• Even big and rich schools don’t always find it easy to provide bursaries. It’s less obvious, but nevertheless true, that it’s not easy for boarding schools because the amount of money needed to fund a bursary scheme that makes a difference can be massive. iii) Different schools fund means-tested bursaries in different ways. This book has concentrated mainly on schools that have funded means-tested bursaries through fundraising, but that’s not the only option. A school can find funds for this purpose from a variety of existing pots or even make some new ones: a school can cross-subsidise bursaries from fee income and it can do that with transparency or opacity; a school can use profits made from non-educational, commercial activities, such as the hiring of facilities; some schools can commit funds from their existing, often ancient endowment to that purpose; other schools are already transferring money spent on non-means-tested scholarships to means-tested bursaries; a small number of schools, like Colfe’s with the Company of Leathersellers, can direct funds from an external source; and an increasing number of schools see the answer over the horizon in setting up schools overseas and using income generated to fund bursaries back in the UK. iv) Some schools have been very successful at fundraising for bursaries. This book has enabled us to gaze upon – even listen to – some of the schools most successful in raising substantial sums for means-tested bursaries. These successes have made a material difference, even a historic difference, to those schools. More schools no doubt have an appetite to increase their scale of bursary fundraising but this will take time. It is worth remembering, the whole industry/profession of development and fundraising has only been in serious existence for just over 20 years and most independent schools are very small, with limited financial means to invest in development. v) Bursary provision isn’t only about the money and how you raise it. It’s about how you spend it. The schools that are most deeply committed to bursary provision expend as much time and effort on finding the students who could benefit the most as they do on finding the right amounts of money. That is vital when the expense of bursary provision is so high and the impact on those whom schools choose – or don’t choose – can be so great. If bursary provision is ‘life changing’, then schools, and those with whom they work, have to ensure that it is life changing for the better. To that end, it is vital that three parts of the school’s life – development, outreach and admissions – work together and understand each other. vi) Means-tested bursaries may be a Good Thing, but that doesn’t mean that the state will provide them. There have been times in the last 80 years when the state has collaborated with independent schools to make the sector more accessible to children of ability, whatever their means, through the Direct Grant scheme and the Government Assisted Places scheme. That ended in 1997 and, sadly, there aren’t any real signs of a reprise. There may be talk of open access in various forms and in 2017, the ISC offered the Government the possibility of up to 10,000 extra, jointly funded places, each year. This was rejected, even though the offer is still there. However, that does not mean that nothing beneficial can come from
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