In my uniformed school, decades ago, money didn't matter as much as size. The big popular guys kept the rich guys around to buy them things.

Edit: power came from physical strenght, attractiveness and sports proficiency. Very much an ancient greek ideal, lol.

Bullying is about power. Bullying can be about money when you don't normalize the population for money. Nowadays you would need uniforms and school provided phones, I suppose. Never in America.