To think if you can no longer afford school fees...

" Do you mean to be so condiscending? I never said that I had an average income or that private school parents have an average income"

Did I say it was you? No. Stop being so defensive. It has been portrayed on here a lot that PE parents are very average incomes.

I think you have misunderstood. If you read all of my posts on this thread and all the other similar threads I have posted on you will see that I am not in favour of this policy and have argued against it continuously. It is the poster that I was responding to that was using a figure of £10k in her defence of the policy. I don’t actually think it is that common for senior schools. But I also know that there are lots of people stretching themselves with the £15-£18k senior schools.

Not it hasn’t, it’s been portrayed that there are a lot of private school parents not earning megabucks. Which is true.

Then why not move to areas with outstanding state provision?

And get to it before they add cgt to the family home.

My oldest goes to one of the top ten state schools in the country. To get my youngest into a decent comp in the same area would cost us around £100K to buy the same sized house as we have now (plus the stamp duty and other moving costs.) And a decent comp wouldn’t be suitable for him just like the outstanding comp that I went to wasn’t suitable for me. “Outstanding” means nothing if the school doesn’t meet your needs.

@Willyoujustbequiet

This is a question that I've asked a lot too. If you have 132 k to spend on 6 years of school, isn't this better invested in a house that will most likely provide a financial return in the end?

I think the answer is that most people privately educating already live in these areas.

"No it hasn’t, it’s been portrayed that there are a lot of private school parents not earning megabucks. Which is true."

I don't think I've ever said they're all earning mega bucks, I've said that I think the vast majority people paying currently 18k for school will have flex in their budget to cover this. For higher priced schools, or multiple kids the likelihood is even higher.

And I’ve said that 90% is the vast majority but that still means that the policy raises no revenue.

Fair enough - I’d assumed you were for the policy. I too know lots of middle earners paying for private fees at all sorts of price points between £8k up to £26k and above. They’re all teachers, doctors, academics, software engineers, quantity surveyors, writers, civil servants, even vicars, not the really wealthy (I don’t know any super wealthy people!)

I also know a fair few who are paying, say, £8k or 10k because they’re on a 40 or 50 percent bursary at a school charging 20k, or similar. The posters here never seem to think of this - that it’s likely to be kids with bursaries whose parents can’t absorb the extra VAT, not those paying £21k out of their own pocket. Either the bursary kids go back to state, or the schools up the bursaries and give fewer of them - either way the ones who lose out are the children whose parents aren’t particularly wealthy to begin with.

And £8k-£10k is spent in a year by loads of middle and working class earners on holidays, home improvements, cars, all sorts of things. Many working people earn a fair whack and spend their money on holidays, going out, electronics, new kitchens, all sorts. (I could do that but we’re resigned to no holidays and a rented house with a bargain-basement old car in order to pay for DD). I’m resigned to paying the extra VAT; but for me that’s money I would have spent in the economy on quite mundane things like getting a haircut or buying sone new shoes. (I just came back from a trip to our local shopping centre where I was shocked to see that around 70 percent of the shops have recently closed down. Just what we need right now in the economy: more contraction in retail spending!)

Did I say it was you? No. Stop being so defensive. It has been portrayed on here a lot that PE parents are very average incomes.

I'm not sure the average MN.poster has any idea what an average income is seeing that there are multiple posts about how a salary of 60-75k makes them feel poor.

Why do people stretch themselves to pay a mortgage? People make all kinds of financial decisions for all kinds of reasons. But I'm at the end of my knowledge here. I don't ask nosy questions of all the other parents at my school about their financial situations! When there was a change in the uniform there was a big fuss made about the cost of buying new when kids hadn't grown out of the old. Is that because people didn't have the budget, or people just don't like waste? i don't know.

Oh, I completely understand. I was paying two lots of prep fees when I was earning £38k before tax. There was no way I could have sustained a 20% increase at that point. Luckily I only have one in private now.

Well, basic economics, say: if that’s over 5 or 7 years then I don’t have that £132k in ready cash; and what if even £10k or £20k on my salary per year doesn’t add enough to buy me a house at all, never mind in a nice catchment?

Say my partner and I earn 60k gross between us and spend £10k per year net on school fees. £60k is enough to buy a house costing £200k, if we can get a mortgage for 3 x household income (lucky!) and have a £20k deposit. That’s £200k. But houses in our area cost upwards of £400k and in catchment for a good school they cost £650k plus. We can’t afford to buy anyway, much less so buy a house in a “naice” catchment, so why shouldn’t we rent and pay £10k school fees?

Say, instead, we earn £60k and already have a big mortgage on a house that’s valued at £450k in a not so good catchment. But houses in the “good” catchment are £700k plus. We get a salary increase to £75k gross household income, and after tax can just about afford £10k for school fees, maybe on a bursary. That extra £15k gross household income doesn’t allow us to get enough mortgage to get a bigger house at all, never mind one in “naice” catchment.

