Private school - extra costs

[Dilbertdoes]

My DD is currently at state secondary. We are in a difficult financial situation, indefinitely. She's taken the 13+ exam at a private boarding school that would really suit her and has been offered a scholarship and a big bursary, so we would have to pay almost no school fees. This is a great opportunity for her, but I've read a few things on MN warning about all the "extras" of private school. Does anyone have any guidance on what kind of extras we would be likely to come across, to what extent we could get away with her not having the extras, and the kind of costs involved? I appreciate that all schools are different, but it would be great to get some ballpark guidance before I decide whether to discuss this issue with the school. I'd obviously prefer not to have to.

[Isithappening]

I am very interested in some schools using fee income to provide bursaries. I had a look a round and found that the sutton trust have done a report on bursary provisions and it does seem that some school use fee I come but some use legacy funding and other funding streams.
www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/finalbursariesreportstaffs.pdf

As long as the school can fill all of its spaces and don't have any complaints about students being in receipt of bursaries or scholarships then I don't suppose it really matters. I like to think that many people would pay a little extra if they can easily afford to do so in order to help out a less financially fortunate child.

[happygardening]

I believe Eton does or used to use fee money to provide bursaries. I remember quite a few years ago a friend with a DS at Eton slightly moaning about it when she received a letter explaining they were going to do this.
But let's get this into perspective if you have 1000 full fee paying parents at currently paying 35k a year, and you ask them to pay an extra £100pa or £33.33 a term, which is let's face a piffling amount in the grand scheme of the things, their extras will easily fluctuate by more than that every term you raise £100 000 a year that nearly three sets if full fees covered.
I think Milly's point about boys schools is interesting being very old the big names boys schools are often asset rich, I know my DH's old school sold off a large lump of land on the edge of a London quite a few years ago houses of course have now been built on

[Dilbertdoes]

I'm not sure what the source of the bursary funding is in the case of this school, but it's not one of the very rich schools. I'm well aware that there is no "Bursary God in the sky"! My DD is very very strong in one particular area, and would be expected to work very hard and make a big contribution, which is fine as that is what she wants to do. She's also pretty strong in a number of subsidiary areas.
It's not that I don't want to pay for my DD to go on school trips and so on. It's that we are in a very difficult financial situation. We never go on family holidays, beyond the occasional night in a youth hostel, which I feel guilty about. We buy all our clothes off Ebay. And so on. So the cost of extras is a real consideration. The cost of private school uniform is so high compared with state, and I'm not sure whether there's a second hand uniform shop, and an even bigger issue seems to be school trips.
Anyway, extras obviously vary a lot from school to school, and I will write to the school to try to get some information on this.
Thank you all for all the info.

[Isithappening]

dilbert I'm sure your daughter has worked very hard and deserves her place. Don't worry about where the bursary funds come from. Private schools benefit from bursary students. They meet their charitable requirements by giving means tested bursaries and they gain bright children who boost their results and hence make the school attractive to full fee paying parents. Bursaries are usually given out based on entrance exam performance as well as family income so your daughter has earned her offer.
Ring the bursar and ask them for a full breakdown of extras including meals, books, laundry, trips, insurance etc.
Don't forget that if your daughter is boarding you will save money on weekday meals and school travel so take those costs into account when you make your calculations.
I hope it works out for you.

[derektheladyhamster]

I worked out that we save about £300/month not having to feed/fork out for trips into town/trips to the cinema/ice creams etc while our ds is at school.

[MillyMollyMama]

Both girls' schools my DDs went to, Happygardening, had less than 400 pupils. One was full boarding and the other had day pupils. There are not just bursaries for fees, there are free music lessons, subsidised school trips, free sports kit, the Principal's awards giving free this and that for a year. Nearly 25% of children got something while the rest of us (obviously not all of us) worked like stink to pay the fees, but got nothing for an academic scholarship. Both schools were established in the late 19th century by well meaning women. What they don't have is land to sell off, legacies of any size and fund raising goes into new buildings. You can only do so much with a small parent body and some parents have 2/3 children. I was just making the point that bursary money is often hard earned and it just seems people want more and even more. Maybe the very rich could directly fund the bursaries, as happens at Harrow!

