How do parents afford private school

I'm so curious to know what kind of sector pays £300k, twice the Prime Minister's wage! Could you say, even vaguely?

I'm a teacher at a private international school abroad and my children went to the local state school.The money I see every day at work is insane. Most parents are obviously not employees, come as a couple in extremely expensive cars to collect the kids after obviously being on the beach or lunch out or whatever. I earn less than €20k pa and I won't lie - I do wonder where does their money come from? How do they afford it, especially when some have 3/4 children? I know its absolutely not my business but fuck I'm curious.....!

@HausofHolbein I totally agree it's worth it. And yes, all those long hours of work are also a sacrifice....

We pay from salary, we have one earner but the salary is twice the figure in the OP. No family help or inheritance. We have substantial assets (built up from scratch and paid for from salary) although we don't use them to pay fees, but it gives us reassurance that we'd be fine if anything happened to our income.

We are in London and school fees are high. We have 2 dcs in prep, currently paying £24k a year. Most families at the school have one or two high earners, earning similar or more (in professions like law, finance and tech). There is no open discussion about fees though and no one has spoken of grandparents paying for fees. None of them seem to be making sacrifices - everyone is always jetting off on overseas holidays (including us), and most dcs have lots of hobbies and entertainment.

We put our 4 thru middle school private prep so 'only' 4 years each 7-11 crossing fingers to pass 11+ (and then paying £££££ on top for 11+ tutors) in a state grammar school area. 3 out of 4 passed - the one that didnt stayed in private until GCSEs and then went to the grammar for 6th form. Our house price has always been inflated due to being in state grammar catchment area and has had another boost due to the VAT increase but we bought it realtively cheaply and extended it over the years.

The one who did private thru secondary said that the state grammar was far superior teaching when they went at 6th form.

The hardest time was when we had 3 at private and employed a full-time nanny for the youngest. We both worked full time in relatively highly paid roles to spin those numbers over that financially draining period. Glad its all over now.

I only know a few people who send their kids to private schools, and they are high earning couples(anaesthetists, consultants, lawyers etcetera). I couldn’t afford it on a teacher’s wage and none of my close friends have children in private schools.

And meant to say, we pay out of income. No significant inheritance or family wealth. My mum left me around £20k when she died and my dad was a low earner and now survives on a state pension only. In fact, it’s me who has to supplement his income from time to time.

Private school for grandchildren is specifically an allowable expense when considering IT/deprivation of assets.

When my DC started at private school, I was earning about £38k per year. DC earned about £80k. They were both educated privately age 3-11, one is now in a state grammar and one in a private secondary.

I now earn £140 to £160k (depending on bonus) and DH earns around £90k. It would be tight if they were both in private secondary as the fees have increased significantly over the past 12 months AND we have a big mortgage (which also increased significantly after the Truss debacle).

If Grandparents pay how does that work in terms of inheritance tax/deprivation of assets?

Genuine question, neither of our families have any money so not an option for us but am curious!

We send our DC and have an income of £200k. It costs £27k a year. We are considering pulling DC out and just paying for tutoring. They are in private because state failed us on SEND and our DC would probably be a non attendee by now if they were in state. I hate doing it and not using state and resent that ALL our money goes on this at the moment after mortgage and bills

I know some ‘normal’ families that have sent their child to private school. Both only have one child, small mortgages, older cars and don’t go away on holiday unless camping etc
One of their parents works in a state school and due to ever increasing class sizes, reducing budgets and poor pupil behaviour decided that private school was a better option if they could stretch themselves to it.
The other family when the child was preschool the Mum was the stay at home parent, which they could afford but she then returned to work part time specifically so she could pay private school fees as her DH wages wouldn’t stretch that far.
In our area for lower key stages it’s just under £4000 a term.
We have 3 children and no way could we afford to send them to private school. We have fairly local grammar schools which one of our children attends as they wanted to take the 11 plus. My other children attend usual state schools, I’ve noticed a big difference in class sizes, behaviour etc at the school they have attended since the oldest went there and now the youngest does.
If I could afford it I would definitely send our youngest to private school, he is a little behind and the smaller class sizes etc of private schools would possibly help him to thrive.

A massive percentage of parents at DD’s school had very generous grandparents paying the DC’s school fees

I work 75+ hours per week. My salary is large. I make daily sacrifices.

DH's salary is also large. He also makes sacrifices.

No GP funds.

No generational wealth.

Education is worth it.

Oh I totally understand. It wouldn’t be enough for me but we have quite a large mortgage, we moved to a place with outstanding schools so invested in the house . ( albeit with a larger income too) I’m sure you’ve planned well.

We pay without help. We have saved the money through both of our profits from the sale of businesses. We moved to send our children to a top 5% state primary school now both are in private secondary. The cost of the move to the
outstanding primary plus tutors far outweighed the cost of the private prep fees. Plus we have a better quality of life living here and have gained more equity in the house, which was also funded entirely by the sale of the businesses.

good luck, good timing, and good decision making as well as sheer hard graft.

Of the people I knew in London with children in private school, high salaries seemed to be the main source. Many families had at least one parent in the city, often in law, finance or tech. But inheritance and grandparents were heavily represented too. Also, schools seem to have quite a few bursaries in the 10 - 20 % mark (but hardly any that would enable someone on an average income with no help to afford it).

I suppose it depends on other outgoings. I’m not nervous at all - it’s well under a third of our take home salary (and that would obviously only be for the years we had both there at the same time). It’s not that different to what we paid in nursery fees! And we were earning 30k less then than we are now.

Thank you! It’s a daunting thought now but we have years before we need to worry!

The privately educated kids I know whose parents have shared how they pay the fees:

1- father killed in an RTA, fees paid by insurances.
2- moved to a cheap area to reduce mortgage.
3- paid off mortgage early due to inheritances and a huge amount of overtime (they worked very hard, fair play)
4 - Father works offshore in oil industry; mum's a barrister (different families) - paid from salary
5 - Grandparents pay fees

Congratulations 🙂.

Parents both doctors, people running their own local businesses including a wine merchant and a chain of three local restaurants, bankers, actor, surveyor, teachers with one parent working at the school who has a discount, vineyard owner, posh vicar with family money, landed estate/big farm, builders, couple who ran a local care home, military, local corner shop owner/manager, people in tech start ups. (Off the top of my head, from private schools where I’ve worked).

I agree that £100k plus jobs are far more ten a penny than some people seem to think. They're also not generally enough to fund private school. We are loosely aiming to send ours at age 9. With a household income of around £200k in the North, we can only really do it by saving a big chunk of fees in advance. We hope to get to £200k in savings, pay the fees out of income and use the savings as necessary.

Around here private secondary is about £6000 per term. Plus the extras and VAT. But base tuition of, say, £18k per year. Divided by 12. £1500 per month.

We don’t wish to pay that much, but we could if we wanted to. Household income of maybe £100k a year (Dh is a director so not strictly paid a regular monthly salary). We afforded £1100 a month in nursery fees when we had a household income of about £45k. 🤷🏻‍♀️Only one child in secondary at a time due to well planned age gap. It would certainly be possible.

DH income 250-300k annually depending on how his company does

we could pay the fees pretty comfortably for three DC on that (no mortgage + we drive v. Average cars + holiday in France + Pembrokeshire rather than the Maldives)

but we inherited a chunk from a great grandparent which will cover it all - and sits in a ring fenced school fees account.

basically it’s some combo of luck, hard work, priority + innate privilege… slightly diff for everyone.