How do parents afford private school

It’s not a magic bullet. But parents have a responsibility to get the best they can for their child. Id feel I’d failed in that regard if they had to attend the state free schools. All so I could afford to buy some crappy consumerist crap. It’s a question of how highly you value education. And many people don’t. Which is a shame.

Anyone with a finance or solicitor husband stays at home that we’ve met as those husbands seem to work the longest hours

Lol. I have a "finance husband" but i also lead a team of 40 in finance! Lots of my senior colleagues in finance & law are women with kids.

We could afford it but we'd have a lot less than we'd like for other things. Salaries £200k & £120k (part time, will be £150k when I return to full time).

The people we know paying it:

• high earners (£300k plus)
• grandparents paying
• had family help/inheritance meaning they have lower/no mortgage
• or are med/high earners but willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING to pay it because they think its a magic bullet

I meant NQs. Not trainees. Obv I’m talking about US and MC firms not the high street firms.

Some people are lucky to have inheritance or their kids have an inheritance. Some people get it funded or part funded through local authority if for SEND reasons. Some people just do have really good salaries, or work more than one full time job per parent. Some families choose to send only one child (if for a particular reason that that child needs it more) and/or only some years of their schooling - then save in advance/pay off loans for many years before/after. Some people remortgage their houses. Some children get scholarships or bursaries to help with the cost. Some families share the cost if there are cousins with a big age gap so that two or three families are paying into one set of fees at a time for a long period of time. Many families probably juggle several of the above. It's just really dependent on what your alternatives are as state school options very different in different parts of the country and depending on if your child has particular things they need from a school.

I really really wish law trainees were on 200k as the norm! 😂

I know and I do see it at our school - there are more stay at home mums still. But our situation is that I'm the higher earner, and work longer hours, and my husband does the school run etc etc. But yes our fees are paid out of salary- no grandparents to help unfortunately!

@Namechangeno500Quite. I was relaying the experience of the families at our school not in general. Of course both parents can work long hours and utilise a nanny/boarding.

Our son will be starting private secondary school in September (attended state primary). My husband is a high earner, my income is average and grandparents have offered to split the costs with us. We are very lucky to have this option. Of the families taking the private route for secondary in my son's year, 50% are being helped by grandparents - to my knowledge- it's not something people will always talk about though.

High paying jobs for us. Fees paid for entirely from our salaries by DH and me. Which is the same for all our bills. We’ve never had family help, whether direct financial or childcare support (they wouldn’t be able to). We have three DC’s. Fees are around £60k a year out of taxed income.

But I suspect that grandparents do pay a lot of the school fees in my area (not London), or they otherwise subsidise and featherbed a lot of the lifestyle choices of their DCs/DGC.

Anyone with a finance or solicitor husband stays at home that we’ve met as those husbands seem to work the longest hours.

Sometimes us wives can be lawyers who wotk long hours too!

Most senior associates in law are still only in their late 20s or 30s, they are not the age group who are sending children to private school.

I sent you IB salaries to disprove your point that ‘even IB’ isn’t paying their junior staff that kind of money, because they clearly do. Just as PP sent you city law salaries.

You’re being deliberately obtuse in the discussion.

If I think about the professions of the private parents in our schools they include: doctors, dentists, architects, finance, solicitors, farmers, tech startups up folks, global execs for various companies including supply chain/IT/Quality/Ruegulatory/Sales, senior execs for pharma and med device alongside lots and lots of stay at home mums. Anyone with a finance or solicitor husband stays at home that we’ve met as those husbands seem to work the longest hours.

@EsmeSusanOggNo of course they don’t but then most people can’t afford private school. It was always going to be the high earners and with that comes global senior jobs with flexibility.

I've literally excluded IB from my very first comment so no idea why you're sending me information about IB salaries?

I also know what senior associate salaries are, which is why I said £300k is a senior salary!! Many, many senior associates in big law are well into their 30s and are still senior. You can have a big salary without being partner.

'Senior' does not just mean MD and partner - a very low proportion of people actually make it that high and still manage to have a high salary. £300k is a high, senior salary across most industries FFS.

Very fortunate. Most jobs do not have that flexibility. Even in the public sector, where the 'perk' of being able to work from home 2 to 3 days a week is given as a reason for substantially lower salaries.

I know senior manager roles in the civil service - even in Stem related subjects - where you will not earn more than £70k. Which is a decent salary, but not necessarily afford private school fees amounts.

@EsmeSusanOggEveryone I know is remote working and can live where they please so long as they can travel when needed. I probably make 5 long haul business trips a year. The rest of the time I’m working from
home and no one gives a fig where I live.

Plenty is stretching it a little. And it very much depends on where you are in the country. London, the tech corridor between Cambridge and Oxford... Sure. Elsewhere? Not so much.

I went to private school in the 90s. My dad was a CAD design engineer in oil and gas. To pay the fees he took overseas contracts which paid more and worked abroad a lot.

Modest working class background and worked his way up in the industry as an apprentice, he never went to Uni.

I had a 30% scholarship but it wasn't for any one thing. It was a special all round scholarship. I don't think such things exist anymore - you either have to be brilliant in sport or music or academics, or there are bursaries for low income families. Whereas I have a feeling my mum did some charming of headmasters. I remember going along to these meetings before starting the school and having to appear nice and friendly.

We did have a relatively nice house in a commuter town - good for the area. Most of my school friends (not all) lived in country houses with pools, or farms. We had 1 family holiday abroad and my dad had to cut it short as he had to go back to work. Similarly we went to Butlins one year and had to leave after a week as we ran out of money. Mostly we went on camping and caravan holidays.

I don't remember having a lot of 'stuff', but equally don't feel I went without - I got a part time job about 15 which paid for clothes shopping. It wasn't a flashy school, genuinely I would say most of the parents sacrificed on expensive holidays and conspicuous consumption and prioritised fees.

I don't think it's affordable in the same way now and that's because of the massive increase in wealth inequality since the 90s. We wouldn't be able to afford it now.

By being rich, or having wealthy family who also help pay.

You'll have a lot of people claiming to be be 'ordinary earners' shortly - but the majority will be higher or extra rate taxpayers.

We aren’t bankers or lawyers and make about 200k each. Plenty of STEM jobs pay that much in senior management.

Exactly. The US law firms pay a bit more than Magic Circle but no trainee solicitor is getting £200k. And also, we are talking about a tiny group of law firms out of over 9000 in England and Wales.

No “top” firms pay their trainees £200k and you didn’t specify the type of firm in any case. There are over 9000 law firms in England and Wales so top 50 is a very small group.

Magic Circle salaries

@springtimemagic which top law firms pay 200k to trainees?