bursary - luxury cars / holidays

[whatatod0]

applying for a bursary at the moment and the criteria states no luxury cars or holidays.

What would you consider a luxury car to be? And holiday?

Luxury cars can mean a wide range of things. From buying a brand new reasonably priced car outright every three years (as opposed to via a finance plan) through to the obvious. If your Audi 4x4 is ten years old then it’s not the same as it was brand new. They are looking for cash that you could either be putting towards fees instead of a car or selling the big flashy car to free up some extra cash. A car on a £199 finance lease is not excessive. One on a £349 lease is - there’s a £150 a month cash pot there you could be using.

Luxury holidays. Are you camping in Spain or staying in a three star hotel? Holidays in the U.K. are not seen as luxury. Remember some people go without holidays to send their children to private school and do not apply for a bursary. Is it fair for you to receive bursary money and still go away?

A car is a necessity. A holiday is not.

We have a 5 yr old high mileage freelander on a finance loan. Is that luxury?? We usually keep cars for 5 or 6 years. Holidays I’m not worried about. Camping in UK is character building!!

Curious: how does that work in practice? Do they ask what car you currently have, how you got it and where you've been on holiday for the last few years? Do they check where recipient families go on holiday each year and what car they turn up in if they drop kids off, and start charging higher fees if they went to Florida?

Yes. The bursary application process can be pretty intrusive. You will need to provide bank statements, mortgage statements, credit card statements and get asked lots of questions. You would be surprised how many people apply for bursaries who actually can afford it but don’t want to change their lifestyle.

They will look at your current car value using Glass’s guide and then compare to the monthly payments. If it’s worth, say, £10k still and you are paying £400 a month for it then you could save heaps of money by trading it in and buying a newer car much more cheaply.

You don’t need to change cars every 5-6 years. Most new cars should last about 10 before the more significant and expensive repairs start to arise.

You will also probably get asked to provide your passport as proof of ID and they WILL go through it and check for stamps for exotic locations.

At the end of the day they are looking that what you are telling them is supported by the evidence you provide.

The process is never an exact science. Someone might have huge mortgage payments for a £500k two bed ex-Council flat in central London where two children share the second bedroom. Someone else might have the same mortgage and outgoings on a four bedroom property in leafy suburbia and they have a spare bedroom. Who is arguably more deserving of the share of the bursary pot?

Nobody should ever be discouraged from applying for a bursary if they feel there is genuine need. Bursars are highly discrete, helpful and caring when discussing these matters. As each school is different then they will have different thresholds. Also remember that they are at the school’s discretion. Your grade 8 prodigy on the violin, county sports team member, highest mark ever on the entrance tests might be able to sway them one way......

To add that bursaries are usually reassessed each year on the basis of need.

You also need to question the morals of the people who might lie in the process. If you choose to spend money on a holiday to Florida instead of reducing your impact on the bursary fund and not tell the school then quite frankly you are taking the p*.

This is all very interesting - do they take into account how many children you have who may all potentially go through a school?

Only we have always assumed that with 3 DC we earn too much for bursaries, but nowhere near enough to afford private secondary for 3 DC. This, and another thread where the poster had an income in the region of £140k and was getting a bursary are making me think again!

I don’t know anyone who is on £140,000 and getting a bursary! At my DD’s school (top private super-selective in London,) the maximum salary is £75,000 and this is on their paperwork. In practice though, it’s the brightest students whose parent/s are about £30,000 to £40,000 who get them. Single parents are more likely to come into this group. They start from the top down in terms of scores, so the higher the score in the 11+, the greater the likelihood of obtaining a bursary, because eventually the money runs out and they have to turn some away who might have got in, if their parents were able to pay.
The whole process is reviewed each year and it is very intrusive.

Onemouseplace - nope. Bursaries usually give only a nominal nod to other children and if at different schools they would expect them to also be in receipt of a bursary at that school.

Bursaries aren’t for funding lifestyle choices but are there for proven need. Unless you have three children who excel at everything and have a small shortfall of course....

I am also slightly shocked by the income levels talked about here. £75k was the absolute most I have seen a bursary granted, with less than £50k the norm (in London and the surrounding area).

Don’t forget that private schools are businesses though. They sell themselves on the successes of their pupils. If they want to incentivise super stellar children to go there by means of reducing fees even slightly then they may choose to do so.

The number of 100% bursaries I have seen are far fewer than those in the 10-25% bracket.

I think it's entirely reasonable that limited bursary funds should be awarded after rigorous testing. Bearing in mind that many people make big sacrifices to pay full fees and therefore have camping holidays and drive old cars, it would be wrong for the school to give bursaries which allowed others to maintain a high standard of living. I think people forget that bursaries are there to allow those who couldn't have afforded the fees otherwise, even after making sacrifices, not to allow the pretty well off to continue their lifestyle and pay fees.

