Independent Schools and bursaries

[didofido]

Would be grateful for any info MNers could give me, please. We are looking at Oundle, Oakham, and Uppingham - not necessarily in that order. Does anyone have inside informermation about any of them, and especially how generous (or otherwise) they are with bursaries? Does anyone know limits of income above which no bursary is possible?

Don't know about your particular schools, but at the one (very well known) school I know, the cut-off for any assistance at all is around £45k joint income; they expect both parents to work and also expect you to not have foreign holidays, to not drive a new car, and to not have any equity in your house. I think most schools operate something there or thereabouts.

That's for 'standard' bursaries which are always means-tested. Many school offer scholarship-linked bursaries which are not means tested, and some are particularly generous toward children that have exceptional talent but have to date been state-school educated. These scholarships are normally detailed on the websites of the schools (it's all good marketing stuff!)

I'd phone the schools. They get tons of such calls and don't hold them against the parents.

Don't want to "out" myself but my DS has a bursary to one of these schools. It would probably be considered as very generous by most of mumsnetters ( and definetly was by us!). DS very happy at school, having a great time and really benefitting from a great education with lots of fantastic sport and music too. We were very upfront from the beginning about being unable to afford the fees unless we got help (told the bursar the day DS went for exams. ) and the school was fab and immediately got the bursary forms for us. But we have a small 3 bed. semi-detatched house, 2 cars (not flash in any way, mine is a yaris, and both are 10 years old) - holidays (home or abroad) are a distant memory, and we rarely go out etc. And we have NO savings at all. Schools are generous but you really do have to be giving every penny you have to the education of your DC's . My DS has made lovely friends, and is enjoying all aspects of school life so we think it is worth it.

There are numerous posting on this subject have you tried doing a search? All three are boarding schools and I believe that Uppingham is only boarding so as boarding fees are about £30 000 + PA a cut off of £45 000 would not make any sense. To comfortably pay one set of fees you need to be earning in excess of £110 000 PA. Most schools state on their websites that they offer bursaries and a few years ago it was looking like they would be offering them to non-scholars as well as scholars but most have now pulled back from that position and are primarily guaranteeing them to those who gain either a scholarship or exhibition. Obviously there are some for example exceptions for example Win Coll and St Pauls are offering them to all who meet their entrance criteria. StillSqiffy is correct that if your children are older than primary school age you will both have to work unless you have a very good reason not too and bursaries are not meant for people who have money either tied up in property/investments etc. and just don?t want to spend it at the moment. The schools are expecting you to sacrifice nearly everything for this education. This is a decision only you can make some dont want to live like this but others think its worth it.
Grovel is right contact the bursar be honest and realistic about the size of the bursary you need gauge his response, if it?s a large bursary you need ask if they've ever done a bursary of a similar size before. You?re not asking them to commit themselves you just don?t want to waste their time, your time or raise your children?s hopes unnecessarily. Most schools also have their bursary policy clearly stated on thier websites.

Just browsing on here out of idle curiosity. I've got two academically able children, both doing pretty well in state secondaries; we never even contemplated private education because we simply couldn't afford it and we knew diddly squat about bursaries or the independent system. But mumsnet threads like this one have got me wondering (too late!) about what might have been, and I'm interested by what StillSquiffy says; Don't know about your particular schools, but at the one (very well known) school I know, the cut-off for any assistance at all is around £45k joint income; they expect both parents to work and also expect you to not have foreign holidays, to not drive a new car, and to not have any equity in your house. I think most schools operate something there or thereabouts. On this basis a family like mine might have qualified; DH and I both work, earn only a modest income, drive an old banger, and our last foreign holiday was our honeymoon over 20 years ago! But maybe I shouldn't feel hard up, because I must admit that we do have some equity in our house. Unfortunately, as long as we need a roof over our heads, we can't actually release this, or spend it. I'm intrigued; do independent schools really require ordinary families to release any equity? What are you meant to do - sell up and live in a tent?!

At Dulwich College the cut off is £40,000 household income.

Is this after tax? Obviously this applies to day schools. I dont know (off the top of my head) exactly what day fees are but assuming there £6000 a term therfore £18000 PA then add in extras £20 000 PA. If you were on a pre tax income of £41 000 unless you have no morgage/rent and never need to use public transport/drive a car I dont see how you could afford it.

If it is a pre tax earning I suspect schools that take this approach do it deliberately. They do not have a big pot for bursaries and by setting the income so low they are not inunadatd with applicants.

