How do parents afford private school

So bored of this debate but adding my position so others understand.

we have one DC in private education because they didn’t get into the local secondary and the one they got was miles away and really poor by Ofsted. Fees are 19k a year now (were 14k when they started, now in year 9). That’s because of the addition of VAT and a small fee increase.

We both vote Labour so although i don’t personally like the policy (!!) I understand it.

We are not wealthy but id say we are ok. This is what we earn:

55k each

And we make a lot of sacrifices. Less holidays, no pension savings atm, we don’t go out much. Buy everything on vinted. Rarely eat out, kids don’t get pocket money and both have ‘jobs’ to earn their own spends.

We are not loaded, we don’t play polo at the weekends or own horses but we are lucky we live in the north, our mortgage is £1300 a month, which compared to our london friends is quite low. My parents also ‘donate’ 10% of the fees a year to us so that helps a little. We still pay 17k. When our second DC starts in a couple of years we will have no holidays abroad for the years they are both there. We know this, we chose it and I’m ok with the decision. We have saved as much as we can already so we will have a little aside for her. They have no university funds saved as it’s all gone on school. And we do no home improvements etc that aren’t minimal.

I am not delighted about paying 20% more in VAT but I accept it’s a decision that will benefit state education hopefully. Sadly it’s making life pretty hard for those ‘in the middle’ like us but I know I could always pull them out and send them to the ‘inadequate’ secondary school nearby. But I would rather not so until then it’s living frugally. My DCs are not SEN, but I feel truly sorry for those that are that pay and have been forced to pay more just to make sure their kids get an adequate education.

A fairer system in my opinion would have been just to tax more high earners but I would say that because I’m not one.

Im sure there are many people reading this who earn around this level and can understand that actually we have to budget very carefully to afford this. We knew when we signed up what the price would be but the additional VAT means that that extra £3500 a year has to be found and it’s come out of our pensions, holidays and luxuries budgets. But i fully appreciate I’m lucky to be able to even consider private school for my kids. I didn’t go to one myself and neither did any of my family but I did go to a good comp and sadly that wasn’t an option for my DCs where we live so we chose to pay.

We could afford it but did not and both children got straight A’s at local comprehensive school. It’s not all its cracked up to be in some areas

Vast majority parents cannot afford private schools …. Tory’s have slaughtered state schools last 14 years , where the majority 94% kids go …. Thanks a lot Tory voters

Lucky you 85% of parents cannot afford private school…..

As I’ve said, it’s a question of priorities. The OP said they couldn’t afford it. I’m disputing that. They could if they wanted to; they’re choosing not to, because it’s not a priority.

I’m not surprised at all. Say between you, net total income per month is £10K. Not unusual to have a house in expensive areas of SE for £800K- let’s say mortgage is 600K so £3K per month at 4%. Can you really then comfortably afford £2K per month for child in private school? Not without serious saving in advance or extremely tight spending to a level that most people would rather avoid.

@TimeFlysWhenYoureHavingRumwho do you reckon coordinates this exactly? Quite a lot of the private school kids mine have graduated with have gone on to do things like teach. No one was consolidating wealth…more like haemorrhaging it in fees. Most people simply want their kids to not be in a class of 30 and to get a well rounded education. They’d happily send their kids state if the state was properly funded. No one is exactly dancing with delight to pay the fees!

We have 2 kids in private school. Both parents work full time and earn over £100K. We have a mortgage 2 cars and holidays but there is not much left over … we don’t do a lot of clothes/ meals etc . We save up to do one thing in the house / garden per year.

I’d be surprised if you weren’t able to afford private on that level of income. Rarely have I cash flow modelled private education for someone earning £200k who can’t pay that out of income. The only time was when the families had 4+ children. So I think it would certainly be doable if you chose to.

DH and I earn £200k gross between us and there's not a chance we could afford private education where we live (in the SE, not far from London). We did however buy an overpriced house a stone's throw from an excellent state school in the hope that that's a runner when our eldest is of secondary school age, which I appreciate is a privilege in its own right .

