How do parents afford private school

I am a single parent with one child who is in year 9. When she started in yr 7 fees were just over £10k per year, which was affordable on my salary, with a frugal lifestyle. After 3 years of fee increases and VAT, fees are now over £18K a year, which is 50% of my take home income. We will manage for the remaining 4 years, taking money out of savings, but I wouldn't have signed up at this cost.

I think there’s probably very different answers for London and elsewhere, as the cost of both the schools and affording housing are so much higher there.

My neighbour’s daughter is at one of the well known London day schools, and she says there is an extremely disproportionate number of only children.

I can see that paying fees for one could be manageable on a high but not spectacular income. Funding 2 or 3 however….!

We have 2 dc and pay that for each child. It’s from salary. And almost every child in my dc classes are not from this country and all working parents. So no generational wealth here.
I find it very laughable when people assume it’s always family money and can’t entertain the idea that it could be from hard work.

Private isn't always that expensive outside the SE - we're paying £18k per year next year per child (including the 20% VAT increase). We afford it by living in a smaller house than we could probably afford, having cheaper cars than we could probably afford, only doing private for secondary/sixth form and having planned ahead financially. As soon as ours finished nursery we put the money we used to spend on that into a savings account - this gave us enough of a pot to cover the years where we'd have both kids in private. It also fed into our decision to not have a third child (not the only reason, but one of them). No outside help from family & paid entirely from salaries/savings. Demographic of kids at our school is mainly parents in professional roles - medics, engineers, lawyers, accountants, academics and a few self-employed/business owners. Very few uber rich - just quite typical professional families.

The ones I know are all inheritance. I do feel a little sad I can't offer my kids the same opportunities my sibling can offer their kids based on inheritance from their partners side, but I guess that's life.

I think the news they are going has hit at a time where we're struggling to keep our DC's at the good state school near us

@Tonnnnnn it really depends on personal circumstances. I have a friend where the grandparents are paying for private school for example. There are also scholarships in the school my kids go to. We have 3 kids in private school that we pay for.

Even if you have high salaries now it's very hard with the cost of housing to fund it.

Some pay from very high salaries.

Some have good salaries but have cheap housing - due to getting on the ladder before things went crazy.

Some have family in pay

By working really hard.

Our fees were/are £15k per year and we only had 1 year of overlap for 2 DC.
I had been a SAHP so I went back to work and earned more than enough to cover the fees .
We have a very small mortgage and don't lead a flash lifestyle

We looked and it would be paid by salarys for us, which we could just about afford for two DCs. But we were concerned if doing that then if we lost jobs or had to take lower incomes or had health issues then we would not be able to pay. So we decided to move closer to better schools.

Grandparents are interesting.

how many grandchildren do they pay for? If you have two kids and each has two children, how the fuck so they afford four (or more) sets of fees? How do they plan for it?

I know one couple paid for their eldest child’s children, but when the younger one had children they couldn’t afford it. It was a massive family secret for years and there was a lot of gaslighting. Funnily enough the younger child no longer speaks to their sibling or their family.

another friend has a fair bit of money and could afford it. Their child actually asked them to pay for private school, but they said no because they had other children and if any more gdc came along they couldn’t pay for all.

But commercially successful if people pay it.

For us it's work pensions. We use those to pay school fees and live off dividend income.

We don't have a mortgage, so we just need money for living expenses.

We live by the seaside so don't tend to go on a lot of holidays, just city breaks.

School fees are our priority so we make sacrifices in other areas.

Definitely also people with one child making the decision to have no further DC in order that they can afford private education.

Lots of people I know just spend it on fees rather than other stuff. If I didn’t have an huge mortgage , expensive hobbies and holidays I could spend that on schooling. I just choose not to. It is a lot of money after tax now , so it’s not really affordable for most on a monthly basis ( especially if multiple kids )

Ds fee for sept have just been released they are £8800 plus vat per term. Its insane!

DH a doctor and me Global Corporate Finance Director

Well private schooling in England has always been dominated by wealthy people hasn't it. So property wealth / land ownership/ trusts / generational wealth account for a lot. Plus if it's what their families 'do' they will prioritise, borrow, or are gifted money for fees. Some people would do anything to avoid state schools. I even read about someone paying fees by running an Onlyfans site but I imagine that's much frowned upon by the old money crew!

Family money, especially if generations have been to same school. Granny will often leave money in will for it. I went to a private school, it was great. But my own children’s state experience is vastly better…more varied, heaps of opportunities. I’d not pay it even if I could afford it. Just my opinion.

We pay from our salaries but DH earns over £300k

My child’s grandad pays one third. We pay the rest from salaries.

We pay from salaries for our child that goes to a private school. We don’t send them there through choice, but due to the state school being wholly unprepared / unwilling to support their SEN needs. Their siblings are at state. Our joint salaries are £250k. I think a lot of kids are funded by grandparents / inheritance. It’s money really well spent in my opinion. If only we could afford to send all 4 kids.

Family money/inheritance. I have seen many many trusts set up with the intention of paying grandchildren’s (and beyond!!) school fees.