private school fees - has anyone negotiated a discount/worked out better ways to manage payments?

[redscissors3]

Hi all,

Namechanged and would very much appreciate any advice. Due to a change in circumstances ,paying school fees for our three kids is becoming a huge struggle for us. We have to pay for a family member's care and it's been a very bad few years for DH's industry.

We can just about manage to keep them there for the moment - they are at key stages in their education and it would be heartbreaking to pull them out right now. The younger two can go to great local state options for sixth form if they have to - but meanwhile, we are draining our savings and the future looks quite worrying...

Our kids have been at the school for many, many years and do brilliantly there. They love it and we love it. The bursar has been very helpful and has expressed they are keen to keep the kids at the school. Quite rightly, given we DO have some savings and own our house, we don't qualify for a bursary. They don't do sibling discounts. My understanding is that there is a fairly hefty cash reserve there to help existing pupils whose circumstances change drastically - ie in the case of parental death - but again, this doesn't apply to us. The bursar is very sympathetic and wants to look at ways to help, but I am slightly at a loss as to what might be possible or what I might suggest!

Has anyone been in this situation? Has anyone been offered help of any kind, or worked anything out with the school?

Before anyone jumps on me, yes I know we are in an extremely fortunate position already, and yes I know there are brilliant state options and this whole system isn't fair. But it's the road we have gone down and my children are having a wonderful school life where they are, so I am trying desperately to find ways to preserve that. Thanks so much for any thoughts or advice.

In the past in the pre bursary era, sibling discounts were routinely offered as well as 10/20/30 plus percentage off for scholarships. The max that you are allowed to offer off is 50 per cent under I think HMC guidelines.

In the last 10-15 years bursaries became fashionable and the rest was cut. It means people like you may struggle. Of course the school could change its policies over night if they wanted to. Don’t see how they won’t be able to with the VAT likely coming in. However, they need to be seen to having a fair admissions policy for all although it can change from one year to the next.

I have two friends who got significant help/discount during Covid. It was termed as a short term thing and it was the policy to help. I wonder if they will need to bring in similar because of the VAT. It is also a sudden unexpected risk for some.

Schools have to protect their staff and school more than they need to help individual families. So the oversubscribed schools if they can genuinely recruit top full fee paying student performers continuously will do so all through primary and in years 7, 8, 9 and into Year 12. They are typically only funny about new students into Year 10 and 11 and past Year 12 obviously.

In your position I would be looking at some of the top London grammars for Sixth Form entry. There are also some really good comprehensive Sixth Forms throughout London and specialist places like the Kings Maths School. If your DC are talented you need not worry.

You need a meeting with the head and the bursar asap, and see what their best offer might be.

For the younger 2, if they’re bright and been at good schools all their lives, they will have excellent study skills and will likely do equally well at a state 6th form - and it may well prove to be an advantage for uni application.

I’ve known kids who moved to state 6th form either from choice or necessity - from my own friends as well as my kids’ contemporaries - and they’ve all done extremely well. It is not something to be feared OP, it can be a really positive thing.

You need a meeting with the head and the bursar asap, and see what their best offer might be.

they aren’t going to offer anything

they have been “lovely” and done lots of sympathetic nodding and repeating how much they want the 3 children there (well duh!!) but it’s up to the OP to sort

OP

You actually don’t seem to have asked for anything. You said that you are sure that the bursar would have mentioned a sibling discount if it was available but you didn’t ask.

Do you have an idea of what kind of discount would make it doable?

In respect of the possibleVAT increase, my understanding is that paying in advance won’t help - VAT will apply from the moment the law is passed and hence would be due on half a year of fees if it comes in during Feb or whatever.

One or two people have asked about the care fees because that is relevant to your outgoings and is clearly making it tighter than usual. If there is a way to share these with another family member or for
the person needing them to fund through equity release etc then it would help your savings last longer.

You simply need to spend your savings, re-mortgage or move to 'great local schools'.

Lots of people don't have 'great local schools', savings, or a mortgage free home and have to get on with it.

Lots of kids are bright, even those in less than perfect state schools.

You seem to want to live a life you can no longer afford.

