How to Apply for a Bursary

Bursaries can seem like a very complicated mine field from first view - questions such as, ‘is my family eligible?’, ‘how much can we expect to receive?’, and ‘how can we go about applying for a bursary?’ might immediately spring to mind. To recap the basic facts: more than 150,000 pupils at the independent schools which are a member of the Independent Schools Council (ISC) receive some form of assistance with fees. The value of that financial aid, per year, is more than £350 million.

That money could be made up of scholarships or bursaries that are awarded directly from their school, or other types of bursaries or fund awards that might come from other charities, trusts or charitable foundations. Each bursary will normally have a slightly different application process, but here we will look at the general way to go about researching and applying for a school bursary for help with fees.

Note there is a difference between bursaries, and scholarships (which you can read about elsewhere on this website) - the latter are normally decided by merit, be that academic or artistic, or musical, and so on. By contrast, bursaries are normally purely decided by financial need - they are means-tested and are aim to help re-balance schools’ social make up to help each child who has the potential to succeed at the school to attend it.

Researching Your Options

The first step to determining whether your family is able to apply for a bursary is to research the options available. Bursaries tend to be offered by most independent schools, but not all, so look into this. As you put together a list of schools for your son or daughter to apply for, look into their funding options. This will normally be listed in the prospectus, but you may have to do some further “digging” and speak to the school directly.

Once you have had contact with the school, if you still want to discover more about local bursaries run by organisations such as charities, churches, funds and so on, you can find ‘official’ reference information in school guide books, but you may have more success speaking to less official sources such as other parents and past pupils, who may be able to tell you about other sources of funding that they or other local families have been offered.

Filling in the Application Form

Once you have decided exactly which funds and school bursaries are worth applying for (first ensuring you are eligible - don’t waste school or charity time if you know your family income is above the threshold for the bursary, for example) then fill in the form carefully. You will need to provide evidence of household earnings, such as family pay slips; you may also need to provide references from someone in a position of responsibility such as a family doctor or faith leader. Do not be embarrassed about sharing the intricacies of your family finances; the information should all be dealt with absolutely confidentially and the officials involved will deal with it in a professional manner.