[MillyMollyMama]

Just to add: I have just looked up the accounts submitted by one of our schools on the Charities Commission web site. Fee income - £9.8m. Bursary, scholarship and grant expenditure £918,000. Not quite the sums you were hinting at Happygardening.

[Marni23]

dilbert I just wanted to echo everything that Isithappening said. Very well done to your DD, she must have done really well to get such a great offer.
Don't worry about where the bursary fund comes from; the fact is it's there to help talented DC like your DD to access what the school has to offer. And as Isithappening said, the school will benefit from her presence.
I have 2 DC at different independent day schools and I am delighted that both schools offer a significant number of bursary places. I have no idea if those places are funded from fees and I don't care; we knew what the fees were when we accepted the places and did our sums accordingly.
I really hope you get the answers you need from the bursar and that your DD can go on to take up the place that she has earned.

[Kenlee]

If she is full boarding then she may havev to participate in all the weekend trips. These range from 5GBP to 40GBP.

If your having extra music lessons then maybe another 100 to 150 GBP a term.

Then there is the stationary costs which will not amount to much. Let's say 5O GBP.

uniform costs are mainly a one off but you do need to replace certain items. Socks mainly as they get lost with alarming regularity. Shoes are another thing...Astro boots, indoor and outdoor trainers. Plus the hockey stick that will get lost at least once a year.

Boarding wise there are no more hidden costs.

We also find that the school tends to have different options for the end of year trip..the MFL trip is never over 600 GBP. Which we find quite reasonable. To the local trip which comes in at 35 GBP.

Although we have found that the girls do tend to stick together. If one cannot go they all don't go. If one can not afford to the other girls will start pestering their parents for cash to help. So its not a big worry.

[stealthsquiggle]

Definitely talk to the school. Most are fairly clued up IME (after all, teachers don't earn a lot, generally, so they do appreciate the value of money). All the ones that we have looked at (including big names) have been at pains to point out that although there are loads of trips available, many DC go through school without doing any and are none the worse for it. In the case of sports trips, if they knew you couldn't afford it and couldn't support the cost themselves, I would expect them to be subtle enough to just not pick your DD in the first place.

Uniform would be the other one to check. Not all have second hand systems, but there may well be a possibility of a grant for the initial cost.

Very well done to your DD, and I do hope she can take it. I went through senior school (although not boarding) on substantial scholarship, never did extra trips and the like, and never nice felt or was made to feel like a second class citizen in any way.

[Isithappening]

I have no idea if those places are funded from fees and I don't care; we knew what the fees were when we accepted the places and did our sums accordingly.

Yes, this is what I like to hear and I would hope is how most full fee paying parents feel.
At the end of the day if a school decides not to offer any new bursaries in a given year they are not going to suddenly reduce the amount of fees that they charge.
They have to offer bursaries if they are to meet their charitable aims and satisfy the charities commission. If they don't meet their charitable aims then they cannot continue to operate as a charity and will have to close the school and dispose all of the buildings and land (as that is what happens when a charity is no longer a charity). The school also receives tax breaks as it is a charity and whilst these don't add up to a great deal they add up to something.
millymolly the figures you give represent roughly 10% of fee income being used as bursary funding. How much are full fees at that school? As an example: if the fees are £12000 then you could argue that £1200 of those fees are being given directly to bursary students but around £300 of that is effectively reclaimed in tax breaks. So each full fee paying parent will be paying an additional £300 per term in order to support the bursary fund (although it isn't clear whether part of the bursary money comes from other sources).

