What do bursaries consider?

[ebo1]

We're looking at a couple of private schools in southeast London for 11+. Is a bit of a long shot both academically and financially but trying to get my head round the chance of a bursary if he did get a place. I've looked at the schools websites re bursaries but am still unclear on the criteria. One says household income below £75k gross, which we would be below - assume the degree below impacts on how much you might get. What I don't know is...

1. Do they take outgoings into account?
2. Do they take savings into account?
3. Do they take house equity or other assets into account?

We have relatively large 'savings' due to a generous relative, and the same generous relative might well contribute if we do get in so could potentially afford without bursary but obviously would be nice not to be dependent on relative,and would also struggle to afford to send second child purely out of current savings.

Final question, do you think it makes any difference whether you apply while asking for a bursary or not? Our son is currently in state education if that makes any difference. Any guidance gratefully received :)

Hi.
We have just had a bursary application accepted. Fees for our school were just short of 40k a year.

They looked at our savings, cost of our house, cars, holidays we have taken/planned, outgoings, how many other children we had any renovations we planned to do on our house, our salaries.

We were already in the school. But we working excessively (7 day weeks) to afford it. We applied with a covering letter, stating how we were funding it. We had an interview with an outside bursary company. And they offered us 40% off the fees. Which we thought was really fair, and now affordable.

Happy to answer any other questions, it's quite a daunting process!

Surely they will take your savings into account??

Thanks @Smileymum12 that’s really useful (can’t seem to log back in to the account I originally posted with, hence namechange). I hadn’t realised it was such an invasive process but makes sense. When you received yours was it for a set amount per remaining year at the school or do you need to reapply each year?

Our bursary experience was that we were asked to update each year, not necessarily with full details. The % was reduced for our younger child when the eldest left school (two different schools).

NC but work in this area. Yes, all of those things are taken into account, in great detail. There will be quite forensic investigation to check for any hidden assets (money siphoned off, secret companies etc), so make sure you're honest. Any excessive spending on cars, holidays, hobbies, clubs etc will be taken into account. If you've got high savings or house equity, the expectation will probably be that a lot of those assets should be used to fund fees. Sometimes people think that's unfair - but remember that, in many schools, bursaries are at least partly funded from the fees of other parents - many of whom will have spent their own savings or remortgaged their own houses to afford school fees - so why should they pay the fees of someone who's not prepared to do the same? Sorry to sound harsh, but it seems a little off that you don't want to be dependent on a (presumably interested) relative, or to deplete your savings, but you're happy to be dependent on the generosity of total strangers (whether fellow parents or historic donors) who have given money to support those who have no other way to fund fees.

It was a % off the school fees. We applied in January this year. When it came through its for the school year starting in September.
We have been told it won't go to the external company again next year, just the governors and head will have a meeting with us to see if anything has changed. And it's likely it will stay the same. But we will see.
We really thought it was a very fair process. To note we have no mortgage. And we have a bit of savings, that we were happy to use, but wasn't enough to cover his time at school, only just over a year.
Working 7 day weeks wasn't sustainable. The bursary company saw that. We drive rubbish old cars, we did have a holiday booked, in the Easter holidays but we were open about it. And over the summer we are just camping.
I honestly believe that if you are honest, it is a really fair process. I'd encourage anyone to apply!

Encouraging anyone to apply is all well and good but some of the figures PPs have given are boggling. 40% discount. On £40k a year fees. If household income is under £75k. That's still a third of that £75k income gone on fees 😲 There really is no way into private education for low income families.

It's a sliding scale according to income @CarlaTheGnome .

40k is likely to be either boarding or two children - fees are huge, but you won't find many schools with day fees over 30k (I know that's still huge!). If you're a genuinely low income family with a bright child, then I think there really are quite a lot of bursary opportunities out there -and I agree with a PP that although the process is thorough, it's also fair and reasonably kind. Where it's really hard to find a route into private education is if you're earning low three figures with a couple of children and not much in the way of savings or equity to release. If you earn, say, 115k a year and have rent or a mortgage in the south east and no family to contribute, then it's quite a challenge to find school fees for two kids from post tax income, even if you do cut back your spending - but you'd rarely qualify for a bursary.

I used to audit bursary applications.

You absolutely would need to use your savings towards school fees, especially if they are sizeable. They don’t expect you to wipe yourselves out and permit a sensible “safety net” amount, but think about it realistically - you want to send your child to private school, you have the money sat there but you don’t want to spend it on that?

They look at a whole raft of things. If you own a five bedroom house with a family of four living in it with no mortgage then they would expect you to release some equity from it to pay fees. If you have two £70k cars then this would be seen as another way to free up some more money by downgrading. Are you taking three holidays a year? Are you eating out several times a week?

