It’s long been sold as a dream: a leg-up via a private school scholarship to a better life for a child from a poor background. But new research suggests that this is just a dream: a report from University College London published on Monday suggests that nearly a third of bursaries and scholarships to private schools are in fact going to high-income families.
The report, published in the British Journal of Sociology of Education, broke down families receiving financial support for their children to attend independent schools into ten income brackets. It found that 17 per cent of all bursaries and scholarships went to the lowest earning three tenths, followed by 18 per cent to those in the middle three tenths, with 35 per cent going to the next richest three tenths. Then, the top tenth of earners were in receipt of 30 per cent of private school bursaries and scholarships. The report’s authors have argued that “current provisions do not make a substantive impact on the social exclusivity of private schools”.
Over the past few decades, many private schools have been trying to develop a “needs-blind” admissions policy, whereby a child is admitted based on aptitude, not their parents’ income. It is expensive, because it can often require funding covering 100 per cent of fees and uniforms on top of that, and is generally funded through endowment funds from wealthy former pupils. That funding then goes to the pupil in the form of a means-tested bursary, not a scholarship, and it is unhelpful that the study has combined the two forms of assistance. Schools are increasingly interested in bursaries, rather than scholarships, with the former focusing on means-testing rather than additional academic tests.
