A graduate of Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School in Okotoks, Alta., Ali Poonja is now studying medicine at the University of Alberta. He credits his private high-school experience for his robust résumé.Amber Bracken/The Globe and Mail
Ali Poonja had a chance to travel internationally in high school to compete in speech and debate competitions. He tried telemark skiing, mountain biking and camping while doing the international baccalaureate program at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School between 2009 and 2012.
And when he applied for medical school at the University of Alberta after his undergrad degree from the University of Calgary, he credits his Strathcona-Tweedsmuir experiences for a robust résumé.
“I could list numerous things on my application that I did in high school, rather than the university level,” he says.
Mr. Poonja, 24, has finished his second year at U of A.
His family received financial bursaries so their son could attend Strathcona-Tweedsmuir in Okotoks, Alta. He also received a Forever Woods scholarship, a merit award for students demonstrating excellence in scholarship, leadership and character created in memory of seven STS students who died in an avalanche on a school outing in 2003.
Mr. Poonja’s family owns a bottle depot business in Okotoks, a small town just south of Calgary. His parents were originally from Tanzania. They went to the University of Calgary, his father in petroleum engineering and his mother in computer science, before settling on a different course with the bottle depot business.
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir was always on the family radar as a possibility.
“I really liked certain programs at STS including the outdoor ed program and I was considering doing the IB [international baccalaureate] program as well,” Mr. Poonja says. “I think my parents really liked it because of the IB program. They’d also known about STS. … They were always keen on sending me there.”
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir gave out more than $365,000 in financial assistance, in financial needs bursaries and merit scholarships, in 2017-18.CHIPPERFIELD PHOTOGRAPHY 2017
Tuition for 2018-19 at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir ranges from $15,450 for kindergarten to $22,930 for Grades 10 to 12. There are also fees including a $3,500 registration fee, a $700 transportation fee for off-campus activities, and an initial $800 to $1,000 uniform fee for new students. Many parents pay for busing from nearby Calgary.
Lara Unsworth, director of enrolment and communications, says Strathcona-Tweedsmuir gave out more than $365,000 in financial assistance, both in financial needs bursaries and merit scholarships, in 2017-18. The aid is available to both new and enrolled students. About 20 per cent of the student body of 660 is receiving some sort of assistance, whether needs-based or merit-based.
“Great business and community leaders come from all socio-economic backgrounds, so we believe to truly be a great school, we have to give opportunities to a wide variety of students,” Ms. Unsworth says.
A diverse student body, both in terms of socio-economic backgrounds and ethnic diversity, makes the school community richer, she says.
“I went to this school in late ‘80s, early ‘90s and there wasn’t a lot of support available. You sort of had to grin and bear it if your family was struggling,” Ms. Unsworth adds.
Many private and independent schools offer financial aid of one type or another now for students, including needs bursaries and discounts for families with more than one student enrolled. The aid money, particularly at large established schools which are the most likely to offer financial help, may come from endowment funds and fundraising drives. Generally information on what is available is included on school websites and in private school directories such as ourkids.net and the Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS).
The amount of help on offer is on a steep upward curve, according to Patti MacDonald, executive director at CAIS.
CAIS represents 94 independent schools — not-for-profit schools which go through an accreditation process every seven years. CAIS does regular benchmarking on its members’ finances.
“In the last year we collected data, 2016-17, 6,688 students received some form of financial aid in our schools, totalling about $72-million,” Ms. MacDonald says. That includes merit awards, but Ms. MacDonald says schools offer fewer merit scholarships than needs-based aid.
That aid figure has increased sharply, up 42 per cent since 2013.
Some of the trend is a function of the maturity of Canada’s independent schools and growing endowments.
“Our schools have beautiful facilities and, rather than building more, I think that leadership teams and boards of directors at schools are seeing financial aid as a greater priority than capital funding right now,” Ms. MacDonald says.
The needs have increased as well, she says.
“Maybe 10, 15 years ago when schools really began to explore financial aid, I think there was a different economic outlook and so middle-class families had to stretch to be able to do it, but could do it. We’re seeing a different economic landscape now where we’re seeing a greater distance between stratas economically. Now the people who are in the middle are really struggling to afford independent school tuition.”
The schools recognize they have everything to gain by ensuring a diverse student population, she adds.
“A school that is an excellent school will always strive to ensure that when their students graduate that they will always be able to be collaborative and talk to and understand people with different perspectives, different backgrounds, different points of view, different experiences. In order to build some competency in our students, it’s important they actually go to school in a diverse environment, rather than an environment where everyone has had the same experiences and talks the same talk.”
At Brentwood College School in Mill Bay, B.C., about one in four students receives some type of assistance, says Clayton Johnston, director of admissions.
The boarding school gave out close to $2-million worth of financial aid last year.
“We try to direct it philosophically to the Canadian domestic market,” Mr. Johnston says. Brentwood’s student population is 50 per cent from British Columbia. For 2018-19, the boarding tuition is $49,900 for those students, he says.
“One of the differentiators of our school is that 83 per cent of our school population is North American. My goal is to have anybody who comes from all around the world to have a North American boarding experience, not a Turkish one or a Chinese one or an Iranian one, because why else come all the way to Canada? So that is the purpose of ensuring that our financial aid goes to the domestic market.”
That said, there is still a wide diversity in the student population, says Mr. Johnston, with 17 per cent of the student population coming from outside the country, representing 41 countries. “It’s a Canadian boarding experience, but very diverse with only a few [students] from any one country.”
The school rarely offers financial-needs bursaries that cover more than 50 per cent of tuition, but they cover a wide variety of applicants and no student knows that another is on aid.
“We have factory worker kids here and people with names you know,” Mr. Johnston says. “You don’t know who has money and who doesn’t.”
Like many private schools, Brentwood uses Apple Financial Service to assess the needs of families applying for bursaries. Apple Financial does an arm’s length analysis of a family’s ability to contribute toward educational expenses.
At Lycée Louis Pasteur in Calgary, the structure of the school means the financial aid is a bit different from the typical private school.
“We’re a network school from the Ministry of Education in France,” says Amy Pollard, director of finance and operations. “Our French nationals are able to apply for bursaries directly from the French government and those are financial-need based.”
The school also has an internal financial-need program that offers short-term financial relief for families already enrolled who are experiencing financial difficulties. And Louis Pasteur, which brings in a number of French nationals as teachers, offers employee discounts of 80 per cent on family member tuition. Out of a student population of 400, between 32 and 40 students are receiving some type of aid each year, Ms. Pollard says.
Having the French government aid allows Louis Pasteur to have as many French nationals as possible in the program, says Ms. Pollard, which helps with the bilingual nature of the school’s focus. The number of French nationals varies from year to year. There were five French national students last year but there have been as many as 20.
The internal finance program provides aid so students who have started at Louis Pasteur can finish their studies at the lycée.
“There’s a security for our parent to know that the school is there to support them; that we don’t want them to have any gaps in their children’s education because they fall on a bit of a hard time,” Ms. Pollard says.