What would happen if there was no bursary students?
. The school could lose its charitable status and be forced to close.
. The school could have a drop in results due to no longer attracting very bright children from poorer backgrounds who boost their results which in turn means the school attracts less full fee paying children (because nobody wants to pay for mediocre results) so the school has a huge drop in income and becomes no longer viable and is forced to close.

At the end of the day if people begrudge part of their fees being used to support bursary students then they have the option of not sending their child to a school where that would happen.

OPs child has won her right to a bursary offer and she should not be made to feel bad for accepting her offer because a minority of full fee paying parents dislike the way that bursaries might be funded.

[EdithWeston]

"They have to offer bursaries if they are to meet their charitable aims and satisfy the charities commission"

The latest tribunal found that this is not the case. They do have to satisfy the Charities Commission, but the provision of bursaries is neither necessary nor sufficient to do this.

"If they don't meet their charitable aims then they cannot continue to operate as a charity and will have to close the school and dispose all of the buildings and land (as that is what happens when a charity is no longer a charity)."

This is true, but not dependant solely on bursaries.

[Isithappening]

Maybe not dependent on bursaries, although many use that to meet part of their charitable aims. They can also do things like loaning out their staff, lending use of their facilities etc but those things on their own are often not sufficient to satisfy that charities commission. They would have to provide a lot more in other areas if they stopped providing bursaries and it won't necessarily cost less.
Private schools are constantly under fire for not doing enough to justify their charitable status, can you imagine if they all suddenly stopped providing bursaries.

[stealthsquiggle]

It occurred to me last night that the question of sports tours might be more acute if the thing which the OP's DD excels at is sports. In that case I think it would definitely be reasonable to raise the issue with the school in advance - if she is a sports scholar, she would presumably be expected to participate in tours, so it would be only reasonable to warn the school that her family would not be able to fund them. TBH if they are prepared to offer a 100% bursary then I can't see an extra bit of funding for sports tours being a deal breaker.

I am another fee paying parent who thinks it is nine of my business if bursaries are funded out of fees. DC who are offered bursaries are offered them because they have something of value to bring to the school and could not do so otherwise. My DC, like all the others, will benefit from what they bring to the community.

[MillyMollyMama]

I said earlier it was boarding and day. Current fees are just below £8000 per term for day and £10,800 for boarding in the 6th form. I am sure you can do the sums! I am glad people contributing here have so much money they don't care what they pay. However there is an increasing problem at our old school, and many others, of people being unable to pay the fees and bad debts. Huge numbers of children receive a bursary of some description. The people who pay full fees are struggling. My DDs have now moved on as they are older. The only thing that led to unrest in the parent body, and gasps out loud on speech day when it was announced, was that fees were going up way above the rate of inflation again. You can only squeeze so much out of people. Numbers were dropping too. It is possibly not a sustainable model for the future. A lot of us have talented children. My DDs academic scholarship was worth nothing! Yet people with sports talent, music talent, drama talent etc got all the lessons for free even if the parents were rich. It was only the academic ones who got nothing. We paid up and didn't complain, but it was hardly fair.

[Isithappening]

was that fees were going up way above the rate of inflation again.

That has been commonplace at most independent schools over the last decade. Even prep schools which don't offer any bursaries have had above inflation rises every year.
If people can't afford the fees or begrudge paying a few extra hundred pounds which support bursaries then they should opt for a different school.
You could have chosen a school which offers an academic scholarship if you were going to feel so aggrieved at not being given a monetary discount or enrichment lessons for free.
A school which charges £8000 per term for day fees is very expensive and isn't aimed at middle income families.
I live up North and having looked at fees (no boarding schools locally, so just day fees) even the best schools up here (Manchester grammar school and Withington girls school) charge much less than the fees you mention (£11k and £10k per year). I'm not sure how both schools fund all of their bursaries but I do know that both have separate bursary funds which they receive generous donations for from alumnae and trusts. I assume the difference in fee level between those schools and yours comes mainly down to land costs and building ownership rather than contributions to bursaries (as I can't see bursary contributions costing £14k per full fee paying student per year).

