How do parents afford private school

Lots of people i know work in private schools as teachers/ nurses etc so they get heavily reduced fees

I have friends & family in education & when they have costed up the salary, pension & discount they aren't actually better off vs paying out of salary with discount. Obviously some places must be more generous with discounts.

For us - banking and PR.

Do these threads just depress anyone else and make them feel like a total loser?

Lots of people i know work in private schools as teachers/ nurses etc so they get heavily reduced fees. Lots of grandparents help out too. Unfortunately staff discounts are on the way out and it's these less wealthy families who are unable to keep up with the increased fees and vat rises who are leaving now. Just makes the divide even bigger.

3 kids. 2 salaries. It’s not easy.

We remortgaged the house, took in foreign students and I took on a weekend job alongside my full time job, blocked off rooms we didn’t use in the winter so we didn’t heat them, no holidays, old cars. It was worth every penny.

We paid from income. However it is the sort of income that if I disclosed it on MN then half the posters would accuse me of lying about our income so I won't. But yes at the risk of being accused a liar some people earn enough to send 3 kids to private school but still pay their mortgages, pay into pensions, have savings, run their cars and have holidays and not have to make sacrifices to do so.

2 k a year for private? how?!

i plan to send mine private for secondary school only. fantastic primary/good results but I pay for lots of extra circ activities and tutoring to help (cheaper than private school for now)!

People earn a lot? My husband and I earn over £200k each(lawyer and banker respectively), with bonuses consistently over £600-500k annually for the house hold.

My husband comes from quite a privileged background but I went to the local comp in a small Scottish central belt town. Having a kid later to establish (lucrative) careers and only having one also helped.

Interesting @90swithcigarettesandalcohol I think you are right, parents' experience has a huge part to play.

I went to a high rated state grammar in the 80s, rather than a private school. Facilities were good, music, art, Latin, choirs, a debating society, a choice of four mfl. Sports for girls were tennis, dance, athletics, hockey, swimming, gymnastics. Libraries and science labs. 98% went to university.

When ds' turn came, our allocated state school couldn't even provide a French teacher. Results were dire. Bullying was rife. Ofsted said it was dangerous.

Faced with that, I've scraped together the fees from a pretty average income. I couldn't face feeling like I'd failed him for the next 40 years if I couldn't offer an education at least equivalent to mine.

We only have one DC and I have a non teaching role at the school so get a discount.l- this is the only way we can afford it, especially with the VAT now…

I only really know 3 people with kids in PS. One her husband works in the far east so pays no taxes on his salary, he rarely comes home though.
Another his wife inherited a lot of houses and that’s what they’ve spent it all on, they could have moved nearer to better schools, they don’t live in a particularly great area and his wife gave up work to transport child to and from school as in another town.

we have a family member who is spending nearly £20k on fees and we have no clue how she’s doing it. She had DC on her own (donor) was previously widowed so maybe from that. She also could have moved to be near the best school in their city but thought only PS would do. She struggles financially, only worked minimally for years, again to transport DC to school. She was an older parent and is now married to someone even older who is still working because they need the money. She rings to complain about the costs of trips and things and seemed unprepared at the rising cost from primary to secondary.

No, that's our gross salary

So you’ve got to earn at least like 34k before tax , is your 130k take home ?

It's also not just the cost of private school, uni is ££££ now and will go up. We want to give them chunky deposits for housing as again so expensive. I also worry about my own retirement and if state pension will move out further, may need private healthcare etc

We plan to send ours (one DC) by saving £1k per month for the next 10 years (DC is 12 months old now).

if we have another we could save £2k per month but would be a bit tighter.

combined income of £145k.

We are looking at sending our DC to private school but it would "only" be 26k a year for both. We would pay it from salaries, we earn about 130k between us. But also we are currently building up a healthy savings pot so we can still have nice holidays and anything else we might want over those years. There is no way we could pay almost double that in fees though.

Mixture of salary, inheritance, grandparents paying, bursaries… but remember 93% of children are in state school and more “only” children are in private

I agree it is a self perpetuating system to a degree. You are right that lots of private school attendees later send their children to private school.

But what I was trying to set out is that before fees massively outstripped inflation, it isn’t true that generational wealth/ land ownership etc was as significant a factor as you suggest. I really wasn’t an anomaly at my school. Nowadays private school is unthinkable for most.

I am well aware of how insanely privileged I am to be in a position to manage it. But I grew up pretty poor until I was about 7/8 (at which point both my parents were promoted and we were suddenly better off) and that isn’t the experience of most parents of private schools these days because now you either have to earn an absolute fortune or have help from family money.

Out of salaries. Both of us earn c150k and that’s for 2 kids. Delighted it’s coming to an end. School has been great but I wouldn’t necessarily make the same decision again.

My son’s best friend had all his fees paid by gp’s.

Fees are about 2/3 of your amount.

DS went for a maths scholarship aged 10. He won it which got 50% discount off fees.

I cut back to the bone on all other spending, delayed planned work on our house, cancelled holidays (easier than it sounds since covid struck six months later and I didn't have any choice). Worked from home so didn't need clothes. Spent nothing that wasn't absolutely essential.

I have one year fees left to pay. I was paid off from my job last autumn and the redundancy money will cover the VAT. I managed to find another job within a week or two.

Summer 2026, I shall collapse in an exhausted heap in a darkened room. 😁

Prices have gone up significantly in recent years to the point where value has to be considered as well as affordability.

Agree with this, 30k plus a year is a significant amount of money. For us the value added wouldn't offset the lifestyle change, future security, choosing to only have 1 dc etc.

My friend’s dc go but they get 75% discount as she’s a teacher in the school and they have no mortgage (her dad paid it off for them 7 years ago). Their salaries add up to £100k between them but they are definitely lower end of the spectrum in terms of earnings in the school.

Honestly, don’t bother with prep. The state primary kids who went on to the private (which my kids were) had no issues with the work or the kids. In fact my two were more knowledgeable than most (if not all with my younger) of their new classmates. No disadvantages at all.