And yes, the income limits are set higher for families with more children and there is quite a lot of assessing each situation individually because each financial circumstance is different.

Most bursary policies say being in receipt of a bursary isn't compatible with new or luxury cars, expensive holidays, second homes or significant home improvements or large amounts of equity in a home or substantial savings....the wording is pretty standard across most bursary policies. So they would expect people to run down their savings or release some equity from their home if they have lots, before a bursary would be considered or before that candidate could be offered one against someone else who lacked the options of releasing equity or drawing on savings - seems fair enough really.

That said, there's no requirement to drive a banger or live in a shoe box and schools don't expect people to go without holidays - but they rightly make clear that they won't be subsidising fees to enable the families in receipt of the bursary to live a lifestyle that some of the fee payers cannot afford, or which some people have and then cannot pay fees.

We are in receipt of a large bursary for a very good and highly selective school in London. I think they are fairly sensible. The cut off at ours is £110K after which you will receive nothing. It sounds high but then London is expensive.

For us, we have a small house in a cheaper part of the local area (house worth quite a lot but then all the houses here are worth a lot and ours is smaller than most). Quite a lot of the mortgage is paid off compared to value (around 90%), but this doesn't affect the bursary much - they know you need somewhere to live. They have explicitly told us that if we had a second property, this would affect the level of bursary award which is reassessed yearly.

We have a two year old car, but it's only a Ford Fiesta so absolutely not luxury! It cost £7000. I suspect if you were driving a car worth tens of thousands, they would question this.

Re holidays, we go to France once a year and occasionally to visit relatives in other parts of the UK. We spend around £3000 on travel for holidays per year and are fortunate not to have to pay for accommodation.

It will depend on the school, though. They all have different criteria. If you think you are in the running for a bursary, give them a call or email them and ask to go in for a chat. This is what I did and they were enormously helpful.

We have an almost full bursary. I wasn't asked about holidays or lifestyle, but they do ask about assets such as cars and property.

Interesting thread, My DC attend a specialist school for Sen. Many children are there with an ehcp so la funded but that means there are no bursaries for the rest. I have had to return to close to full time work following my divorce but it is low pay. But it would make no difference what I earn there is no financial support. Sen schools are very expensive from £20k per year up to £80k.

I am close to falling out with a very long standing friend who has applied for her DC to attend a specialist school but for children with a particular talent. Her child has been awarde a bursary so they will only have to pay a couple of thousand pounds per year. My friend doesn't work despite having children who are very bright academic performing teenagers, dad refuses to contribute at all, and step dad who supports friend and step DC ( so genuinely he is a great guy) works part time so household income is low. They own their own home, no mortgage and have 2 cars in e household. Also have other assets. South east England,

So when I read about people being quizzed about their means that seems fair to me so genuinely the children of the financially less well off can benefit. But it seems as if that only applies to certain families.

This is so interesting, as was the AMA about bursaries. Our family income is about £60k before tax. Day fees at the local independents are around £20k and we have two DC. I wonder how much of a bursary we’d be entitled to, and whether we’d be considered high, medium or low earners?! I feel like we’re very medium but if we tried to pay school fees we’d be poorer than church mice.

Oscha for DDs school you would still potentially get some bursary but not the highest award. It's a sliding scale, full ends at about £35k and it ends completely at £80k I believe.

In reality, it appears to be most related to performance on the entrance exam, plus general desirability of your DC. (Sounds awful but you know what I mean!)

Every school is different though. DD was offered 95% which now seems to be down to her excellent result in the entrance exam as well as my income (lower than the bottom threshold of £35k).

The usual "full bursary" seems to be 80% though and you do have to pay for compulsory lunches and a couple of other things so bare that in mind.

It's worth speaking to the bursar of the school as soon as possible. I really put the legwork in, showed up at all open days, called every now and then, returned all forms first etc etc. I don't know how much difference that all made, but they knew we REALLY wanted it. DD is also very much an all round "good egg".

They've been amazing, we've been first in line for good second hand uniform etc.

For what it's worth, a friend of mine has a DC who was initially offered a lower bursary and they ask if there was any more in the pot and ended up with 80%.

That’s really interesting-thank you! I’m nervous about going through the process in case we got a bursary for DD but then not for (younger) DS. I hate the idea of them not having the same opportunities. I think I need to make some calls!

Yes, and I was very nervous that I would put DD through the whole process and then have to tell her that she can't go.

I would certainly be absolutely sure that you prepared ahead for your younger child too. DD is going to a girls school, and there isn't a boys school around here that has similar bursary offers so if I had a son, I would not have even started the process.