For everything you spend ask yourself is this to support my lifestyle or is it essential? You’d be surprised how many people apply that can easily afford it but don’t feel like they should have to compromise on lifestyle - like the family with a second home in the South of France that wasn’t let out or used as an investment property in any way, just somewhere to spend the holidays. They didn’t declare it on their bursary application but was picked up via their bank and credit card statements where multiple payments were made to BA and EasyJet. This was over 20 years ago so “safe” for me to talk about.

With regards to the second child, it is kind of irrelevant at this point. They look at your financial position right now. The second child is not at private school yet so they won’t take this potential future outgoing into account. That bridge is crossed when it arises. Some schools ask that in order to be eligible for a bursary then the first child must already be in receipt of a bursary. They will also reassess each year so when the eldest leaves you may well find the bursary for a second child is significantly reduced.

Some schools offer bursaries purely on a needs blind basis if they pass the entrance exam. Other schools (and more in the majority) will tie a bursary to a scholarship. So they will only offer a bursary if the child is awarded a scholarship too.

The harsh reality is that many families who feel they should be able to afford a private education actually can’t, particularly where they have more than one child.

I would always encourage anyone to apply for a bursary - you have absolutely nothing to lose. Be warned that it is rightly invasive (but kept wholly confidential) and you may still only be offered a fee subsidy not 100%. Ask yourself what can you genuinely afford.

Late to this but absolutely they would look at all your assets - and rightly so. It’s not just about your annual earnings. We have kids at private school and our income is relatively low - however, we own our house (no mortgage) and have some savings, so of course we wouldn’t qualify for bursary help, as we can use the savings (and use equity from our home if we had to) to pay for fees. There are other families who don’t have that option AND have low incomes so of course, they are in far greater need of financial support.

I’m sure this isn’t you, OP, but I’ve heard people say stuff like ‘oh but we only earn 60k’ and wonder if they might qualify for help despite living in a house worth 2 million or whatever - gets my back up a bit 😂

@ebo1

I recently had a bursary application and was offered 20%. The feedback was it was about the equity in my house. I'm mortgage free (house approx £800K) and have some savings. My outgoings are very low having no car, rarely any holidays and not working at the time (ive since found work). I'm a single parent and fees per child are 30k. I have 2. As per other posters, I'd say apply anyway. It's a huge outlay personally and I thought I'd get more but they said they'd expect me to have converted the equity as others who applied lived in rental income and had very low incomes.

I'm prepared to getting flamed here but I found it quite frustrating as myself and friends culturally have always been told to pay off our mortgage and many have little savings but have their home. I felt my lack of income should have been the compelling factor here not my lack of mortgage. Anyway, it is what it is! Good luck!

I'd also add that even if you get a bursary, look clearly at the terms because once it ends, you really need to be able to manage the full fees. By that time, it's so much harder to pull the children out as they tend to rightly love it there.

@Loopylooni it's of course very responsible to pay off your mortgage. But savings are taken into account as well - so if you'd kept a big mortgage but poured lots of money into savings, the bursary assessment would probably have been the same. The point of a bursary is to pay fees for those who don't have the means to pay them in another way (ie from income, savings or equity release). If you do have either savings or house equity, then you do have another way to pay fees. Whether you think it's responsible or worth it to use that money to pay school fees is of course up to you, and many people wouldn't - but it's not reasonable to expect other parents or charitable donors to pay for you to keep both your savings/house equity and your school fees, particularly when lots of other parents will be spending their own savings to pay fees (and also to part fund your bursary).

I think people often think of it in terms of 'the school' paying for the bursary - and they look at the beautiful buildings and lovely facilities, and assume that schools are very wealthy. But actually, they're usually not - it's very expensive to provide that kind if education and maintain those facilities, and a lot of schools are seriously worried about how they'll remain viable with increased costs, risk of VAT etc. Bursary money is likely to come from a combination of a cut of parents" fees and historic endowments or more recent donations, which may have very strict conditions on how they're spent.

NB I agree it's a good idea to look at t&cs of a bursary, though most will continue year to year unless you have a change of circumstances.

Thanks all, I really appreciate all the info. On the schools website they only mention an income level, I thought it odd that savings not mentioned so that's why I wanted to check. I'm not looking to 'game' the system I just want to understand the rules of the system and see if we have a chance of being eligible - whether the rules are fair or not is really up to the school (and to be honest once we're in the realm of private schools fairness has already gone out of the window). The schools we're looking at have significant historic funds so there are a lot of bursaries available, but they're also at the higher end of the fee bracket.

@DibbleDooDah if you've got to audit something (I used to be an auditor) I imagine that would have been quite a fascinating role!

I had a few final questions - it seems the applications for bursaries and a place are concurrent. If you apply for a bursary but fail or only get a partial one would this impact their likelihood of offering you a place as they would assume you wouldn't be able to take it up? Also if we have sufficient savings for x number of years, would they be willing to reassess in x years once savings have been used up, or would they be more likely to offer a smaller % from the beginning bearing in mind the full 7 years of costs?

No you are offered a full fees place instead, assuming child meets the academic entrance standard.

