To ask how you afford private school fees

[Elephantslovetofly]

We have a young DD, and although it's a while away yet we are thinking about school. The area we live in does not have a good local school, and we are considering an independent school for her

Disclaimer - I went to a private school and for what it's worth had a great education. I enjoyed being there and did well in exams. I believe my parents decided to send me there also because of a lack of a good local state school. I might have done fine at a state school, but will never know I guess

We are probably 45 min drive from the school I went to - further than is ideal. DH doesn't mind driving her there if we decide to send her there though (if she is fortunate enough to get a place)

The issue is whether we can afford it. The fees are about £9k per year for junior and £12k for senior. Assuming we therefore need to find £1k per month for fees

My cheeky question is this - if you have a child at private school, what does your household earn and how difficult is it to find the money each month to pay the fees? Our income is about £60k, and at the moment I don't think we can do it (along with our other current expenses). Wages might go up a bit before we would need to start paying, but if this is always going to be a pipe dream i'd rather get over it now

I know we could move closer to a good state school, but am exploring my options at this stage. Don't really want to move, as we have a good house here and are settled

Thanks for reading

We went private at age 3 initially because our local state nursery closed, the local primary doesn't have a nursery class & there was a 2 year waiting list for pre-school. We got the early years funding so the fees were reduced.

Yeah when I was at private school in 90s most of my friends' parents had 'normal' jobs - no massive high earners. My dad had a good (but not exceptional) wage and managed to send 3 of us to private school!

Worth remembering that lots of private schools try to help...
Eton has over 20% of its pupils on bursaries and aims to be needs blind... i.e. if a child gets in they will help make it work. It is worth talking to the bursar, explaining your circumstances and asking their advice, they will expect you to make sacrifices, but wouldn't expect you to put yourself on the poverty line...

It is worth finding a long thread in Education from a few months ago on precisely this topic. From it I learnt that very few families were finding school fees from salaries alone - most had help from grandparents or as part of an employment package, or other assets.

It's my anecdotal experience that private school is becoming less affordable in relation to salaries. I was state educated but I went to Oxbridge and have a lot of privately educated friends. Their parents were able to afford school fees for two or three children in the 80s-90s on professional incomes (doctor, solicitor, accountant etc) often with only one salary coming in and a stay-at-home parent. Those same people are now sending their own children to state schools - the only people in my peer group who can afford private fees have family help or two very, very high City salaries.

Husband's company pays for 2 of our three to go to private schools. This won't be the case for ever so we both work and are saving like fuck to hopefully be able to send all three to a decent school to do A levels or IB - so the last 2 yrs of highschool only.

OP think very carefully about 40 min drive each way, it really really is too much. Well anyway that's what I think! Quality of life / spending time with your kid / extracurriculars / an easy start to the day (avoiding morning rush hour) / time for playdates / time for homework / time for just chilling out. All these would be HUGELY compromised with a 1.5 hour commute (altogether each day. It could be more because of rush hour / taking into account winter frosts (de-icing car) etc etc. It's also expensive to drive that much, adding to your costs (in petrol etc). You also would be missing out on the huge plus of getting to know families / kids that are local to the school and to you.

I say this from experience.We drove our DS to school for a few months (40 min each way) and it was a nightmare. We ended up changing him schools even though he was well settled where he was and chose a school 10 min walk from our current home. Made a massive difference. Would never consider that kind of commute again, not for school.

It might be worth thinking carefully about what it is you want out of education & see whether some of that (or all of that) might be perfectly possible with a local good state school. Or even a private school if it was much closer to your home. The fact that you yourself were driven 40 min each way to go to school as a child does not mean it's a good option if it can be avoided in any way.

just to clarify - we pay for the third... don't want anyone assuming that we only send 2 of ours to school and the third stays home and darns socks...

Why, though?

Smaller class sizes?

I can understand it when £12,000 p/a is the equivalent to finding change at the back of the sofa as I know it is in some circles, but why have a bleak and frugal existence for years for the same teachers you'd find in state schools?!

So true about independent education just not being a 'thing' in some areas.

In the county I grew up in there are no private schools. Makes decision making easy

I think the website says they will only offer financial assistance if your household income is less than around £30k I can always email them and ask I suppose. Not sure if it would make a difference that I am alumni....? Probably not!

Our two DC will be going private. It's going to be funded by passive income from property and investments that should hopefully keep pace with market inflation. It should cover fees + expenses.

Our main household expenses (mortgage, bills etc) will be paid for by our salaries. Plan is to complete renovations on our property and then sell in a few years and buy the next place mortgage free (and probably start building again as we're not happy unless we have a project on the go!).

We've chosen private because of class size (9 in junior class but more across the year so best of both worlds for teacher ratio + social groups). The pastoral care is amazing and whilst not an academic hothouse, it will hopefully enable the kids to maximise their potential whatever it may be.

Tbh I've been planning on private education for the kids long before I even met DH so put investments in place in my twenties. It was a rough ride during the recession but holding on has paid off hugely. I was raised in a single parent family so from an early age financial security has been a huge priority for me.