[Marni23]

I am glad people contributing here have so much money they don't care what they pay

Where did I (or anyone) say that? I said that we knew what the fees were and did our sums accordingly. But I don't begrudge a proportion of those fees going towards bursaries, if indeed that is the case.

[Clavinova]

MillyMollyMama "Yet people with sports talent, music talent, drama talent etc got all the lessons for free even if the parents were rich" - if some of the parents were rich then their dc were receiving scholarships/allowances and not bursaries. Bursaries are means tested and quite often involve a home visit as part of the assessment.

I wouldn't worry about the overseas trips op - yes, one or two trips a year may be offered but by no means is every child going. DS1 is in Year 8 and going on his first overseas trip this year - cost about £500 - less than a quarter of the year group are going. Another school has a ski trip - 70 dc going across four year groups - so 400 dc not going from those year groups! Many dc just don't fancy it, some are going skiing/somewhere exotic with their families instead and others can't afford it - I doubt if anyone cares. Have a look at the school's website again op - there are usually photos from all the trips - count how many dc are in the group photos - often it's less than 20.

[nextnn]

Logically there's surely going to be a continuum. There will be people who can budget for fees including a bursary contribution, and people who need a significant bursary. But unless the school is to end up with a weird gap in its demographics, there will also be people in between who can only just afford fees, and might not be able to pay a sudden increase caused by the school wanting to increase its bursary provision. Saying those people should go elsewhere is silly! Indeed we're in that middle ground, being offered a bursary which is small enough that it can be read as "we don't expect you to contribute to other people's bursaries, so we'll let you off that part of the fees".

In the end, I think, if present trends continue, fees are going to have to be thought of as a sliding scale, where only a tiny minority pay top whack, and everyone else can be thought of as having some level of bursary, i.e. paying somewhere lower than the top of the scale. That might actually be a healthier situation than the current one. Evaluating schools on how many 75-100% bursaries they give may be counterproductive, if it results in them giving bursaries only to those who need at least 75%, leaving a swathe of people who'd need less than that with no way to go to the school. Fortunately, at least some schools are alive to such issues and resist those political pressures.

[Needmoresleep]

Talk to the school. IME rich kids tend not to go on school trips as they have far more exciting places to go. Indeed schools can struggle to get sufficient numbers for even the best trips. Ditto overseas students just want to get home. I would not see anyone noticing, let alone judging if your dd did not sign up for a trip. However this is London and elsewhere might be different.

Actually not being the child who dashes off to the chalet, yacht or holiday villa can pay off if your child then gets invited to accompany others on their family holidays...

Check what the school expects and ignore the rest. Your DD will soon discover that having a supportive family means she is better off than some of her peers.

[IndridCold]

I believe Eton does or used to use fee money to provide bursaries. I remember quite a few years ago a friend with a DS at Eton slightly moaning about it when she received a letter explaining they were going to do this.

Just for the record this is not the case now, and hasn't been since DS has been there. The money for bursaries comes from active fundraising, to which OEs are major contributors. The current fees go towards the running of the school.

[Kenlee]

I'm puzzled I know fees are often around 15K for day school and around 24K for boarding. When you applied for the school they did clearly print the fees on the prospectus. So if you agreeded to send your DC to said school. You expect to pay that amount. What the school does with your money from there on is not your concern. You have paid for your DC to study at a school which ethis you best fits your child. The school having children on scholarship or bursaries has nothing to do with the parents paying full fees.

My DH always tells our DD. Its not where they come from that matters. Its what they will become that does.

[happygardening]

Indrid it was the case in 2008ish (maybe even 2006 time sadly flies) my friend was telling me in an annoyed tone about the letter she'd just received from Eton stating they were going to do it.

[happygardening]

Kenlee I know of few if any boarding schools with fees of 24k don't you mean 34k?.

[Kenlee]

haha typo....happy.....