Quick bursary survey please

[abittoofat]

I'd quite like to get an idea of what percentage of people who apply for private school bursaries actually get them.
Would anyone mind saying if they've ever applied for one and if they got it??
Many thanks.

Yes £31 000 + is full boarding even so we earn have a joint income of well over £50 000 and still couldn't afford day fees which I think come in at about £6000 a term.

bunbaker they may look at disposable income .

We are penalised by the fact that my DH earns just over 2/3 of out income so pays a fortune in tax and we live in a rural area and both of us commute 60+ miles to work and back and we need two cars. If our income was more evenly distributed between us and we weren't spending a small fortune on petrol etc we probably could afford it.

They did for us

cross post

A friend was turned down despite being eligible for a full bursary.

Every school is likely to have more applicants than bursary funds but if you do not ask you will never know .

Many top schools have set up specific bursary funds and are raising money to widen access St Pauls (London) has done just this and in fact was proably one of the first to go back to its founders aims of educating boys of high intelligence regardless off income. Winchester College is also doing the same thing and this year increased the number of pupils on a bursary from i think approx mid 40's to mid 70's the average bursary is about 55% of the school fees. I understand that the governors are very committed to the idea of widening access.
When we first got a bursary over 6 years ago it was virtually unheard of but as the then head of my DS prep said if you don't ask you wont get.

Our local comp has just come out of special messures. I go in to teach there occasionally and it scares the life out of me!
We are in a rural catchment area so have no other realistic options state wise.

Our local private school which is excellent has set their threshold at £18,000. The next nearest which also has a good rep is too far for DS to travel to so it's this one or nothing.

Well obviously not nothing I mean this one or the best local comp for him. They are few and far between.

We applied for a bursary for our DS to go to a private secondary. We own our own house (no mortgage) and OH has an average income and I have a part time (pin money) job. We got offered 70% straight off and they raised it to 85% when we said we couldn't justify the spend (we have two other DC still at primary). Our DS is very bright and won a scholarship (which they say have no monetary value). I think the criteria for the bursary changes dependant on how much they want the child in question. Our friends DS applied to the same school, very clever also maybe not as acedemic as our DS but very sporty; rugby, football and swimming. I would say they are in a similar financial position to us and they were offered a bursary of 15%! When we applied I was absolutely sure we wouldn't get even 50% so its always worth trying IMO.

I think there are no transparent rules so, as morenamesthanfaces says, the school can pick and choose their bursary pupils.

Clearly there are those who know how to bend the rules or appear to have no money. I know such people - house in grandparents' names, self-employed and income taken in dividends etc.

Also I know someone who has a very nice, albeit simple, lifestyle (grace and favour house on estate, gardening job) and gets a bursary for their dcs. Now this gets me a bit grrrrrr because I find it questionable whether they are more entitled to help than the poor bugger who has to get up and sit on the 7.10 to Waterloo every morning for an average salary but a lot more stress.

Only one way to find out........
DD only 6, so hard to know how they can tell how 'wantable' a child is.

As someone who is involved in the distribution of a bursary at one of our better known schools let me give a few indicators.
Iconstantly hear about people fiddling figures to get a bursary,all I will say is that we have a very good knowledge of the financial state of our applicants,wealth is a lot harder to hide than some people on here seem to think,a very easy case-"income declared as dividends"-simple all applicants supply a copy of the last five years tax returns with calculation and agrred tax liability from HMRC.
We are not here to reward people who have made a lifestyle choice and of course if you have assets,equity you will be expected to release that first,if you think you stand a chance ,please apply,we really want to help children that couldnt afford to go to the school otherwise.

propatria -

are you prepared to spill the beans as to how many applicants you get vs how many families you help each year?

ps - after seeing the forms we need to fill in, I don't see how you could possibly hide any income/money anywhere!!

Because of a familly connection I am involved in the awarding of one bursary,this doesnt have to be, but usually is for 100% of fees so £30000+ per annum,we will also cover extras like music,trips etc,I am not involved in the awarding of other bursaries but because this bursary wouldnt exist if it wasnt for DH familly then I help in the award of it,not going to give numbers applying but I will say we have no trouble wawarding it and get great pleasure from watching the boy go through the school I can only speak from my own experience but if someone has got a bursary under false pretences then its because the awarding body hasnt done its job,.

But propatria, MOST people can't afford private schoolfees. Doesn't that make decisonmaking rather difficult?

I mean, the nation doesn't divide evenly into those who can afford it really if they make sacrifices or lifestyle changes, and those that really count as deserving - there's a big grey area.

Clearly, we can't all hope to get a bursary - over 50% of parents said they would send their children to private school if they could in a recent survey, and even if some of them have precluded it by lifestyle choices, others really can't afford it and they can't all get help.

I write this with sympathy - I'm an Oxford admissions tutor and we also have to turn people down. But we know we are doing it on merit (even if we get it wrong). We aren't trying to do social work.

