How do parents afford private school

In some families the grandparents are paying, or there may be a family trust fund specifically to pay for education.

In some families, both parents are high earners and they can afford the fees comfortably there's plenty of people who think that £80k is a pretty low salary.

In some families their earnings are more modest but they live very cheaply in order to afford fees.

Some people start saving when their kids are born and use state for the first 3-7 years then switch to private using 50% from savings and 50% from income.

Some people get bursary support.

Some people do just earn a lot of cash

I know that works some people but it's true

My local independent school charges £4772 per term for the senior school including sixth form. Junior is £3816.

If you're being asked to pay more than double that, find a different school.

We looked at sending our children privately. It was £36k for both to attend. We earn £100k between my partner and I, take home pay of £5000 a month between us. We have no overseas holidays, drive 15 year old cars and do not live luxuriously at all, but we couldn't afford the £3000 per month it would have cost us. That would have been my entire take home salary and part of my partner's, leaving us not enough to cover basic bills. As it is, we could afford to send one, but not both.
You have to be earning a huge amount to pay fees of £30k per kid as well as afford a mortgage, council tax, utilities, childcare etc.

I think grandparents paying fees is not unusual. My friend's child goes to an expensive private school, they are not high earners but the child is very bright and won a 90% scholarship. There are quite a lot of scholarship children at the school so it's more socially mixed than some might assume. Another friend has 3 children in private school but the school is at the cheaper end of the scale when it comes to private school and they live in modest house, old car etc.

Have generational wealth. Have super high salaries? There used to be assisted places where poor kids could go to private schools for free. But that stopped ages ago I think.

Most people I know who's kids go to private schools have funded it from inheritance, or the grandparents pay.
One friend chose to only have 1 child so they could send him privately so from 2 decent professional salaries that's quite achievable, particularly as they lived in a fairly cheap area.
Another friend who's put 2 kids through private school has a DH earns megabucks (they have 3 houses sort of money)

According to some research nearly 50% of fee paying parents receive help from family, generally grandparents.

I guess it’s maybe reflective of the area you live in, so as you’re in London I think the inflated fees are a result of the typically higher salaries. We’re in Birmingham and a secondary place fee is closer to £20k per year which we could comfortably afford on a joint salary of £110k without impacting mortgage payments etc. It’s something we could have sustained with one child but with a second now on the way we’ve ruled it out - one child, yes. Two, definitely not!

For us it's salary.

Dh is a high earner and I'm a not so high earning lawyer.

But the costs have gone up massively since ds started and DH got made redundant last year and had to take a lower paying role.

Whereas before we didn't really feel the cost we now do and I can't wait for ds to leave.

We're not sending DD as I don't want to commit in such uncertain times.

Othe parents I know pay from bonuses, remortgaged the house or earn a fortune. I know one family with 4 kids so circa £9k a month on school fees alone.

Parents pay it (the child’s grandparents) for the ones I know who go private school.

The same people who then Moan about how broke they are on Mumsnet with "only" 100k a year income.

DT’s went to a private school in London from ages 4-18. We paid the fees from our salaries.