I'm not sure if you addressed your question to me happygardening? But, no, the £40,000 pa is gross not net.

If you have equity in your house you will generally be expected to try and free some/all of it up to make a cotribution towards the school fees. It is possible to obtain a mortgage for some of the equity or a secure loan but obviously you have to decide whether or not you want this education that badly. Bursaries really are meant to be for people who dont have money.
With regard to the £40 000 cut off we earn signifiacntly more than that and receive a generous bursary towards are boarding school fees although no one could say we live a luxurious life and do not own a home or have any saving and we have been offered bursaries by other boarding schools so not all have a £40 000 cut off limit; you have to ask. As I've said before the £40 000 cut of is a good way of limiting the number of applicants and ticks all the boxes for the charities commission.

I am talking specifically about Dulwich College for a day pupil, as that is all I have any knowledge of. Incidentally, they offered a 90% bursary to a couple I know where only one of them works full time.

Why don't they take into account people who have no partner and are solely reliant on self-employed earnings?

I always find it irritating that some families I know have a bursary yet the mum doesn't work - but could. I'm slightly above the cut off income, before expenses and tax - but have no mortgage - but never had foreign hols since having my sons and this year will earn well below the cut off.

Yet a 2 parent family with only one adult working - and a mortgage but also foreign hols - sometimes 3 times a year - do get a bursary. Why isn't the lack of another 'potential' income taken into consideration if they DO take into consideration equity in your home? Wouldn't it be the case that just as you can release house equity by remortgaging, you can also release the earning potential of the non-working adult?

Thanks for all the information. I tried a couple of schools, quoting a a hypothetical family income of £50k gross. The upshot seems to be between 60% and 70% bursary. Which still leaves a lot to find, especially if there are younger children.

chmum - all is not lost! If your DC would like to try independent schools for 6th form some bursaries can be very generous. I know a single mum, working at a low paid job, who got a very generous bursary for her DC for the 6th form - at one of the schools mentioned by the OP actually. The DC was a little nervous at first but has since said that two years boarding was an enormous help when it came to settling in at Uni. This was not a super-academic DC either - mostly Bs - but bags of charm!

Solo2: some of "them" do. You are dealing with individual schools' individual procedures. The amounts, thresholds, disregards, and expectation of realisation of assets vary between all of them.

And unless you're the bursar, you may well not know all the relevant factors in deciding an award. There are no schools in UK that are truly "needs blind", so ceilings are always illustrative not absolute qualifying points.

Thanks Kerrygrey! I do appreciate your kind thoughts. However as it happens my dd is already in yr 13 at a sixth form college, and my ds (currently yr 11) is planning to follow her there next year. They have both achieved/ expect to achieve excellent exam grades in the state system (dd has 12 GCSEs all at A* or A, and ds is predicted to do as well!) so we're not seriously considering independent education at this stage. As I said, my interest here is just idle curiosity about how the bursary system works.

I am still rather mystified about this equity business! Happygardening explained 'If you have equity in your house you will generally be expected to try and free some/all of it up to make a cotribution towards the school fees. It is possible to obtain a mortgage for some of the equity or a secure loan but obviously you have to decide whether or not you want this education that badly. Bursaries really are meant to be for people who dont have money.' But a family like mine (typical 'squeezed middle') really doesn't have money! We're thankful that we got onto the housing ladder years ago, because TBH we probably couldn't afford to buy even the smallest house nowadays, and rent would be even more than our mortgage. As it is, at the moment with two of us working we can just about make ends meet and pay the monthly bills with nothing left for extras; but if we had to extend our mortgage or take out a secured loan we'd quickly be in debt up to our eyeballs. And presumably even if this drastic step did secure us a generous bursary, we would still be required to pay some percentage of the private school fees... I just don't understand how an average family could be expected to manage this.

I don't think public boarding school at 30k a year is aimed at the average family! If it was, wouldn't pretty much everyone without access to a great Grammar send their children there?

It has to be an impossibility in reality (even if not in theory) for the normal average family to access the school or they'd have too many on bursaries and not enough paying to survive.