Bursaries are of course limited. I've been looking into in because a cousin of mine has a gifted child and is hoping to get him into a well known shcool.

AFAIK the criteria they use includes the following:-

1. Has the child won a scholarship or exhibition to the school
2. Does the child bring other talents to the school
3. Would the child's future be substantially enhanced if he came (or detrimental if he didn't) - that sweeps up stuff like special needs that might lead to bullying in other schools That determines if the school wants the child there. Then the bursary amount depends on:-
4. Whether family have exhausted all potential sources of income (which includes rich relatives and ability to release equity from houses etc
5. Disposable income. They specifically review income to look for things like foreign holidays, new cars, and other 'frivolities'

There is a completely separate pot for children already at the school who fall on hard times.

,Dont really see it as social work as you put it,gosh what a negative post,because we cant help every child we shouldnt help any?
This is a chance for one child to attend one of our best schools,in an ideal world I would love to see the school totally needs blind,but that is going to take a long time,Im rather proud that dhs familly decided to do this,shame he isnt a Russian Bilionare as Im sure hed have done more but there you go,perhaps we should just withdraw the bursary because we cant help everyone..
Hopefully in time this country will emulate the philanthropy of our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic,but untill then..
Decision making is of course tough but there are other bursaries and schools available.
Lets hope negative,if everyone cant get it why bother types dont put people off giving the funds to open our best schools to a wider range of children.

They also expect both parents to be working, unless there are pre school children or those with special needs at home.

A single parent is expected to work full time, or actively seeking full time work.

The school ds got his bursary at was looking for a significant contribution from him, other than the usual contribution expected from a child from a fee paying family.
They also looked for talents and skills that could be developed at that particular school and a child who will make full use of the extra opportunities offered in the independent sector.

I found that bursaries at primary/prep/pre-prep level are much rarer but do exist.

Propatria, that is absolutely fantastic. Good for you, your DH and his family. That sort of bursary is the kind of thing we are desperately hoping to get for DS. If he were to get something like this, it would make the most immense difference to him and us, and we would be eternally grateful. I dare say the same is true of the lucky child who is awarded your/your DH's family bursary. What a wonderful thing you are doing.

DS1 has a bursary (prep) 75%. hth
We are applying for ds at the moment

Fee paying Schools now need to be seen to be doing the right thing to enable them to continue to be run as Charities (ie non VAT paying business's) Hence lots of bursary chat after TB (who attended Fettes!!) and gang hinted the charitable status was under review. Now VAT 20% this status is vital for say 50% of fee paying schools. (like the state is going to pick up those kids.. but these are clever people!)

Music, art, drama and sporting ability help to get a small award which can often be made up with a bursary to enable the child to start.

If a school wants a particular child then awards up to 100% are on the cards. To a certain extent I think you need to look the part.

This would require outstanding ability, commitment and results. I have know this offered to two children, (one runner, rated UKNo2 at 13) and one musician grade 8 in two instruments also at 13)

Neither took the offered places, one electing for a grammar, the other a top Public school.

I think that the system works well for the schools as they can encourage certain skill sets and can be worked well by families with a little thought (ie unpopular instruments, sports etc)

Good luck and do your homework.

I had a tiny 5% bursary initially for each of my twin sons from age 7. I'm a single mum and fully-self-employed, solely reliant on my own self-generated income and no ex in the background or family contributing financially.

However, I lost the tiny bursary when the second of my parents died, as I was left a small amount of money and paid off my mortgage. The cut off for getting a bursary is £50,000 total household income if there's one child but they also consider assets. My self-employed income is just over this, gross but less than this after tax, NI and expenses. But the school don't seem to apply their own 'rule' of £50,000 per child - ie surely they'd expect a household income of around than £100,000 for two children, to merit consideration for a bursary?

So I struggle to pay the total fees of around £27,000 a year (that's total fees altogether for both sons) as my actual income fluctuates each year and from the way my business works, I can't generate much more than I already do.

I accept that assets are a consideration. What sometimes gets to me is that I know of other families who get large bursaries because only one of two parent's chooses to work. This means there's 'free childcare' from the non-earning parent and the 'unused asset' of that adult who could be earning (caveat - I understand people have lots of different circumstances but am just making a general point). Some of those who get bursaries, only have one child too. Some have chosen not to pay off a mortgage but own a second holiday property somewhere. Some have several expensive holidays per year (I've never had a foreign hol with my twins) and own two expensive cars.

So on the one hand, I can understand the need to look at assets. On the other hand, in my twins' school, I see some injustice in who gets a bursary and who doesn't. I'd be more comfortable if they considered number of adults in home who are potential earners, relatives who contribute to fees, how people spend their disposable income etc. I'll reapply next year but doubt they'll reconsider once they've already taken away a bursary.