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

Hopefully more

1000% would be lovely to see

@AlabamaSlam I know - I am the recipient of one of these substandard alternatives! It's had surprisingly little impact on staff retention or recruitment though. A lot of the independent schools in this area have left though, so perhaps that has an impact.

@Dahlietta the ones who have pulled out are offering substandard alternatives and therefore not attractive to good teachers anymore so long term going to lose out

and also the school's contribution to the teacher's pension scheme went up significantly during covid, by 50% I think

That's true, but a huge number of private schools just pulled out of the TPS.

No doubt there will be an influx of former private school students into state schools. from families struggling with the fees.

I hope for the sake of both the students and the schools that they transfer smoothly. In my experience former private school students did not do well fitting in with their new peers - the sense of entitlement and superiority can be very ingrained. It may just be that I was unlucky - I know that no two students are the same - but I taught several former private school sudents - some moved sectors when their private school refused to allow them to stay there, either due to behaviour issues, or becuase they failed to hit the required grades. Others transferred because the family could not afford the fees. They all struggled with the move and many had a shocking attitudes towards their new class mates and teachers.

Mummy and Daddy will just enrol them in whatever takes the place of private schools as an indicator of being PLU if they are abolished.

Probably clubs like the Lansdowne or similar would have offshoots upcountry and run extra curriculars like debating/horse riding/rowing/cramming. Ties and rings and connections would still exist.

Shutting Public schools would be totally pointless, rich people will always buy advantage.

Taking away charitable status, under current law governing charities and how they can be wound up, would mean the schools would need to close. And I really wouldn’t want to have DC in either sector whilst that was happening - the schools budget is creaking already, adding to pupil numbers would break it completely (it won’t be by the full 7% of private school pupils as some are in non-charitable schools and others are overseas pupils who may go elsewhere, but there’d still be enough to be a major problem)
Also knock on effects to any charity which provides education, who would no longer be able to spend charitable funds on that if education were no longer a charitable purpose in law.

Now, perhaps a proposal could be drawn up that would avoid those unintended outcomes. But I’ve never seen one, and this is a devil-in-the-detail issue.

Also, according to estimates (such as the one published by the Guardian) the ‘value’ of charitable status is about £200 per pupil per term. That’s less than variation of fees between schools, regardless of whether businesses or charities.

VAT on school fees is a separate issue, unrelated to charitable status. Now that we are no longer in EU and can therefore set out own VAT, there is more scope to make changes there (but again, the exemption for education as currently set up also covers nursery and university fees, so again a certain level of administrative competence is needed to avoid unintended outcomes and I’m not sure any recent government has insisted on high enough standards of late)

Let's hope so. Privileged bullshit & take away charitable status.
See how all
The little lord & lady fauntelroys do without mummy & daddy's money.

Interestingly, I think school fee inflation significantly exceeding general inflation is neither new, nor confined to the UK. My mother has similar tales to tell of private school fee jumps when she was trying to enrol me in school in Australia in the late 70s.

and also the school's contribution to the teacher's pension scheme went up significantly during covid, by 50% I think

i doubt that - on the grounds that that’s too low a likely rate of increase - they have been going up by inflation plus about 3% for some years now.

I think it’ll be inflation plus about 5%, as they hedge against continuing inflation in a system where prices can rise only once a year.

Fees will start going up in line with inflation - schools have to pay bills like everyone (inc salaries, pensions and utilities) and these are all rising massively at the moment. I would expect rises over 10% to be the norm very shortly

as to whether it's worth it... that's down to the kid and the school?

FWIW we went independent from the start and in terms of value add 'm not sure the primary years made much difference. I'd start at Y7 if I were doing it over again.

We have 1 child and earn less than you. They’re going into year 13. We went state until year 7. The fees went up by 7% this year but normally it’s been more like 3%. Fees have gone up by over a third since they started, luckily they’re on an academic scholarship which has helped.

Why don’t you look at year 7 onwards? I don’t think prep adds much value. You’ve got time to save a nice amount before then. If you decide against it then you can use that money for additional tutors, university, deposit for 1st home, etc.