I'm not bothered about their future earning potential at all. Our plan is to teach them how to manage an investment portfolio from the time they start working so they can use their salary to build up passive income for their futures.

Is that £60k combined? What's your mortgage and pension position?

as well as uniforms etc, music lessons tend to be quite a lot more expensive at private schools. I suspect they are often better - children are more likely to get a full half hour lesson individually or in a pair rather than a short group lesson - but nevertheless from a pure cashflow point of view they can be expensive.

I work in an independent, we do offer lots of bursaries, but only from age 11, and household income needs to be less that £40k, if I recall correctly.

In your shoes, I'd move to the next village for primary, and save like fury so you've got options for senior school.

You are scaremongering. No schools have classes of 40.

Go and see the options before deciding your child has to go privately.

It sounds like you can't afford and 45 mins each way is a total ball ache for whoever takes her - 3 hours in the car each day?

State Primary schools are not allowed to have classes of 40 and many state primaries are excellent with passionate head teachers. They offer swimming lessons, music lessons, sports and good school trips. My advice would be to move. I know you like your house OP but if this is important to you then you have to make sacrifices. The 45 min commute will soon be a huge pain Move nearer a good state primary before she starts school.

Yes £60k combined, pension is sorted. I also have insurance on my income (as breadwinner) in case of illness, so we are protected in that sense

To ask how you afford private school fees

er...by earning lots of money?

Or by having very generous baby boomer parents who long since paid off their own mortgages and have had inheritances from their own parents

Or by having a child who is bright/talented enough to get a bursary, especially of you are on a low income.

We looked at it for our twins as local schools were poor. At circa £25 for both it 'may have been doable' BUT had to know we would have the ability to cover all of the secondary years, could not pull them out part way through. So we moved, bigger mortgage but benefit for all, the new secondary school, as we limited the area to best school will be great. Any money can be put asid, hahaha for uni, cars etc.

I agree there are some excellent state schools, I went to one before I was moved to private aged around 9. I think the next village is likely to be around £100k more for similar size house, so certainly worth investigating. Seems silly to move just down the road, but I accept the argument that a good primary will likely serve her perfectly well

We have two in private school. The fees are at the very high end of things.

In truth we afford it by earning a lot of money. Hardly earth shattering news .

I went to private school and from experience, I think you will struggle on 60k.

• School fees go up. It might be 12k for a senior now but by the time your DD gets to that age, you're probably looking at 15k a year minimum.
• You need to factor in uniform, sports equipment, PE uniform, school trips, music lessons etc.
• Private school days are longer than state. So can you fit in a 45 minute commute around your jobs? I used to start school at 8.45am and finish at 4pm, not including extra-curriculars which are often compulsory (i.e you have to do a set number of them per term). I took the bus but I left home at 8am and didn't get home until 6pm - it was tiring enough at 11, but there were little reception-aged kids on that bus and they were shattered.
• Sports matches etc. are compulsory if your child is on the team, and are often after school hours or on Saturdays. Not so much an issue at reception but from the age of 11 or so she'll be expected to compete at weekends if she's on teams.

There's a lot more to consider than just school fees. That's just the basic expense. Music lessons etc. are more expensive than they would be at state schools, school trips are more expensive and more commonplace, and there's not a hardship fund or Pupil Premium like at state schools. IME everyone went on every trip, apart from things like skiing that had limited numbers.

The other thing to consider is if you can afford it by cutting back on luxuries, are you happy to live that way for 13 years or so? Can you afford to still save, run a car, pay out if your boiler breaks or whatever? If you can, then go for it, but don't make the mistake of assuming that if you can afford the fees, you can afford private school!

MUCH nicer for her to have local friends, too.

Also, private school fees is dead money in a way. But buying a more expensive house is money she'll eventually inherit.

I am more surprised that you earn 60k between the 2 of you despite a private education!

We decided to send dd to a non selective private, it's only about 10 minutes car journey she seems to be settling in well in year one.

The fee's sound similar to what you are looking at, although slightly higher in senior.

We have some savings and set up a separate savings account for her when she was born, for sole purpose of education. So we had quite a substantial headstart. We pay around 1350 a month into this account between us. Dp is the higher earner so pays most of this.

We probably earn between us a little more salary wise, but if we had no savings I wouldn't have gone for this option.

To be honest lifestyle for us has stayed pretty much the same. We still have a mortgage to pay but we aren't the type that have a new car every few years etc. We are lucky that both working in the industry holidays are heavily discounted for us.

I would look at all options within your vicinity. A small state setting can be a good option at this age. I also personally wouldn't relish a 90 minute journey everyday.

How old is your daughter and do you currently pay full time child care fees?

Do you have a healthy amount of equity in your property?

It could be possible depending upon your financial position. I'm not a professional financial adviser by any means but happy to bounce ideas around if you want to PM me.

Totally with you on the salary protection front. We have this in place as well. I always work on worst case scenario so if one of us popped off how do we protect the kids stability.