I think with the cost of living / inflation as it currently stands, private education will soon become confined those with significant wealth (whether through salary or inheritance), rather than the upper middle classes (and upwards) that it has been to date

My DC are currently at a state primary but DD will be going private in September for Year 7 as we have struggled to find a state secondary school locally that can support her SEN. DS is a few years younger so he will continue at state for now and we will then send him to the same school as DD for secondary. It's a small independent school and, thankfully, the fees are a lot less than many on this thread! Just under £20k a year, even with the VAT increase.

DH earns £90k a year. I am on £45k and work TTO so that affects my take home pay.
We are really fortunate that GP's have offered to contribute £650 per month towards fees. DD was also awarded an academic scholarship which gives us 15% discount so that also helps.

We're already in our 'forever home' in an area we love so no desire to move somewhere bigger and we don't mind cutting back on things like holidays abroad and new cars. We will still be able to live comfortably. If we couldn't go private I would most likely have to quit my job to Home Educate DD. The financial impact of that would be worse for us as a family, not to mention it would be devastating for me personally as I love my job! But of course I'd do it if I had to.

We paid from bonuses. There was never a year when there wasn’t enough to pay them but if there had been we had savings

The person can more than afford it but chooses not to because they’d have to cut back on spending on other stuff.

What patronising nonsense. So not having the money to pay £30k a year in private school fees means you don't value education? Yeah, right.

Well that certainly is becoming the case with Labour’s introduction of vat on them. Only the really wealthy can afford them now and the lower earnings have been priced out. A great shame.

Because you don’t value education as much as those who do.

High household income - both DH & I have been higher rate tax payers since our late 20's (now 53 & 55). I'm a saver/planner at heart so we didn't leave it to chance and have been saving/investing since the DC were born (in our 30's).

DH hit senior management (telecoms) before 40 and I would define it as having P&L responsibility. We've relocated several times across the UK to follow job opportunities/promotions when the DC were young - some of these were forced due to redundancies so it has been a career rollercoaster! We definitely realised that we would have to plan ahead for private education at the secondary school stage and made financial decisions like maintaining modest household expenditure (relative to income) because we were investing it. So, no fat pension contributions and overpaying a modest mortgage (offset) to pay it completely down before we had to pay 2 sets of secondary school fees (3 age gap so a 4 yr overlap of double fees). This was our route to affording it - having no mortgage by the time DC2 reached secondary school age. So, you could say that we sacrificed a more expensive house/lifestyle in order to pay school fees.

DC1 is now at uni and DC2 is at state 6th form so we have finished with school fees. The last year of double fees came to £40K which was before the introduction of VAT. If we were still paying now, it would be nearly £50k!

Which is exactly why they keep building more and more professional standard theatres and sports facilities and raising their fees far above inflation. If it becomes affordable it becomes pointless. Nobody wants to go to an affordable private school. If they did, somebody would have built one by now.

We live rurally, so our fees are 'only' 20k a year. DH earns a fairly good salary and my mum has helped out a bit. Still feels like we have no spare cash now, and I am extremely grateful that my younger one has got into an outstanding state school instead.

I don't think the aim of private school is to restrict social mobility at all. Yes, not many can afford it but if you can then why shouldn't you choose to spend your money in your child's education?

Each to their own....

We are looking at private school for our DS. We can afford the fees from salary and the fees will be £30k (but it’s not just fees - uniform is more expensive plus more expensive school trips, transport etc it all adds up). I earn £80k (I’m part time) and DH earns about £85k. For the last 3 years we have been putting money aside every month to help cover the additional costs beyond fees. When DD goes to secondary school we will need to remortgage our house to cover paying two lots of fees for the 4 years they overlap. This is a lifestyle decision for us though - DS is autistic and we just feel he will be lost in the state system with big class sizes. And we feel a lot of guilt about only sending one private hence the decision to remortgage when it comes to DD.

Most people are not supposed to be able to afford private school. That's the whoe point of it - to restrict social mobility and keep wealth concentrated in the top 1%.

And that is true of most people’s situation. What an ignorant and tone deaf comment by springtimemagic. I get she was responding to someone’s decision not to pay when they can afford it, but it’s outside the reach of the vast majority of parents.

Errr... no amount of avoiding consumerist crap will allow me to pay private fees of £30k a year 🤣

Failed....? Jesus Christ.

State schools aren't all awful you know. And not all fee paying schools are good...