Maybe we don’t own our £450k house at all: say we’re on 40 percent shared ownership and rent the rest. That extra £15k gross salary increase isn’t getting us anywhere near buying a new house in any catchment - it isn’t even enough to buy additional shares in our existing house. But we can pay for private school - just about.

Plenty of reasons why someone might be able to just afford to send a child private, but not be able to buy into a nice catchment area (or even be able to buy a house at all). However, if you have pots of unearned housing wealth to “invest” in a naice house, you get the nice state school free!

Why don’t you try looking at the figures? The IFS has a very informative site where you can put in your household income and see where that puts you in the U.K. a household income of 60k gross really does not put you high up. Even less so if you add high housing costs. I put in our household income with our housing costs, and came out in the bottom third of the income distribution in the U.K. 60-75k household income in a high housing cost area most definitely can make you poor. 60k household if you own your house or have low housing costs is very very different from the same amount in an area where it costs £2k plus per month just to rent a bog standard 2-bed flat.

@MyBoiledEggIsTooSoft
Thank you. I’m sorry you suffered so much when younger. I hope you are better now.

@ChocolateFinger222
I am sorry your child is also ill. My dd additionally had a seizure medical condition ie a disability. As I say her heart stops beating. It isn’t as simple as saying she would just have to cope at state. She wasn’t coping and at the point of school refusing when I withdrew her. She just wouldn’t have been educated at all as I’m disabled and too ill to educate her.

https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in

(Make sure you give the relevant figures in gross and net, plus accurate housing costs, to get a true picture.)

"The posters here never seem to think of this - that it’s likely to be kids with bursaries whose parents can’t absorb the extra VAT,"

10k would mean a yearly increase of 1500 as they wouldn't be charged VAT on the full fee.

Over a year this is 125 quid a month or 28 pounds a week.

There may be SOME that can't find that but the vast majority will.

"Plenty of reasons why someone might be able to just afford to send a child private, but not be able to buy into a nice catchment area (or even be able to buy a house at all). However, if you have pots of unearned housing wealth to “invest” in a naice house, you get the nice state school free!"

This is stretching the imagination a little bit, unless bursaries are involved or grandparental help ( and we know that outside of the top income decile 4/5 kids aren't recieving any finance), there are few kids who's parents are paying full fees who won't be able to afford a house in a nice area. Year 7 to 11 at an average fee is 126k, that's a hefty amount towards a house.

But, as I said above, that £126k if paid out of income doesn’t just exist in cash! And even 20k a year extra is nowhere near the amount you need to get a bigger mortgage. At an income multiple of 3x (generous as with current rates it might only be 2x, or classically 2.5x), that’s an additional £60k purchasing power in total on a mortgage. With fees, stamp duty and moving costs, that might increase your possible total mortgage amount by £50k. Find me those areas in most of the country where increasing the cost of the house you can buy by £50k gives you a great advantage! The difference buying into “good” catchments near me is more like buying a house that costs £250k more than the average, not £50k more than the average. It doesn’t add up.

@asterel

70k with 2 adults and 2 children and 500 quid in council tax ( indicating a nice house in an in demand area) puts as being in the 6th income decile, so higher than average.

However, this is a bit contrived as we would usually just look at gross income or disposable income.

So lets look at that, 2 parents, equally earning 35 k would leave a household with 56,542 after tax, no pension contributions and no student loan payments ( which is unilkely). Keep their CT at 500, and then we have 6k per year off that.

So 2 parents and two children are going to have 50,542 to live off ( and these are people who are better off than average).

Give them an average mortgage payment for the uk of 700 ( unlikely but we'll go with the average rate, and then we are down to 42, 142. For bills, fees etc. Totally doable to pay private school fees if only one child goes, it might be a stretch but that gives an income for bills/food/holidays etc of 24142 or 2011 pounds a month.

Now can this family possibly flex their income to find the extra 225 quid a month for one child? Quite probably. Again its a stretch, but probably.

If they wanted to educate 2 privately they never had a chance of achieving that on this income.

My dd has disabilities too.Shes been in and out of hospital most of the last few years and often not been able to attend school. Many many kids in the state sector are in a similar situation. We both work full time and could never afford private education. She has to get on with state education as do many many other kids in similar situations.

My heart bleeds for you

" that £126k if paid out of income doesn’t just exist in cash!"

Most mortgages are granted on your income though?

Jesus is this thread still going?

So many people giving their two pennies worth with out even having a child or multiple children in private school.

It’s been a massive eye opener to me on MN that people can’t stand anyone seemly doing better than them.

That’s what it boils down to.

I'm in the bottom 10%, slightly up if I add in household costs but that is only because our mortgage is very small - near the end of a very low mortgage.