Our daughter attends an independent secondary school on a full fee paying place. Shortly after she joined our household income dived to less than £24,000 p.a. due to the resession and her grandparents stepped in and loaned us the school fees for the past two years. However, they are now struggling and can no longer afford to help us. We now have to decide whether to move her to the state system or go cap in hand to the school. However, we have over £1,000,000 equity in our house (have lived here for 20 years), which I know sounds a lot but we do not earn enough to re-mortgage or even change our provider (we still owe £300,000). We also have around £15,000 savings for emergencies, which we actually owe the grandparents for the fees but they have kindly said we can sit on the money for now as it gives us security in case of broken boiler; car repairs etc - none of which can be funded from our income.
Wondering whether anyone has had a similar experience, i.e. applied for a bursary with property equity and savings, and whether it's worth asking the school for help or would they expect us to sell the house? I know the answer is to just ask them but it's not something we will find easy to do, especially if it's a crazy notion due to the property equity. I know on paper we sound well off but we are really struggling with day to day cost of living. Thank you! :)
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.
Secondary education
Financial Help / Bursaries
83 replies
ElleSusanne · 18/10/2013 10:47
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.