Sorry to ask but how are people affording private education?

A little aside question to the OP and other in similar parts of UK. Do you think continuing to have state grammar schools has basically impacted negatively on the other state schools?

I’m always fascinated by their continued existence. Where I grew up the last cohort who could attend a state grammar school started secondary in 1973. We moved back to the city to be near my parents. There are 8 secondaries, only 2 might be described as ones parents feel are not great.

You appear to be willing to relocate / consider a wide swathe of the country, are you both self employed or will you move jobs? Are you only willing to consider areas with grammars, which clearly impacts on the local non selective or would you consider an area with a good comprehensive? What does a good comprehensive mean to you in terms of progress, results and curriculum offer?

The money is eye-watering even though we have it.

Not any more you don't. 😁

DH was much older by the time we had kids and had paid off the property etc.

Additionally school fees have gone crazy. There was no need for them to go so high. We don't need state of the art facilities. In the end, all we wanted was good academics but they started competing with each other, upgrading this that and the other to the point it's like a 5 star luxury experience which I find embarrassing.

I feel like I'm paying for a lot of stuff my kids will never ever use. It's bonkers and out of control to the point of no return.

I'd have gone for the 'value' range of private school if it had existed but sadly it didn't. The money is eye-watering even though we have it.

You could supplement with private tutorage.

We live in Central London. We couldn’t have a mortgage at £1.5k per month unless we had a 1bed flat or purchased 20 years ago. Our flat is well-located but is otherwise nothing special. We’ve not been in London long, so we didn’t have the luxury to buy a property pre-children.

3.5k is insane. We have higher household income but also made sure we’d paid off our mortgage prior to needing to pay DS fees.

We will both retire early though so need to make sure we have enough put away to pay the remainder of the fees as we won’t be earning for at least half of his school years.

RadicalRadishes The issue here is your rent - £3.5k is astronomical. We're about to start private school fees for DS (eventually for DD as well) with a slightly higher income (£7.5k take home after large pension contribution) but our mortgage is £1.4K. There's no way we could even consider it if our mortgage was £2k higher.

Just to say, DH makes about the same gross and brings home about £6k per month. However, since we only moved to London a few years ago, we are not on the property ladder, so pay £3500/month in rent, as we live reasonably centrally. We have two children, so with a bursary, we still paid £3k per month for an independent school. As you can tell from the math, this did not work and we had to stop after a year. It's crazy that DH makes a substantial amount of money but it's completely impossible to send our DC private. At our old school, I think it was mostly expats with work paying, grandparents, and exceptionally high earners.

We only have one DC, when he was at an independent school we paid the term upfront and there was a big discount for doing this. I don’t think they allowed paying whole year upfront because the annual price rise was often at time of Spring budget/end of financial yr.

At the time we earned around same as you but had smaller mortgage/house. They had bursaries available but I don’t think you’d qualify on your sort of salary.

I’d try moving to somewhere with schools you like better.

Re tutors - most people get one for private school entrance exams

Family wealth.

Combination of high joint salary and help from parents. Sometimes I do wonder though whether it would be more beneficial to send them to a state school and invest the money for them instead… It’s an awful lot of money. If mine were clever enough to get into a grammar school then I would probably go that route.

Hard work for many years with own business, no help from anyone ever. Husband first of his family to go to university and one of only three from his comp high school to go on to sixth form.

We pay all of the fees and any extras from our own income in the form of salary and dividends. At least 50k per year for two at senior school in Surrey. We have no mortgage and any VAT increase won't be a problem.

You mentioned you'd looked at Ilkley as a possibility - I would definitely recommend. Ilkley Grammar is an excellent school and gets great results and, despite its name, it's a comprehensive not a grammar, so if you live in catchment then you will get a place as it's the only school serving Ilkley. Ilkley also gives you the option of sitting the 11+ for the Skipton grammar schools should you wish, though you're not guaranteed a place if you pass as it's out of catchment, but a lot of Ilkley kids do get in most years and there is a school bus from Ilkley to Skipton.

I presume by state schools you mean comprehensive?

All secondary schools seem terrifying to many parents (me at the time!) of Yr 4 kids. Big, full of hulking youths hauling each other about by their rucksacks and using terrible language.

But most comprehensives do do well by bright kids, who are not ‘canon fodder’ , and send more to good Unis than they do to young offender institutions.

My small, weedy, high achieving musical Dc thrived at our S London comprehensive, as did all their friends at the same and similar comprehensives

Of course not all schools are ok, but Have a really good look at the stats and outcomes and reports about your comprehensive alternatives, and talk to local parents before making yourselves stressed and miserable over money and putting yourselves at financial risk

The support for education at home is the biggest factor in academic outcomes.

Just to add, there are some very generous scholarships and bursaries around so it’s worth searching online, if your child is particularly talented. In some schools, half the kids will be receiving some sort of bursary which does help, sometimes 50-100%. A lot of people are using up their life savings to send their kids to private school, which imo is not worth it, being someone who works in one and my kids go to the local comprehensive!

Easy: I got on the housing ladder in 1997 so housing costs (i.e. mortgage interest) has been negligible for the past 20-off years and both of mine are on 50% scholarships. Simple really.

If 6 to 9% of kids are privately educated

The top 10% of households have an income over 70k post tax as far as I can tell

That gives them 35 k over the average household income

That's 35k for school fees and higher mortgage

She may still need to pass a test to get into the private school!

OP, are you and DS putting significant amounts into pensions before your take home? And how much of your mortgage payment is principal repayment? Both things would be savings, not spending. I'm not saying that you shouldn't save, certainly at least for an emergency fund, but being illiquid (not enough cashflow) is different from being insolvent (not enough income).

People can earn a surprising high salary for jobs you'd think would be fairly average. (Sadly I did not find these jobs early enough.)

In my experience it seems to be grandparents/significant inheritance or scholarships/bursaries, if the parents' income isn't high. Oh and one of the parents being a teacher at the school so getting a discount. Our combined income is 40k less than yours and private isn't even on our radar, it's impossible even though we do obviously have a decent income. But my parents could definitely afford it. I wouldn't ask them and given my mum is super left-wing I doubt she would agree anyway 😂 but they would have the money (mid-70s boomers).

One of my parents died and left me a mortgage free house. I'm able to earn enough to live very frugally and send DD to a private school. We have a relatively old car (bought outright) and don't do fancy holidays or have loans to repay.

That’s correct. My real life numbers are based on the schools local to me which is not London or SE.

It’s pretty much impossible to do it for less which just goes to further enforce the level of income required if you are paying it all out of salaried income.

A high percentage - over 70% - of school fees are paid via earnings rather than inheritance and grandparents. The figure really surprised me. I think years ago that would have been different but certainly now is the case (will vary school to school, private, Indi, day etc).

People plan ahead, before kids are born. Get investments in place with the aim of paying school fees. Others will remortgage and take out loans. Others will have support from grandparents but not the high figure people think.

I'm a single mum on about half your income and pay half the fees for my dd (ex pays the other half). I holiday in the uk, drive an old car, wear old clothes. My mortgage is a lot less than yours which I think is the difference between being able to afford and not. I also have a share save scheme at work. Some years it has paid all the fees for that year. It's not looking so healthy at the moment so has paid about half of this years fees.