It's a way of spreading the cost, isn't it? The idea is that if you currently have a mortgage which is scheduled to be paid off in say 10 years from now, you replace it with a larger mortgage over a longer time frame e.g. 20 years, such that the repayments are the same as your current ones. You get money now (that's the equity you've released), which you can use to pay school fees and your outgoings now do not increase as a result of this. The downside is that you'll be paying a mortgage for longer than you would have done otherwise; effectively, you're borrowing the money to pay the school fees and having to pay it back later. Obviously it can be impossible for all sorts of reasons, e.g., you don't have enough equity in your house to start with, you don't have long enough to go till retirement to be able to keep paying a mortgage much longer than you would otherwise, etc. Still, it's one of the routes you're expected to consider. Otherwise, it would be possible for Family A to avoid having savings by putting all their savings into buying an expensive house, looking poor while their DC was at school by having an enormous mortgage. Now imagine they get a bursary in preference to Family B that lives in a rented house, but has some savings, which they spend on school fees. When Family A's child leaves school, Family A's mortgage comes to an end and this family is now rich - they're debt-free, they can sell their expensive mortgage-free house and move somewhere smaller or whatever. Family B, on the other hand, has spent their savings and not built up equity while their DC was at school. That's not seen as fair. Schools are just trying to make sure that their bursary funds go to families that really don't have the ability to pay without a bursary.

Chmum: I find it really hard to fathom that you did not realise that average families cannot afford private school. I think, nationally, its something like 7% of children go to private school, which must surely give you a clue as to their exclusivity.

The bottom line; an average family cant manage it. We mange it because for two reasons; we earn way above the average salary although still need a large bursary to cover the £31 000 PA fees and our DS was clever enough to get 1 of 120 places at the most academic boys boarding school in England who happen to be widening their access. The school is is working really hard to widen its access but realistically not all can be on bursaries.
As is so often the case the middle are squeezed.
But didfido its still worth enquiring we first got a bursary six years ago when these things were virtually unheard of as the then head said "if you don't ask you wont get."

Thanks bibbitybobbity, but I do realise that average families cannot afford private school. Indeed, I have an average family, and we can't afford it! What has surprised me is a) the suggestion that a bursary might put private education within the reach of a family like my own, and b) the realisation that parents are required, and prepared, to sacrifice so much to achieve this.

I've just had an interesting conversation over supper with dd, who tells me that a significant percentage of her peers at state sixth form college have transferred from independent schools. I suppose even those who can traditionally afford private education might choose to opt out where a decent fee-free alternative is available. Some of these families also apparently think that because the top Universities are being pressured to look more favourably on applications from state school pupils, they're putting themselves in a win-win situation.

chmum - you are lucky enough to have clever, hard-working children and good state schools. Would that more of us could say the same!

Until about three years ago,I had two ds in an independent school and then literally overnight for a variety of reasons our whole lives changed and we found ourselves living in a different town with me unable to work and the only option for the boys being a huge school where I knew the boys would flounder and it appeared that home schooling would be my only option.So I did what happygardening said I asked. I approached the very academic independent in the next town and explained our circumstances and ds1 was invited for interview and exam and 2 days later offered a full bursary, Ds 2 is less academic but got a 75% bursary at a smaller but far more suited to him school. The rest of his fees are topped up by my cb.
I get a small amount of child support every penny of which goes on getting them to school. but the boys are happy in their new schools and old enough at 15 and 13 now to accept if they want to be there sacrifices have to be made and obviously due to our change in circumstances our whole life had already changed to a large extent.
At Ds1 school almost 200 children get some financial help with the fees so it really is worth asking.

We will be applying for bursaries for DS for some of these schools in the next 5 years.

As it is now we would be income and equity wise in the field for a 100% bursary (tbh would actually need extra for transport and uniform) as we are classed as 'in poverty'. The thing is before then I expect my income to increase to c.£35k and dp might become a student, which I worry might be held against us. (he earns £200pwk now). Also we have different gender DCs room sharing which won't be suitable as teenagers even with DS boarding, but I also don't know if they'd hold it against us if we bought/rented a bigger flat.

Some schools seem to be really relaxed giving out bursaries to over average income families but some seem really strict so it's difficult to come up with a strategy for multiple applications (we'd even have to negotiate the £200 up front they all want, as we'd need to get into debt for that!)

It is difficult, isn't it? Surely they could object to your having enough bedrooms for children of opposite sexes, or to a parent being a student. The thing is not to have equity in your home, or, of course, rent. If you get any more info I'd be grateful if you would let me know, and I'll do the same for you

What about the scenario, for example, where there is no mortgage, BUT neither parent is able to work due to ill health etc, so could not get a mortgage anyway? How could the equity be freed in this case? Let's also say that they cannot sell their house in this time when houses are not selling well at all.