@ebo1 The school would still offer you a place but at full fees. It’s then down to you to make the decision as to whether or not to take it up.

Bursaries are reassessed annually as things can, and do change. Admittedly the reassessment tends to be a simpler process. You are also required to inform the bursar if your financial circumstances change.

You will also find that at key “leave points” (eg sixth form) there is another big in depth assessment. It’s easier to withdraw funding if necessary at these points as there are alternative options available.

And yes, it was VERY interesting work. You see total opposite ends of the spectrum. People who really have very little and yet are so humble and expect nothing, right the way through to extremely rich people trying to play the system. A lot of fairly normal income families also apply and are successful in gaining at least partial bursaries.

The one thing I would say though, is those schools with smaller bursary funds tend to be the ones that tie it to a scholarship. When trying to work out the most “deserving” it almost always comes back to the children who will bring the most to the school - academically, sporting, through music or the arts. Some schools do purely look based on need though - if you meet the entrance criteria then that’s all that is needed to be considered.

@DibbleDooDah

The one thing I would say though, is those schools with smaller bursary funds tend to be the ones that tie it to a scholarship. When trying to work out the most “deserving” it almost always comes back to the children who will bring the most to the school - academically, sporting, through music or the arts. Some schools do purely look based on need though - if you meet the entrance criteria then that’s all that is needed to be considered.

Presumably, even better endowed schools with larger bursary funds have finite resources and limits on their bursary pools. What do they define as the most "deserving" when more bursary applicants meet the entrance criteria than the funds will support?

What constitutes ‘large savings’ there will be many families who start saving for private school from birth. I would absolutely expect any bursary application to be rejected if someone was sat on large savings or a lot of equity that could be released via a re-mortgage. Our local private schools are very open about the criteria and also very open that they’d be expecting equity release etc if appropriate and also list factors ther would be unlikely to make a bursary appropriate.

It would totally depend on the school. At some it could come down to simply the child who showed in the interview that they would make the most out of the education on offer. They might not be the brightest, sportiest or creative but just have that “something” that demonstrates all the qualities of the school. It might be resilience. It might be confidence. It might be that child who throws themselves into everything even if they aren’t the best at all those things.

Every school will have their own criteria.

I always liked those schools with needs blind applications. So the children are examined and interviewed etc without anyone knowing which children had also made a bursary request. Once they have got the “chosen ones” they will then look at the financial requests and work their way down the list allocating until the money has run out. Every school would have a “must have this child” list, then a “they’re really good”, then “they’re a good fit” ranking.

I find the bursery system unfair.
We wouldn't qualify at all. but have no savings, we have a mortgage, can't afford holidays, no family help but pre tax income over 100k. So massive tax bills and no disposable income.
If we re mortgage to send our child I would really really resent my cash going to someone who will probably be more comfortable but on a lower income. possibly the same take home pay as us though!
You have savings and family help??? why do you need a bursery?
BTW my children are in the state system because of the above. They are all very bright naturally top set with no effort type bright. So perhaps I can't complain but I know they would do well in a more elite setting.
Maybe the money should go to children who are in real need Ie in care to do some real equaling up in society! Not to people with savings and rich grandparents.

But @Mastersosallexpertofnone they don't go to people with loads of savings - because savings are taken into account.

Also, what might surprise people is that schools don't necessarily have suitable candidates queuing up for bursaries. Schools that have significant bursaries to offer are also often quite hard to get into, in terms of academic standards. Finding families who are aware of bursaries, have the confidence to apply, have a child who's bright enough to get in (without loads of expensive tutoring) and to be at the right academic level to be happy once they're there, and whose family isn't worried about sending them to a school where they might well know nobody, and where they might be worried about them fitting in, or about additional costs, is actually not that easy. They can make allowances for weaker test performance to an extent, but it would be irresponsible to give a place to a child who's really going to struggle academically. You'll see such schools trying to promote their bursaries; to try to reach the right people and persuade them to apply (because they often can't spend that bursary money.on anything else, as it's ring-fencedl.

If you do have a really low income and low savings plus a genuinely 'effortlessly top of the class' type child, there are lots of schools that would snap you up.

@Mastersosallexpertofnone I think this thread is very interesting as I felt hard done by because I'm a single parent, was not working at the time of application so no income yet I am mortgage free and have some savings but i have no holidays or car. You have a high income and a mortgage but no savings and feel hard done by.

In our class, I'm easily the poorest hence my skewed thinking but as per our bursar, there are others who rent and have no savings so its meant to go to them. I guess unless we are privy to other people's financial circumstances, you just assume you deserve it more!

This whole ‘dependent on current parents’ to pay bursary fees is such a rude nonsense. You have to pay the fees anyway and should certainly in a levelling up way not be begrudging of some bright and talented children benefiting from the luxury you can afford. How many of these comments are from people who have inherited money anyway or married well? Seriously….

This is so true, my dc is one of those.