How do schools verify savings when assessing bursary applications?

[Loopylooni]

Just a question here to those who worked in the bursary field, do you have full visibility of all the applicants accounts? What if they have say 10million in savings which they hadn't declared on the application? How would you know? My neighbour is much wealthier than me and they got a bursary at another school. Im curious how they managed it.

How, specifically, do you know the details of your neighbour’s finances?

@BlanklyMyDear I dont really but both working in finance, nice cars. Holidays to Monaco. I just wondered if there were people who could just not declare things.

One would have thought the school would say no costly holidays if they are paying school fees

so I get your point

That'll be why they've got no savings!

Probably offshore accounts. They could be accused of fraud if they knowingly did not declare it.

Our school had a family receive a bursary, became suspicious when the kids were talking about their posh holidays etc, and demanded to see all up to date credit card and bank statements.

The family couldn’t then explain how some of their credit card bills were being paid off - there was no money going out from their disclosed bank statements but the bills were being paid, so obviously other bank accounts or assets had been hidden during the bursary application.

The child lost the bursary and the place, and the school threatened to sue for the bursary money back. Eventually there was a kind of face saving “apologies for the confusion” donation to school funds, and the school agreed not to sue. They still told the other local private schools to watch out for that family, last I heard they left the city.

So it definitely does happen, but schools can find out and take action afterwards.

Thank you - this is interesting to hear

Applications are subject to a level of forensic accounting. Transfers in to an account have to come from somewhere for example. When looking at everything they are asking does this make sense. A payment for a flight but no further costs for accommodation, food, car hire etc would raise questions. Google and social media can also help and also looking at Companies House records.

Yes people can hide things and not declare them though. If found out they will be asked to repay the amounts and will receive a poor reference when moving to another school.

Years ago my DD got a 50 percent scholarship and was awarded a bursary to top fees up to 90 percent. I had to take in bank account statements and sign a form to say as all of my savings and bank accounts had been disclosed.

And if the bursary would be for a boarding school the parents would also receive a home visit. So if you’ve declared an income of £40k but your house is obviously worth £8 million …

Not always - Dd went to boarding school on a scholarship and bursary and no home visit, and only basic forms filled in. No one ever asked to see bank statements or even a self assessment form, just p60 from DH and then the rest was self declared. Depends on the school.

We received a small bursary for one of our kids which was just over £1,000. The school didn't ask for any specific evidence of finances whatsoever.

They did say in the Ts and Cs that we must notify them if our financial circumstances changed.

Might have been a bit different if the proposed bursary were for over £60k per year, for five years. (Which is the situation I was thinking of.)