Are private school fees really likely to increase by 7-10% a year?

In the schools I'm familiar with, the long run average over the last six to ten years prior to this year has been 6%. But this year it's been 10-12%, depending on the school.
It's reasonable to suppose 7-10% is the new normal. So a senior school charging 22k this year would likely be charging 35k in six years time.

We went private to enable me to work - (city worker and at the time no working from home). Local school had very very limited after and before school care. Felt it was worth it to avoid the hit to my career. If we had gone state I would have been a SAHM for those years - DH job is one when you can’t do flexible hours (he would have absolutely done this if he could). Every time I wince about how much we’ve spent, I remind myself that I wouldn’t have earned it otherwise!!

Unfortunately our school fees just improved by 11% ! Of course we are not happy at all about it. Not sure what's coming up next but revenues are not extensible.

Years 4 and 5 being blighted by 11+ tuition is a good reason

don't go private for primary unless you have a really good reason

Teachers’ pension scheme and heating costs.

Inflation- if food prices go up, meals cost more. If energy prices go up, heating and lighting classrooms costs more. Ditto labour costs for teachers, cleaners, groundsman etc

I'm in London. In a secondary black hole. There is realistically one option - a sink school with awful results and behaviour. There are lots of similar places in London, and even more people in primary black holes.

dipdips the point is everyone is trying to optimise and there's more than one way to do things. What's right for one family is not right for another and it's not as black and white as at the end they can sell their house.. London state schools are very good these days so it makes sense. Our local secondary school is dire..

Not necessarily… £12-15k a year for fees for primary is pretty much the same money ‘lost, plus the extra mortgage payments, and without the advantages of the private schooling

@Fudgeball123 Well done you! You must be very pleased.

dipdips is it?
They have a nice house, woman gave up job to run around doing the after school clubs (loss of earnings circa £120k per year) and they have a big mortgage and £12k per year extra curricular bill.
We have a bigger house, garden larger than a postage stamp, no mortgage, I can work full time as the school day is longer and there is less ferrying to be done..
I'm not sure its a financial slam dunk?

@tenbob still less than paying school fees!

But if you have paid a premium for a house in a catchment street, compared to a non catchment street, and your house price falls when no buyers want to now pay a premium, you’ve lost that money forever

it happened around me… houses within the 250m catchment for the v desirable school went for £100k+ more than ones 2 streets away which weren’t in catchment- identical Victorian terraces with no other discernible difference

The council then changed the entry criteria, moving out-of-catchment siblings below in-catchment new pupils, and the catchment widened to around 1km

There are people who have a house which is now less £100k more than they paid for it, which by any measure, is a lot of money to lose, especially if you had mainly bought the house to be in for the relatively short period of primary education

@passport123 they will still have an asset to sell though? You can’t sell spent school fees!

Unless the school goes downhill. For example Tetherdown in Muswell hill, one of the schools where house prices in the local streets are £££ was rightly downgraded from ofsted outstanding to good, on the basis that they don't push the bright kids because they are all being tutored for the 11+. That will have reduced house prices in the streets around the school.

Amen.

If it makes you feel any better, I for one would never vote Tory, regardless of whether Labour put 20% on my school fees.

A small number matters if a large proportion of the rest don’t bother to vote. i Never discount any group with vested interests (and neither does the Tory party).

@KleineDracheKokosnuss well thank goodness only approx 3.5% of families will have this reason to keep voting in conservative governments that have failed so much of the country over such a long stint in power 😂

I am more inclined to say we save some of the money to help our kids through Uni and with buying a house and then use the rest to enjoy life as a family - great holidays and days out etc!

do that^^

5% per year is the average. Some years it is more, some less. But the average is correct.

with current inflation, they’re going to rocket. We moved house in part to avoid having to pay for private, and it’s far cheaper to take on the mortgage in a better school area (and you get an asset at the end).

i still keep an eye on the fees at the old school, and we’d have been paying an extra 12% on child 1 this coming year.

oh, and if Labour get in with a majority I do think that you can add 20% VAT to the school fees too, pretty much immediately. You’ll have a vested interest in voting Tory forever.

@Going back to your very first comment, no 7-10% fee increases are not the average in the independent sector. Of course individual schools vary but 7-10% pa has neither been the historical average in the U.K. nor the average this year.

In the first 20 years of this century fee increases on average were circa 4% pa, whilst inflation was more like 2% pa. Then came covid and in most cases fees were frozen or only had a 1-2% increase applied in 2020 and 2021. Most schools also gave discounts (20% and 25% in my kids case) for the lockdown terms when the sites were closed.

In 2022 we experienced the double whammy of high inflation and the drag effect schools felt of the lower fees charged in 2020 and 2021. This resulted in fees increasing by more (4.5% and 7% in my case). 7% is the highest increase % applied at any of the big name senior schools that I have seen in 2022. If inflation continues at high rates then I guess fees will have to keep pace with inflation (at whatever level), but you might assume that your salaries would increase also.

One thought from me is maybe send your children to a state school for key stage 1, thereby saving some fees and then only move them to prep for key stage 2 at age 7 or 8. In my opinion the difference between state and independent provision becomes more and more noticeable the older your kids get.

@Fudgeball123 Still, they will have a house to sell even with a big mortgage (which they are paying off.) They seem pretty sensible in their choices as you never see school fees back again, once its spent its spent!

avocadoma I'm not sure they will have... They spend £12k a year on extra curricular activities and have a mahoosive mortgage.

@Fudgeball123 But they will retain their money for another day, you will have spent yours.