The confidence argument is more complicated than your DH makes out. Some privately educated pupils appear confident but that is more likely to be a product of being bought up by wealthy, educated parents than their school per se (increasingly this 'confidence' can be interpreted by the wider public as arrogance thanks to the idiot politicians we have had at our helm the last 10 years)
Anecdotally some of my peers at my top private school were crippled with shyness that wasn't helped by being in a hot house, and others developed anxiety issues on the back of pressure.

Accounts are published, either at companies house or via the charity commission depending on the legal status of the school.

Staff costs are invariably a major part, and changes to NICs are notorious for knock on effects on fees (the huge hikes of the early 00s were because of that). Changes to pensions schemes make a big difference too, with the amount private schools having to pay to remain in TPS being a factor at present

In real terms our fees have gone up anywhere between £400 & £700 per year for each child. We are in the north where fees are generally lower.

Other options available to us mean I don't regret it, but if there was a decent state option I'd have taken it.

The reality is that by the time we finish paying fees we could have paid for the entire university costs for our boys, given them a decent house deposit and still had more in savings.

Why does it keep going up? Splurging on new facilities? Competition with wealthier overseas students (wouldn't have thought so)? Teachers' pay (wouldn't have thought that, either)? Administrative bloat? Has someone analysed this?

I would say yes at least that and it could be more.

It’s usually 1-5 % above inflation (higher end of range when there are changes to employers NICs or to cost of running pensions schemes, as staff costs are a huge part of the verbal cost)

We’re heading in to an inflationary period, so I’d go with the higher figure for planning purposes (better to have some unspent cash at the end than be scraping to keep a settled teen in situ for GCSEs and A levels)

(Wild card - since Brexit, there’s nothing to stop the UK putting VAT onto school fees - I don’t know if that’s likely and I don’t trust any party to insist on it being done competently (at present nursery and university fees rely on same exemption in the EU version that we have rolled over))

If the state schools locally are fine, I would use the money to provide lots of extra opportunities like travel, classes, events, go places like museums.
Add tutoring at secondary if needed

Ours go up about 7% in normal times. Plus the extras are significant so don’t forget the costs of food, kit, excursions etc. Meals at our school are approx £5 a day for lunch and then most of them also buy second breakfast too at £2. Kit is about £300 a year.

With inflation on the rise the annual increases will be higher.

We’ve had two in since age 4. We could have bought a house outright with the money we’ve paid. We don’t have any help but most of our friends have contributions from grandparents. Particularly if they have multiple children.

my daughter's school went up by 8-10% every year in primary. now it's about 6%. If you're going all the way from reception to sixth form, you should expect fees to double in that time.

I would have to add my kids are all state schooled and super confident. It’s more about personality. My sister has kids in private and they are shy and a lot less confident. And they go to top highly sought after london private schools.

For example my 2.5 year old (the youngest as the older two are 9 and 11) gets a lot of comments on how confident she is, how happy, her language etc. So I think it’s definitely a bit of personality. My older two got the same type of comments. And now you can see it as well still. And I can see from their friends some who are a little more timid or unsure of themselves etc. And then I see some of their friends also confident. Plus they do a lot of activities with private school kids and I can see no special difference there with confidence.

he often says private school educated kids have a different level of confidence and he wants the best for our kids.

There are more factors than just education in play here. Family background is a big factor, as is inherent personality. Anecdotal, but my DC go to state school and their same age cousins go to private school. if you considered their lives as a whole I would not say that the cousins had the best. The two sets of children have simply had different opportunities. I suspect "best" would be an amalgam of the two, and of course "best" looks different for individual children. And my DC have way more confidence than their cousins, although this is almost entirely down to individuals and nothing to do with their schooling.

What are the state schools like near you? This would be a big factor for me - there is so much variation. Some state schools are excellent.

I totally hear you though on moving to a “nicer” area and realising just how much money some people have 😮 We did the same recently, we’re doing fine by any objective measure but I feel poor compared to many of the people around us.