Friends Schools Tuition Assistance Committee

3 Members (Meeting members). Term: 4 years. Meets in February. Reports in June.  Hosts in October.

Duties:  Following a schedule established from year to year by Friends Council on Education:

  1. Maintains responsibility for disbursing tuition assistance to children of Meeting members attending primary and secondary Friends Schools.
  2. Notifies Meeting members of the procedures and deadlines for requests for aid, usually through Communications.
  3. Ascertains from the treasurer the available funds.
  4. Allocates funds in one or two meetings and instructs the treasurer to issue the checks.
  5. Committee members are expected to maintain confidentiality regarding scholarship requests.

    2023 Annual Report, 2022 Annual Report, 2021 Annual Report, 2020 Annual Report

Applying

The application for supplemental tuition assistance for Quaker students planning to attend a K-12 Friends school in 2024-25 is now available on the Friends Council on Education website. The application itself takes about 5 minutes to complete (though reading the accompanying information will require a bit longer). 

While the largest source of financial aid for families with children in Friends schools is the schools themselves, Newtown Meeting, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM), and the National Friends Education Fund (NFEF)—working in partnership with the schools—seek to make a Friends’ education in grades K-12 more affordable by providing additional aid to Quaker families who demonstrate financial need. The grants from these three sources are applied for with the single application. Students are also required to apply for aid through the school’s financial aid process in order to be eligible for this additional tuition assistance.

While the application asks for the clerk’s signature, at Newtown Meeting, it is the clerk of the Tuition Assistance Committee–not the clerk of the meeting–who signs. Please email page A1 of the completed applications to Laura Kinnel, clerk of this committee, no later than February 12.  The completed form, with page A2 appended, will be returned to you via email to pass on to the school.  (Those who are not yet sure which school a child will be attending, should complete one application for each school.) The school will notify Friends Council on Education in June of those students who have applied for and are eligible for the PYM/FEF grant, based on the school’s assessment of financial need.

Families will be notified in early summer of the size of the grant that Newtown Meeting is able to make. To be eligible to apply for aid from Newtown Meeting, either the child or one parent must have been a member of the meeting for two years by the time of the application deadline (so for the 2024-25 school year that would be since at least February 2022). Those who have been members for at least one year prior to the start of the school year for which they are requesting aid are eligible to apply for the grant from the National Friends Education Fund/Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The PYM/NFEF grants are available for students attending Friends schools in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting area (including Newtown Friends School and George School), while Newtown Meeting funds are available for students attending any K-12 Friends school.

Contributing

Friends who are interested in helping to build the funds which are the source of this aid are invited to contribute to Newtown Meeting’s endowment for education (checks can be sent the meeting’s treasurer) or the National Friends Education Fund under the care of the Friends Council on Education.

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