How to get Bursaries for Top Private Schools

How to get bursaries and assisted places for top private
schools

By Charles Kelly

Author and creator of Money Tips

The gift of education is one of the most valuable things you
can give to your children. However, the cost of sending a child or grandchild
to an independent or private (strangely, also known as a “public school”) school
has soared well above the rate of inflation, yet the number of UK pupils in
private education has never been higher. Why is this?

Part of the answer is that more than £1bn a year of
financial assistance is available to parents, enabling one in three students to
have their school fees reduced or even waived, according to the FT.

School fees have become a major problem for the middle classes
in recent years. The cost of a private education is nearly 50% higher than a
decade ago, according to data from the Independent Schools Council (ISC).

Average fees for day pupils are now nearly £4,800 per term,
or just over £14,000 a year. Fees are higher in the Southeast and London, where
boarding school fees now average more than £13,000 a term — close to £40,000
per year, according to the ISC.

Scholarships and bursaries have become a key factor in
affordability, but many parents may not be aware of the level of help available.
For instance, at some schools, parents who apply for means-tested support could
qualify even if they have a household income of £90,000.

Competition for the brightest children means that an
increasing amount of assistance is being provided on a “needs blind” basis to
pupils with a flair for particular subjects, such as music and sports.

My Son won a music scholarship and bursary, which covered part
of the fees, and a government assisted place scheme, which was later abolished
by the Tony Blair government.

The strict application criteria will vary for each school, but
typically with a high level of financial disclosure required to obtain
means-tested funding.

Schools reject assistance requests from parents who own
second homes or expensive properties. If the school senses parents could afford
to pay the fees by downsizing their home, or asking grandparents for help, they
will say so.

Independent schools need to justify their charitable status,
which has encouraged more generosity in the form of scholarships and
means-tested bursaries. The ISC says that £800m of the £1bn provided in “fee
assistance” last year came directly from the schools themselves.

Over 175,000 ISC students currently enjoy some form of fee
reduction, around half of these through means testing. The number of those
receiving “free” fully paid places more than 6,000 pupils, an increase of 5 per
cent year-on-year.

Parents of children who win a scholarship can often also
apply for a bursary — often referred to as an “assisted place”.

In addition to help with school fees, financial help may be
granted towards the cost of expensive uniforms, sports equipment, laptops,
trips and other travel costs. The vast majority of this kind of financial
assistance is directed at UK families, but many parents do not know how to
access the increased funding. “Believe it or not, it’s quite a challenge for
independent schools to get applications from the families for whom their
bursaries are intended — gifted children from low-income families,” says
Catherine Stoker, managing director of Independent Education Consultants, which
advises parents on choosing the right school. “Scholarships and bursaries are
certainly one of the most ‘searched for’ items on our website,” she says.
“Parents often call us for advice on how to secure bursaries — it’s a confusing
area. Parents who would be eligible often lack the confidence to call their
local independent school and inquire about how to apply. Sometimes they don’t
know bursaries exist.”

In general, schools will seek to ascertain the “relevant
income” — the gross household income less an amount of between £2,000 and
£3,000 per dependent child. Having relevant income of £20,000 or less would
usually qualify for full fees to be paid, but some schools will provide funding
on a sliding scale of up to £90,000.

Despite the fact that sending a child to a private school
saves the state money, not everyone is happy that the children of relatively
well-off middle class families are benefiting from charity.

The Labour Party pledged to remove the VAT exemption on
private school fees, and could go further by scrapping business rates relief
which is granted to independent schools owing to their charitable status.

The headmaster of the prestigious Stowe School said middle-class
families who could have afforded to pay for private education a generation ago
were now being “squeezed out because of affordability”.

Assisted places are usually awarded for a set period when a
pupil joins a school at the age of 11, although many schools offer specific
bursaries to sixth-form entrants. Last year, £420m was provided in
means-tested, as opposed to merit-based, fee assistance for pupils at ISC
schools; an increase of nearly £160m since 2011.

Special bursaries are available for pupils whose parents are
in the armed forces, Church of England clergy, or who work for independent
schools. There can also be favourable terms for second and subsequent siblings
attending a school.

As a parent, you will need to do your homework, researching
the websites of the schools and applying early. Pupils will normally sit an
entrance exam and many parents prepare them for this by taking them to extracurricular
classes and cramming schools specialising in helping pupils pass.

Top schools like Westminster School, founded in 1560 and earning
its royal charter from Elizabeth I for offering help to 40 poor scholars, donate
millions to help poorer children.

Westminster currently allocates £1.4m a year to bursaries
and these can pay up to the full fees of £29,709 per year, plus uniform,
equipment and other school expenditure.

Its website advises parents: “There are no exact financial
criteria for bursaries but in judging a family’s needs, all income, essential
expenditure, and all assets in savings, investments and property will be
assessed.

Where, for example, a home is considered to be too large, in
an expensive area or where excess equity could be released, a family may be
expected to downsize or remortgage as necessary to release funds. It is also
expected that savings in shares, Isas, other investments and equity in second
homes will be released.

The school will then assess what level of bursary (between
10 per cent and 100 per cent of the fees) is needed.” Where parents live can
also give children access to financial help as some bursaries were set up to
benefit specific communities.

At Harrow School, where Winston Churchill studied, pupils
who have lived in London boroughs, including Barnet, Brent, Camden, City of
London, Ealing or Hammersmith, for more than two years may be eligible for
financial help from the John Lyons Foundation.

The choice of royalty, Eton College, charges boarding fees
of more than £42,000pa, but more than one in five pupils receive some form of
financial assistance. The school, whose alumni includes countless prime
ministers (David Cameron and Boris Johnson), Prince William and Prince Harry, will
spend £6.5m this year to support 273 of its 1,300 pupils. The average bursary
covers two-thirds of school fees. “We are proud of our bursary and scholarship
provision which last year saw 74 boys receiving 100 per cent fee remission and
a further 208 boys receiving a range of financial assistance,” says the
college.

Eton aims to support one in four pupils in future, and is
able to fund this from the school’s own resources and donations from its
powerful network of alumni.

The son of a Windsor pharmacist won a scholarship to pay the
full boarding fees for his education at Eton. His father said: “Applying for
the scholarship was very easy indeed, he told the FT.

The information was readily available on Eton’s website. “At
the time, so long as your child was under 10 years of age and had not been to a
fee-paying school, you just had to contact Eton and ask to come and sit the
scholarship test. “On the day, there were, I think, around 200 or so other
children sitting it. It was a week or so before we were notified that they
wanted him to come back again. At this follow-up day, there were around 6-10
children called back and they were involved in discussions rather than actual
tests.

Our son was offered a junior scholarship a few days later.”
The income of both parents was assessed and Eton covered all the school fees.
“We supplied a detailed list of our income and expenses and Eton then set a
contribution level.” The parents paid “a small contribution each term” of
around £750 plus any expenses such as dinners, laundry, and society
subscriptions. “Our son got A star and A grades in everything, plus a clutch of
school awards and went on to read English at Cambridge.”

Word of the Day

Hedge Fund

A hedge fund is an official partnership of
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A hedge fund manager raises money from outside investors and
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use. There are hedge funds that specialise in "long-only"
equities, meaning they only buy common stock and never sell
short. There are hedge funds that engage in private equity, which is the
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are hedge funds that trade junk bonds.

There are hedge funds that specialise in property and real
estate. There are even hedge funds that put money to work in specialised asset
classes such as patents and music rights. In other words, unlike a Mutual
Fund or Unit Trust, hedge funds can invest in just about anything.

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