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 have two in boarding school (different schools), DD2's is largely paid for by my expat package, although we have to pay a significant chunk of DD1's as it is way over the ceiling they agreed (she is at this school for very specific reasons). The fees have gone up so much (and the ceiling hasn't), that we were originally paying a top up of £12K three years ago, but are now paying a top up of around £20K. (The fees are now around an eye watering £44K per annum with a significant hike this year to pay for upgrading school facilities, which look amazing to me already.) Interestingly, the school is now offering "easy terms"/credit to pay the school fees, as a lot of the parents are clearly struggling. (Many are there on expat contracts so the fees are paid by employers, although quite a few people are in the same boat as us, whereby the whole fees aren't covered.)

If we weren't in the situation we are in with DD1 (it was too late for her to slot into the UK system when we moved from overseas) I'd have had no hesitation in sending her to a good local school.

Interesting post piermenator. I hope your DD will get the same opportunities as her brother.

Children get good opportunities at state schools too you know. It mainly has to do with parents / home environment / stability and happy life / personality characteristics etc. I have worked with and known many many kids who do very badly at private schools and vice versa and some DC really are not well suited to specific schools despite their parents' wishes. Study after study shows that parental input and parental education (provided parents are involved with their children) is what counts, not the school, and yet people choose to ignore this.

I would also say OP that since your child is a baby you don't know 2 things: 1) if you'll have another child and 2) what school would suit your DD.

Ds1 will start private age 4 this that and dd1 two years after him.

We are mid 30's, dh runs a successful business, I run a successful partnership.

We have no mortgage. For the last few years (since our wedding) we've lived on sub 11k pa and ploughed our profits into our respective business' knowing we wanted two kids at private. We had both been building up our business' in our twenties too.

We feel fairly confident that we have secure enough income streams to pay. If we hit problems there is family money to help. We don't want to rely on that as we feel that if we want them to go private we should pay. It is however a nice back up if all goes wrong at some point.

Honestly, I think that you would be better to either look at moving closer to a better school - or invest the time and money you would save by not paying fees and 2x 90 minute round trips for the school drop off every day, by paying for private tuition in whatever subjects need extra support.

I agree with PPs who have said that quite often it is parental support and investment that shows in good results. Moving would be expensive in the short term but buying a property near a good school would be an investment, as it is likely to appreciate in value, whereas money spent on school fees wouldn't.

Surely saying you can't afford private school earning 60k is like saying you can't afford to raise a child on 38k , which is of course ridiculous.

Certainly a lot for me to think about, I'm loving reading all your views and hearing about your experiences

I accept 40 mins is a long drive, I hadn't thought too much about it being a long time for a young child. I lived much closer with my parents when I attended the same school. At least she'll be too tired for ballet and pony lessons

I agree private education does not equal guaranteed massive salary, and also with the opposite viewpoint that state education does not mean higher incomes are unachievable. Parental genes and nurturing have a massive impact on a child's learning and development. DH and I both have high IQs, but that doesn't mean much really! We will encourage her as best we can, and just want her to have the best opportunities. I think I am drawn to this school because I went there and felt very comfortable. From memory it always used to come top 20 in national league tables, so has a good reputation. Not sure where it is these days. I am also a bit of a sap and think it would be a nice thing to do for her - sending her to my old school!

DH felt the same re: sentimentality -- he went to the same private school where we started DS.

We have 2 DDs who were educated privately all the way through; younger is just about to leave, so we've paid the last lot of school fees. They have both done very well academically; second has loved school all the way through, first was really miserable in secondary, but impossible to know whether she would have been happier in state system. We have a 6 figure household income and a lot of equity, but had to borrow against it to pay the last few years when they were both in school.
If I were 20 years younger, I would move somewhere with good primaries and not pay for prep school at the very least. I agree that private education seems out of reach of the 'ordinary' middle class more than it was even 20 years ago, and for that reason as well as my own ability to afford it, I would try and avoid it at least until secondary now. We afforded it by having fewer holidays, clothes, new cars, etc than we would have done otherwise. Altogether it cost hundreds of thousands. Was it worth it? How can I know? I don't know how they would have turned out otherwise. The only other thing I would say is that I have some really good life long friends among the other parents. If everyone there was from a totally different and more affluent background, perhaps that wouldn't have happened to the same extent. I certainly don't think it's the be all and end all, especially at the younger ages.

