What’s the fair way to pay for this?

Perfectly well aware, but you claim your career / future earning capacity was greatly impacted so might have been a useful expense.

Your income including maintenance is equivalent to a salary of £75k, and his after maintenance is equivalent to £89k so there isn't a huge deal of difference really.

However, with a combined net income of circa £110k and 2 households to run I'd seriously question whether you can really commit to school fees of £30k per year.

I'm sorry but you don't have a leg to stand on. If you are divorced and both agree your daughter should go to private school, you both need to pay equally. I don't see how that would take away from your current support though?

It’s not my bar at all, I’m not in op’s position.
She didn’t have the benefit of one of these men so I don’t know what your point actually is?

Tell him you cant afford it and if he wants her to go, he pays. Either he stumps up, or she goes somewhere else. Job done.

I am sorry to say this but "you are paid £60k but your career is affected" (so presumably you believe you would be paid more if you hadn't had kids). Right. Many families with 2 parents working don't get paid £60k between them. And you have savings he doesn't know about. Without meaning to sound unkind, try thinking about people who are cold and hungry after they've spent 40 years in a stressful, minimally paid job. If you wish to send your child to private school, I'm sure you'll find a way.

They might do, but we need to stop that rhetoric. Many men actually parent equally. Many men give money for their child's upkeep proportionally, recognising that women's unpaid labour, shouldn't be unpaid. Hope you don't like to limbo because your bar is well too low.

£30k a YEAR?

Holy crap.

You both want it, so 50/50 is fair, whatever the maintenance.

I agree that the extra (school costs, which isn't just fees) should be split proportionally. You need to talk it all through, trips, kit, transport, materials etc. Your savings are your business now you've split.

I just wanted to say good on you for hiding your savings. It's what men have been doing forever without a second thought. And I bet they congratulate eachother on a job well done.
It's time women start playing the game too! 😉

I thought you weren’t actually together? Nursery runs / unwell days could have been covered by a nanny?
I can’t really see where your “no hope for women” comment is coming from, tbh. Plenty of women do it.

On take home pay, you would clear 3.8k and he would clear 5.8k. After maintenance this would give you £4.7k and him £4.9k. So your fairly even in terms of disposable income. Given you both want to send DD I would suggest a 50:50 split.

However, given the fees are close to 30% of your JOINT income and fees have been rising substantially year on year, I would caution the decision as it doesn’t seem very affordable.

Have you looked at the current fees for higher year groups. They generally go up considerably as they progress to secondary school age. If you don’t see your career progressing will you be able to afford the fees in the future. Also there are lots of other extra costs that go with private schools- more expensive uniform, trips, music lessons etc how will you organise the funding for that?

You’re getting an undeservedly hard time OP. Unfortunately MN often seems to hate

1. private school
2. unmarried mothers
3. inheritances

I’d give up on getting a sensible answer here.

Your DC has two parents with good incomes and savings. The fairest way to split fees is proportionate to your net salaries. Leave child maintenance out of it as this goes towards food, clothing, shoes, the roof over her head, heating etc. extras should also be shared proportionately.

If I was in your situation I would ask if he could pay extra for school fee even if it meant less maintenance.

You’ve said that you want more though - you want the cms and for him to additionally pay more than half of the school fees .

All of that while hiding your own savings

so no I don’t thing you are doing women anywhere a favour with such an entitled attitude… if anything you’re deepening the usual gender stereotypes -high earner man, poor woman who sacrificed her career / make him pay for it nonsense.

Agreed

If you were a couple I'd fully agree. But you're not.

He's being a shit parent to his DD for sure. You're choosing to pick up the slack because you're a dedicated parent. But he owes it to DD, not to his ex or her career.

You need to get out of the couple mindset.

It is really sad that he doesn’t want to see more of his child. But hiding savings to punish him financially is not good.

On affordability, it helps to think of the school fees as ‘net’ and be clear on how much would you need to earn to generate the gross income for £15k/£30k net.

As others have said, extras are really key - some school bus costs are £1k per term. Lunches can be several hundred on top. If he will refuse to give you half on costs then it will get harder.