You simply do not know, it depends on the school, its funds, the individual children. One of my siblings negotiated a couple of scholarships for her kids when it looked like they would have to leave because the schools were wealthy and wanted to keep Oxbridge candidates who were also all rounders and brought a lot to school life. They both got their Oxbridge places so the school were happy.

Paying in advance might help avoid other fee increases, though. There have been plenty of threads on here talking about 10%+ fee increases over the past year or so. Schools are having to pay more to attract the best teachers, energy costs and other running costs have shot up, and the costs of lots of the resources that schools need have increased and are continuing to increase. So it might help.

OP- it sounds like the solution is to empty out your savings, and then access the bursary. That's not ideal financially, but it sounds like the school isn't willing to offer anything practical, and you're not going to ask. If you're not willing to do that, then you've got some really difficult decisions to make, I think.

Are you willing to share the ages/year groups of your children? Because it may be worth seriously thinking about whether the younger ones can move schools, and if it's better to do it in September, or wait for a crisis.

i simply do not “know”

well no. But on the basis of the OP, lots of sympathetic nodding from the school bit bugger all else. Fact

If you do do that check the fine print that they can't add any extra charges later like VAT. I'm not familiar with UK tax law, but if they're similar to ours whether they can exclude VAT from early payments might depend on what accounting method they use

Which is exactly what my sister got before crunch time.

OP said the bursar was sympathetic and the school is keen to retain the kids, but OP hasn’t actually put anything in black and white yet.

a bursary is ruled out
the school doesn’t offer an academic scholarship

Realistically, what could the bursar have up his sleeve beyond nodding and platitudes that will actually make a tangible difference! Surely he’d have used examples of what the school has done over the years for other parents in similar positions - if there were options?

@Mirabai

So your sisters children were at a school which didn’t offer any scholarships

and the bursar managed to create and introduce a scholarship system just for her two children?

A discount potentially if the school is wealthy.

My personal experience of the kind of schools OP is referring to - is that it is quite possible they may offer something for the 6th former. However I think it is unlikely they will offer anything for the younger ones.

I didn’t say they didn’t offer scholarships did I? They were offered scholarships + discount as the scholarships themselves did not come with the level of discount they were finally offered.

The only options you have are

• scholarship if they offer it ... our school offers them at 11, 13 and A level so multiple chances to try for one and also offer both means tested bursaries but also scholarship awarded on merit only (academic or music etc). These are less so around 5 to 20 percent but absolutely worth having (one of my DC got one at 13 for example and that's been brilliant)
• ask about sibling discounts. They may consider it, ours gives 5pc and again better than nothing
• pay fees in advance to offset increases, so if you can release equity in home etc you can often prepay fees for multiple years at current fee rates. Absolutely worth doing if you have 3 DC and fees go up by 5pc for example!

Other than that not a lot else you can do other than win the lottery !

so irrelevant to the OP

what can the bursar offer? no bursary and no scholarship. So i’m curious what you think the option will be when it’s “crunch time”?

and it’s not a “discount”

it is a bursary if the school are subsiding the fees

so also not applicable to OP

OP did not say the school does not offer scholarships she said they “don't offer any type of scholarship discount” which may simply mean that their scholarships don’t come with fee discounts. Or that you cannot get a further discount on top of the existing one.

this makes no sense

schools don’t offer “discount” plus a scholarship.

they offer
scholarships
bursaries
or a combo of the above

So i think we can presume that the OP’s school doesn’t offer scholarships given what she said and you quoted

in any event

the OP explicitly states with regard to scholarships unfortunately, they do not offer them. If they did it would be immensely helpful!

how is that ambiguous?

Bursaries and scholarships are distinct. Scholarships are based on academic, musical, artistic, dramatic or sporting talent and are generally funded by donors (my old school has just been fund raising for a new full academic scholarship); bursaries are based on financial circumstance not talent/competition. Some scholarships offer fee discounts and some don’t.

I missed that as I’m watching Life of Brian.

But my previous point stands that wealthy schools use their funds at their own discretion.

No, some schools do not offer “fee discounts” aside from a sibling discount.

Why? because by definition a fee discount would be bursary.

It is clear that the extent of your experience is second hand through your sister who secured an academic scholarship plus a bursary (which you refer to as a “fee discount” )

Nope

They can’t

do you understand that they are registered charities and have strict financial parameters?