We have chosen not to ( household income when Ds was 4- about 100k, 7 years later about 140) instead I stayed pt until Ds went to secondary and we have spent the money on wonderful holidays, riding lessons for dd and private tutoring for the 11+. Ds is now in a superselective grammar, I hope that dd will follow him in a couple of years. I don't believe he would be getting a better education if we were paying for it.

A 40 minute drive for any child will be tough.
We pay private. For me the only advantage is small class sizes. Everything else is fluff for me.
I think a happy stable, nurturing home, in whatever form, is the most important.
The graduates I see at work who do best have a curiosity about life in general: knowledge of current affairs, politics, a hobby or an interest.
Those that do badly are generally not so interested in learning about anything outside of their domain. To generalise they are also the ones chained their phones.
A confident manner also adds a lot as they are just easier to read and deal with.

So have we concluded now that the main issue is the husband earns very little and the wife is a young doctor whose income will go up? If so plenty of couples in that position can afford school fees because of the rising income and sometimes the possibility of a lot of over time. My sibling has two children at private school on one wage and they do a lot of extra stuff like private work, court work etc etc to bring in the extra income.

Don't worry about the drive. My older children took school coaches from age 4 or 7 and they were fine. It was worth it for the good education. I used to mark exam papers to help pay for our holidays. There might be extra things like that you can do to help too.

I suspect the biggest thing you can do is make sure both of you are and stay in full time work however.

These threads are difficult to make sense of, as everyone's circumstances and opportunities are different. Agree the basic determinant should be whether you can comfortably write off the fees each month, and you'll know that by how much you are able to save over the course of the average year. Second is how secure your jobs are (if you depend on income to pay fees).

Our story is we both work and do have the money left over every month to put 1 child through from year 7 to end of A levels. We made a decision to have one child partly because we knew this was coming, and we have a couple of years fees saved as backup. We have very good state primaries (and used our very local one) but state secondaries in this area have always been a let down for both results of higher attainders and behaviour. The independents do very well as a result and are able to be highly selective in their intake. Our child will have a short commute (15-20 min door to door) which is longer than the state schools but I think this is doable and worth it, plus they will be 11+. If we had access to good grammar schools I would be using them instead but they are long abolished. Neither is moving an option.

My concerns for OP are the commute is too long for primary age, it's also important to have local friends and they will be forfeiting that. Also I think if necessary you can supplement state primary education with a tutor for a much smaller cost than private school. Behavioural issues from the minority at primaries (generally) are more manageable than in secondary years.

Yes I am a doctor but not young - at the end of training. DH had to reduce his workload because of his illness, it makes more sense for him to do the bulk of the childcare now (due to nursery being so expensive) rather than go back to work full time, at least while DD is young

There may be things I can do to bring in more money, but our profession is clouded by so much uncertainty right now that I don't want to assume too much!

We earn (a lot) less than you, but don't have a mortgage. My parents pay for one child's fees, we pay for the other. Secondary fees are going to be slightly horrifying, but we live frugally and I have good reason to believe that our salaries will be higher by then. It comes down to what you choose to spend your money on. We could have a bigger house and a mortgage instead, for instance, but I would prefer to go down the school route with our available income.

I think private school on 60k is possible, we did it for about 5 years on that salary for 2 kids. We had some savings back-up though (just as well, as things happen, redundancy or sickness can happen to anyone) and a small mortgage.

The thing that I would not take lightly is a 45 minute drive.

Maybe the driving is not a problem in itself, but her new best friend may well live a 30 minute drive in the other direction. Parties will all be a big drive away too. As will play dates, sport days, school fetes, concerts, drama performances, matches and parent evenings. Private schools like to celebrate their successes so there may be plenty of those type of activities.

Personally I would choose a school closer to home

I don't really understand the struggling to put people through private school, if instead of paying for private school, you invested the money, your children would not need to struggle to put their children through private school as your investments would cover it no problem.

Struggling to pay for private doesn't seem to set your kids up for anything other than also struggling to pay for private schools.

Save the money, if they don't thrive, then you've money to spend on them later, but spending a grand a month for something most children don't need doesn't seem a good investment if it's a struggle.

