How do parents afford private school

Not high earners here. We live very frugally to send our child. Fees have gone up astronomically in the last 5 years but he’s there due to a complete failure of the state system where we live to meet his needs.
we only have one old car, shop in Aldi, don’t go on holiday or out for days etc
It’s tough when I see other people buying new clothes and going to concerts etc but we only have one year left. We pay our fees monthly, and I know others that pay more in nursery fees than we do

Are you sure that’s a year and not a term?

My kids went because my ex paid it. He was a high earner (I don’t know how much as he was cagey like that, but on top of school fees for two kids I also got circa £3k in child support pm so he must have had a very good salary). All history now as I’m on a low income (he’s on even more money now but I don’t benefit in any way). Kids are grown up. It was stressful though as he used money as a weapon to me so I was very glad when they left school. I would advise my two to try and put their own kids, if they have them, in the state system unless they have a ton of money,

We paid out of income and savings to start with and there was very little overlap where the DC were at fee paying schools at the same time. Similarly to child care all through my income went on school and DH’s kept a roof over our heads.We used to go on holiday but it would be far from 5* luxury and we didn’t have new cars or lots of clothes etc. DH inherited some money while DC 3 was at school so that took the pressure off. Lots of people were on our situation, some were subsidised by GPs and some had very large London salaries. The DC were not at private schools from start to finish , they went to a variety of schools.

We pay from salary (jointly we get just under £200k gross). It covers one child
and still allows for mortgage payments etc.

When the mortgage stops, we will be able to pay for 2 children from salary.

By not having two children, for a start.

It widely varies- at the cheaper end I would imagine parents make sacrifices & have help maybe.

Some of the most prestigious independent secondary schools charge up to 50k a year if a student is boarding. That's serious money.

Grandparents for us. My in-laws are self-made and incredibly rich, and have up until the last couple of years shared none of that with us, but grandchildren are a whole different ball game (along with a couple of enormous tax bills for them which prompted them to realise they’d be better off actually spending some of the money they’d hoarded over the year rather than sending directly to HMRC…).

So ironically despite being in solidly middle-income careers at the moment, we know we’re there for the long haul even with the new VAT rules which is quite a reassuring position to be in.

I realise how very lucky we are.

We’re considering paying for private school for our son. We have large age gaps between our children, so we will only be paying for one child at a time. The fee is £6.5k per year.

DPs salary is £160k. He also gets large bonuses (this year was £22k). I earn approx £30k (fluctuates as I am self-employed). We also receive low rate DLA for our son (he has ASD and ADHD), as well as child maintenance, so that money will also go towards his private schooling. We can afford it on our salaries without that though, but appreciate we are on almost £200k basic.

For us, we downsized to a small mortgage-free house. I work in my own business, including weekends. I also work a second job. My husband is well-paid, but also works a second job. We don't have expensive holidays, we don't fritter money away. We have one more year to go for DS and then can exhale.

We couldn't have done this if we'd had more than one child though.

That’s not true. School fees have outstripped inflation by miles. When my parents sent me to private school in the early 90s, they were immigrants and professional but middle income earners who sacrificed a lot and scrimped and saved to send me. Very modest house, very few holidays, no extras. It was doable then and there were many others at my highly academic private school in the same situation.

It’s very different now. My DH and I do send our DD to private school and it is largely funded by generational wealth (his not mine!) in that we were able to buy a home using family funds. School fees we pay with our jobs and we are lucky to earn enough to do so although it’s a bit of a squeeze despite a good joint income. We don’t earn so much that I don’t have to think carefully about general spending. It would be entirely unaffordable if we had a mortgage too though. Other parents at the school are either really high earners or have benefitted from generational wealth like we have. I no longer think it is possible to simply scrimp and save to cover fees anymore.

If you have a mortgage, you need to earn above 200k between you in order to afford one for 1 child. We have considered it with DH but we cannot afford it, so pushing DS for 11+. School fees around us are ca. 30k per year and most of the people who go there - many parents came from Dubai, they have their own businesses, work in finance, drive Teslas and live in modern palaces. We wouldn't fit in anyway.

Depending on the school there may be quite a few international students there too, so wealthy people from abroad are also propping up the system.

I think you don't understand just how wealthy some people are...

For every mc law partner earning 2-3m a year millions are earning a fraction of that. We don't have particularly high salaries here hence why earning 80k puts you in the 5% of earnings.

We earn around... 100-120k? per year, without any deductions.

We plan to send our kid to private secondary school. At primary school as long as it's a decent one, I do feel that if it's a supportive environment then if parents at home are invested in education, development and activities, private primary school is a bit unecessary.

Whereas secondary school is where it really counts. So we do plan to send our child to private school. Having looked into it, it's around £1000-1500 per month I think. Which is a month of nursery fees!

We've chosen one child so that we can ensure we can provide everything our child needs. With two, I don't think private school would ever be an option for us.

DT’s have left now but current fees start at £17 979pa and go up to £23,258pa

Depends on the family.

• high salaries
• have saved for years, whilst kids were young
• family help or trusts (very common in some schools)
• bursaries
• 2 parents working all hours (including shift work).
• Re-mortgage their house
• sacrifice other things (holidays/cars/eating out)
• decide to only have 1 child

I think you don't understand just how wealthy some people are...

just have to see a recent thread on here where a poster was complaining that an income of £180,000 wasn't enough ....

For us, when we come back to the U.K. it will be because of an extremely generous education allowance provided via DH’s job.
If we didn’t get that, we’d never in a million years be able to afford private for 3 DC’s.

We're in London and send our one DC to private primary. It's £6,500 per term (with VAT), but you also have to factor in lunches, clubs, holiday clubs, etc.

As far as I can tell, the parents in our year (for the most part) fund via salaries and there's a lot of high earners (e.g., investment bankers, private equity, etc.) and two-income households. We pay fees from our salaries and are relatively high earners (£250k me and £185k DH).

Also important to think about the fact that fees are paid with post-tax cash. Living in London with high cost of housing, etc., I think it would be a bit of a squeeze to pay fees even if both parents on £100k; especially so if more than one child.

We definitely felt the impact of the interest rate spike as our mortgage went from £2k to £3k per month. We felt very fortunate to be able to absorb that extra cost as I'm sure there are a lot of families where that sort of spike could drastically impact lifestyle, etc.

I don’t think any schools are run on a commercial profit motive basis. 95% of private schools in Scotland are run by charitable trusts, ie not allowed to make a profit.

We pay through our salary we only have one in private though, the others are fine in state. Earn £200k (gross) between us.

Neither of us have parents who could pay and I wouldn't want them too anyway.

It's no mystery OP, some people earn a lot of money, some people don't. Some people have inheritance/family money etc
This is how some people, including us, afford private education.

Alternatively some people have multiple jobs and never go on holiday so they can afford it.

Also some children are awarded scholarships so that helps too.

Guess we're lucky only paying 2 k per year for secondary private. The classes are big though (30 students) but since only bright well behaved children are admitted it's still better than state. And you don't get only the wealthy children which is good.

Thinking of the people I know from childhood, the privately educated once’s haven’t done any better than the state educated ones tbh.

I think expectations and parental involvement probably play the biggest role in outcomes.