Bursary Application

[samsub]

HelloI am just going through the form for DS's senior school Bursary application and it asks:" Please explain any reasons why net assets cannot be converted or utilised to pay school fees."Yes in our case our only asset which has some "net" in the property (although we do have some savings (for a rainy day) which is not sufficient to pay for the entire senior school period). We recently bought our first property and there is no question of re-mortgaging the house to release equity to pay the school fees.I am not sure how the Bursar would look into our finances, but we have kept aside £40k in our savings. We have kept a portion of these savings aside, one reason is to fund non routine travel costs arising from medical emergency and ad-hoc medical expenses to support my mother who lives overseas. This may be due to hospitalisation or general age related ailment (She is 73 year old). I have allowed three routine overseas trips in a year and making it clear in my application that these are necessary trips to ensure my mom's well being. Do you think it will go against us.We recently bought our first house 3 months ago, and the equity in the house is 30%. Again, will this work against our application.I am trying to articulate in the best way possible to answer the above question.Any thoughts will be high appreciated

Thank you all for your kind responses. They really helped us to complete the application. We have received a decision with a certain percentage of the fee discounted. The award letter suggests that the bursary application will be subject to annual review based on our financial circumstances. While we are very happy with the decision, we are equally worried about what would happen if the bursary is withdrawn in the later critical academic years, which would expose us to huge fees and the consequences could be that we may have to move our DC to a school that is not of our choice.
We don’t think our financial situation would change dramatically enough to allow us to pay the full fee. However, we have no control over the school making changes to the internal policy and withdrawing the bursary completely. Are we overthinking this matter?
We have a meeting with the finance manager of the school, and we would like to raise this concern. I would be grateful if any parents could share their experience of receiving a bursary and yearly review. How has it been so far? Are there any particular questions that I should be asking the school Finance Manager.

The yearly review literally is a quick check that your financial circumstances haven’t improved over the last year. If they haven’t then you will still keep the same award. If they have then the award is likely reduced so that whilst you would be paying more, you would be no more worse off financial I.e. it’s like your pay rise never happened.

There will likely be another full in depth review if your child wants to stay on for sixth form as this is a natural break point in their education. It would also be the time where they would most likely withdraw a bursary if they so chose.

I don’t know of any bursaries withdrawn at random points between Y7 and Y11 without good reason - parents lying about wealth, child’s behaviour or performance not satisfactory etc.

I think you'll find the review process can range from doing absolutely nothing and simply continuing the status quo, to full submission of all forms and documents annually. In my experience, the level of review depends on how keen the school is to keep your child!