Andnowitsseven - £60K a year after tax and NI is £42,126 p.a. - assuming no pension contributions (which will need to be factored in). I don't think you would get tax credits at this level either. I don't know where OP's location is but prep fees for day attendance can vary between £5,000 - £15,000 p.a. Take an average of £10K p.a. and then factor in that this does not include uniform, any extra tuition, music lessons or school trips. Add in the fact that OP will need to pay the fuel costs for the 45 minute drive there and back (so 4x trips per day). Assume 5 day attendance although it is not uncommon for Saturday school until lunchtime.

It is do-able now. But the fees go up almost every year and they get more expensive as the child gets older. Senior school day fees can go from £15,000 - £25,000 again depending on where you are and again, not including extras (including exam costs). This is why people are saying to the OP that she needs to have a careful think about this before committing to it.

Daily mail I meant a gross income of 38k.

I think people who have never experienced good state education have no conception of how good it can be.

We earn a combined six figure sum (just!) with a fairly low mortgage but very high child care costs (2k/month)

We have three children and are considering a fourth.

We can't afford private.

DD1 is in an excellent state primary, we could not be happier with it. It is 9 miles away but the vast majority of schools here are undersubscribed so true choice exists. It has just dropped its PAN so is likely to be slightly oversubscribed next year but sibling priority will get all our other children in.

We plan to hopefully send them to the brilliant and not that fiercely competitive grammars for secondary. We are currently in catchment but prefer the grammars 30 mins away so will be moving in a few years - luckily the primary school in smack bang in the middle so the younger ones could stay there.

If they failed the 11+ we would consider private but I think could realistically only afford one child through private secondary only.

Tough one. Technically you could just about scrape it if you started saving right now and made fairly big sacrifices along the way.

On the other hand, are those sacrifices worth it? Can't answer that.

Both our DC are at pre-prep. Fees are £25k for both and DD will be going up to Prep from September so fees will increase to £28k. DDs new uniform outlay is £1250.

No expensive trips at this stage so fees and uniform are pretty much it. And after school clubs are very cheap. Plus after school care for DS while he waits for DDs day to finish (one hour later) is free.

We are very fortunate and our household income is high. So at this stage no sacrifices.

Secondary might be different. Most of the better secondaries here charge around £30k per child for a day pupil (more for boarding).
This would take total fees to £60k a year plus uniforms plus expensive trips, would be more like £70k a year. Which means we would need to earn £140k just to pay for it.

Technically we could easily do it but no more holidays to the Maldives and no new cars etc.

There are clearly cheaper schools which would be similar in fees to what we are paying now so that's an option. And we sit in the catchment for 5 grammar schools (3 core catchment and 2 outer catchment).

Anyway it's not straightforward. And despite our fortunate position I do worry about two of them at secondary stage.

Paying huge amounts of school fees isn't a guarantee of success for your child. It's not necessarily a ticket to a charmed life.

DH is very successful but attended his local comp (which wasn't good/quite rough). I was privately educated and did well. My brother also privately educated hasn't. He is probably the poster child for why you wouldn't spend money on private education tbh. Still lives off our parents. Has never held down a job for more than a few months (he is almost 40), very entitled and wants us all to support him, there have been issues with drugs over the years etc.

You also need to consider whether you'd have another child.

Also look into moving to an area with better schools. Particularly keep your eye on secondary schools even when looking at primary. It's important to know you will have access to good schools at both stages.

£60K a year after tax and NI is £42,126 p.a. - assuming no pension contributions (which will need to be factored in).

That is assuming one salary. If it is split into 2 it will be more, plus CB.

Yes, basic - I have assumed one salary.

MissBattleaxe - but equally those of us who have experienced a fantastic state education can see very clearly that our local state schools don't offer this. Our local state schools are a million miles away from offering the fantastic education I got at my selective state grammar school.

Moving wasn't an option - I value my work/life balance too much to do a horrible commute, and I don't have any flexibility regarding the location of my job. So the best option for us was to educate the kids privately. Lots of people do here - there are 5 private schools (for age 7+) in our town. There are also an unusually high number of home-schooled children - there is a large network of parents who support each other through this option so as to avoid the mediocre state schools.