hope you have secure jobs. I know people with 1K in the bank but I don't know how they sleep at night. They all owe huge amounts on their credit cards lol. So the OP better keep those 15K IMO. If that were all she has, she would get a bursary. But with that house, no way Jose.

In theory moving sounds simple but there is some expense involved too which would have to be paid from the proceeds of the sale.

Cry me a river. From a million quid? FFS. This is just Liz Jones style whining. There are houses in London for a mere half a million quid, and not all of them need armed guards to keep the drug dealers at pay. It does not cost half a million quid to move.

It's easy enough to get an equity release loan. There is no need to move house unless there are no prospects of earning more money in the future.

But the OP doesn't have £1m in the bank. It's the value of the house. It's not real money at the moment - it's just potential. So the option is to sell the house and move somewhere cheaper. So the OP has to decide whether the private school or the family home is more important to them. In theory moving sounds simple but there is some expense involved too which would have to be paid from the proceeds of the sale.

this reminds me of my fav thread in property when someone had £5m to spend on a house and told me"they were not rich".

op- if you are for real, just read your post out loud. What do YOU think. i would also add, just for good measure- if i was your dd and went to a very nice private school and had to move but subsequently worked out that my parents had a million quid in the bank, i would not be happy.

If you have over a million in equity, releasing £15k a year from this is the right thing to do. It's not fair to ask other parents to support you when you have options about supporting yourself.

If you've earned enough in the past, you will not be on £24k forever.

If the worst comes to the worst, you should sell your house and buy a much cheaper one.

ROTFLMAOPMPL

Eton College .
Windsor
Berkshire
SL4 6DW

FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE BURSAR.

Dear Sir

Please can you help us, my Husband Sergei Obnisnovisky came to your country in 1992 from Russia with $3.2 Billion Dollars.
It was Sergei and my wish for our 10 boys to be educated at your
fine establishment, we even put away £2 Million Pounds in trust funds in the ZURICH Branch of U.B.S to cover fees and other expenses for our boys. However Since 2008 Sergei has lost $3 Billion Dollars in business.
Sergei and i have had to sell our beloved 300ft yacht and can no longer afford the aviation fuel on our 747. Our House in Kensington Palace Gardens has £50 Million pounds equity but our income has dropped to just
$5 Million Dollars per year. Would you please offer our boys Bursaries to attend your fine school.

                                Yours  Hopefully 
                           Natasha Obnisnovisky.

no, but it did make me laugh a lot when I saw the school she turned down ....
FFS
every parent within 4 miles can get a place there
Londoners eat your hearts and stomachs out

(daft mode cos us in south hampshire are having a hard time choosing WHICH of the amazing 6th form colleges to send our kids to!
spoilt - we know)

friday the not so stealth boast is a house worth £1.3m with £1m equity

Talk do you really think the OP is SS?

I'm loving the stealth boast of "I've got a million quid house with 700k equity, you poor people just don't understand how hard it is to have a net worth close to a million."

I suspect a lot of people struggling to put food on the table would regard £24k per year as a fortune, and would be happy to take a moment off from struggling to feed their families to stuff your house up your arse.

My Family have "JUST HAD TO SELL THEIR 25 BEDROOM MANSION"in Surrey "MY FATHER CAME OVER FROM RUSSIA IN THE 1990 s His wealth as dropped from $ 3.2 Billion to just over $200 Million.

I Am Begging ETON TO GIVE BURSARIES TO ALL 10 of my SONS As WE CAN NO LONGER PAY OUT £350,000 a YEAR IN FEES. On TOP OF MAINTENANCE YOU CAN NO LONGER LIVE IN LONDON ON $5 MILLION A YEAR.

Of course it would not be appropriate for the OP to receive a bursary.

I speak as someone who has downsized property to be able to fund my ds's secondary education since, due to ill health, our income has fallen to a similar level to yours.

And I'm talking from a £230k to a £180k property...

Well, well, we have Shona Sibary worrying about going bankrupt while loaded and living in the catchment of Bohunt School.

OP
If you get a bursary I'll be deeply pissed off with the school for misdirecting funds.

Alien I'm not intrigued I think this is a wind up. No sane person with this level of equity would even ask and as already pointed out you couldn't pay a £300 000 mortgage on an income of £24k.

I'm afraid I think they would decline a bursary since, whilst your income has dropped, your equity had stayed the same (and depending on where you are, probably increased in the past 2years). That amount of equity is huge, both in actual and percentage terms. And I live in London where house values of a £1m are scarily common. I think you would find it hard to claim that you had no options available to you other than financial assistance from the school. They will point out that you have a very readily available option to sell your house, buy somewhere for £800,000, have zero mortgage and £200,000 cash for the next x years of school fees.

I'm intrigued whether you really think a bursary is appropriate in your circumstances?

You might not be able to move if you rural but supose if you live in central London where an average house price in Belgravia might be £.13 million I suppose you could move 4 miles down the road to Stockwell for example and still be in commuting distance of your DC's school.
With regard to the pension my friend had bought a seocond home and was renting it out when she retires she plans to sell it and invest the money and use it towards her pension. I personally dont think its unreasonable of a school to ask you to make choices. To own one average sized/priced home with 25% equity in fair enough as we all need a home of some description but the second home and the future pension it will generate in many peoples books is a luxury and beyond the reaches of many.

middleclass that sounds a bit unfair for your friend. If her money was in a pension fund it would be completely inaccessible to fund any school fees. I would have thought that they would have asked her to confirm she had no other pension arrangements in place and treated the second home value as her pension value.

It may be quite hard to sell and still live in the same area so having a large amount of equity does not always mean you can access those funds and continue living in the same area.

Your right Xoanon this must be a wind up!