Financial support for student on non grant course

rajohnson

Hi my Granddaughter has been offered a place at a respected Drama college in London. Unfortunately this is a non government funded course, therefore non UCAS course which means no funding not even a student bank account. She cannot live a home and commute as the distance is too great so she will near maintenance also. At the moment we can find no support for her anywhere, the college has 1 scholarship which has gone elsewhere. Does anyone have any ideas where we may be able to get funding in the form of a loan or grant. Thanks in advance for your help.

MalMonroe

Hi, if you or your granddaughter google 'funding for drama course', there are lots of links that pop up.

For example, this one gives some ideas for funding -

https://actinginlondon.co.uk/pay-for-drama-school-training/

It might take a while to work through the links but it'd be worth it if you could find some funding. 

Spendless

rajohnson said:

Hi my Granddaughter has been offered a place at a respected Drama college in London. Unfortunately this is a non government funded course, therefore non UCAS course which means no funding not even a student bank account. She cannot live a home and commute as the distance is too great so she will near maintenance also. At the moment we can find no support for her anywhere, the college has 1 scholarship which has gone elsewhere. Does anyone have any ideas where we may be able to get funding in the form of a loan or grant. Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi, this will be a foundation course and there isn't any because they are private courses offered by the drama schools.. My daughter is doing exactly the same (change around this week she was due to start  a degree at a lesser known place and got an offer for foundation  this week from a more prestigious place). They are private courses and therefore you have to fund them. Sometimes as you say the schools concerned have scholarships, but I believe they are for tuition only, you'd still need money for rent and living costs. In your Granddaughter's case the scholarship has been awarded elsewhere so you're looking at tuition costs (which aren't cheap), rent and living costs We are digging into savings to pay for our daughter to be able to go.

I sympathise as I  do find the system biased towards those who can live at home or with a conveniently situated relative and commute in,  compared to those who have to live away because it's too far to travel daily.

There are a handful of drama schools that offer a funded foundation year, a CertofHE ,which qualifies for student finance, but at this point in the year I'd be surprised if they still had places available and even if they did, you would still need to go through the audition process . Which drama school is it? PM me if you'd rather not say publicly. I have spent loads of time learning about drama school applications, I think it's becoming my mastermind subject - lol!

I will also say despite my daughter now doing one, foundation courses at drama schools are no guarantee of getting onto a full time course the following year (something I've pointed out to mine!) though they might help towards it.  

rajohnson

Thanks for the feedback, you are unfortunately confirming my research. Best of luck to your daughter as she, and my granddaughter, are embarking on a rewarding (if successful) but difficult career.

rajohnson

Hi Spendless would like to have a PM chat with you but I have no idea how to do this on this forum. Any clues?? We are having great difficulty finding accommodation with a decent contract terms.