To be outraged about fee-paying schools and social inequality?

[coffeerevelsrule]

I have a ds in Y11 who has been researching potential careers and degrees and it has brought home to me what a horribly unequal society we still have in this country. Apparently 70% of barristers went to public school and there are similar stats for other desirable non-stem roles like journalism and the civil service, as well as medicine. It's a bloody disgrace - what a joke for a supposedly modern society.

And it seems that certain schemes like blind recruitment might also feed into this as although going to Oxbridge might have become slightly more attainable recently thanks to contextual offers and an awareness that those institutions shouldn't be filled with people from certain schools, now blind recruitment means the advantage a state school student may have got from going there is pretty much cancelled out.

To me it seems that ds is most disadvantaged in a way as he wouldn't qualify for schemes aimed at people who are the first in their families to go to uni and we aren't in a deprived area, but he has none of the advantages that would have come from going to an independent school. Everything about us is just average!

He is very bright (predicted all 9s and got that in his mocks) and wants to achieve but it seems that the odds are against people like him having prestigious roles. Obviously when he is quoting these stats at me I'm telling him not to be defeatist and that he has every chance of doing something amazing as long as he keeps working hard, but inside I'm wondering if how true that is.

I've always been against fee-paying schools but him reeling off all these stats at me has just been sickening and yet when Labour make noises about doing something about it there's outrage when in my opinion there should be daily outrage about the current situation.

Can anyone who cares about fairness honestly say I'm BU?

It's a fallacy to think there are fewer behavioural problems at private schools

L1ttledrummergirl, student finance it's much more complicated and bizarre than you say it is. Very few people can predict at birth what their earnings will be when their children reach university age. They can't predict whether they will become seriously ill, or whether they will die, or win the lottery, or get made redundant, or end up with several promotions. Life is not that predictable.

Of course you can't make predictions at birth. That's not what I said.
The difference in loan for 2021-2022 between an income of £25,000 and £40,000 is £2083 or £40 a week. If you are planning for your dc to go to university, surely how it's funded is something you look into? You then incorporate it into your future budget plans when considering new cars, holidays, moving etc. If your circumstances change you revisit your budget.

I actually find budgeting fairly straightforward, if your outgoings exceed your income you have an issue. With student finance, most parents know if university is on the cards, therefore researching how it will be paid for is essential.

Obviously you can and should do your research, but that doesn't stop life throwing things at you.

Plus it is lunatic that the vast majority of children go to state schools - ie they have a free education (leaving aside indirectly paying through taxation). But, for some completely insane reason, parents with relatively modest incomes are suddenly expected to start paying for their children's education once said children become adults. That is an absolute head-fuck for me. Though, as I say, it's to a large extent because the entire university system is fucked, too.

If parents can somehow be cajoled into paying for university, why not extend this and force them to pay on a sliding means-tested scale for all "state" education from 5-18? Universities are now essentially higher-education state schools which charge fees; why shouldn't all state schools be funded on this model? Then it would be the medium-income parents' "own fault" if they hadn't made sensible budgeting choices which meant that their children went uneducated.

I can't see any problems with that at all. After all, it works for universities if only parents are sensible enough to budget properly.

I went to fee paying schools. There are many children who's parents made considerable financial sacrifices, that are now doing minimum wage jobs. I think many parents were scammed by pretty buildings and naice uniforms. As a general rule the ones who became doctors and lawyers, were the clever doctors and lawyers children who'd have probably still been doctors or lawyers if they'd gone to the local comprehensives.

Lots select by academic aptitude or interview that filters out those with additional needs. Even if school accepts all comers then behaviour that impacts the class will not be tolerated.
It’s economics. If one child is messing up the service the rest of class are receiving then they will ask them to leave rather than risk several customers taking their children elsewhere.

The landscape has changed beyond all recognition though. My dc is yr 12. When she was born tuition fees were £1000 a yr for wealthier families only. From a brief google fees jumped to £3000 when she was a baby but everyone was still entitled to 75% maintenance loan.
When dc was born uni was not on my mind. She was physically disabled and had paediatric monitoring to see if she was developing normally.
It was probably only when she reached secondary age I started to be more aware as colleagues discussed it.
We have been saving for her and will contribute the required amount when she goes next year but it is a big sum from net income especially if you have two children at Uni like lots of her friends families do. I know families with decent incomes who have limited children to a University they can live at home and attend.

My top sets in a failing comprehensive all went to Oxbridge and RG universities with strings of top GCSEs and A levels in academic subjects. Because their parents were the GPs, accountants, lawyers and business people in a very small town. Educated people, with brains, and ambition for their children. The odd outlier was almost always a child from a migrant family who had taken a skid on finding a better life in the UK, rather than a pearl from UK stock.

One Y8, two years in the UK, had mastered English (written) well enough to write an eight page comment on the topic set-- because it interested him. But still spoke English with a strong Polish accent, and was shunned socially for it. I was on a PGCE placement so didn't/couldn't follow through. It's a long time ago but that one was shifted pronto to the G&T stream, although his normal class teacher had never noticed his ability.

When I say I couldn't follow it through, I mean I handed his essay to his main teacher and suggested she read it; she passed it up to the principal as worthy of recognition.

My daughter is SEN, PP and FSM, at the moment she goes to a state school. She is house captain, student mentor, has Bronze D of E and Silver under her belt. She sat 2 GCSEs aged 13 both level 9, I had to enter her at a private school as the state school wouldn’t enter her. They refused as their attitude was is she does her GCSE in year 8 what will we do with her in year 9. This year she sits 12 GCSEs all predicted at level 9 and 2 A levels. Next year she is doing 4 A level at the private school that she has won a scholarship for. Her single biggest draw back is that she is female and male bonding, male pats the back and male pay is something woman are excluded from. The gender pay gap is real. Very real. As is maternity impact should she have children.

The first advantage is being white followed by male.

The first advantage is being white followed by male

No. The most academically disadvantaged of all children in this country are poor white males.

Let's not bring facts into this.

There's a better class of drugs available at private school

White boys from ordinary backgrounds underperform dismally. It is our big (catastrophic) educational failure. How we turn it around? I wish I knew.

To turn the OP 's argument completely on its head I am literally sighing with relief that DDs went to the local comps and have basically ended up in the same place as the kids I know who have all gone private and of similar academic ability saving us an absolute ton of money and avoiding the pressure to maintain earnings. They have missed out on some things that private could provide but local schools have the advantage of being part of the community - walking to school, friends all close by which I think makes family life so much better. The money saved has provided tutoring when needed, music lessons, sports clubs, trips abroad, theatre and music tickets. They are also very aware of their privilege.
Ultimately for kids who are likely to do well so much of that will come down to personality- the ability to engage with other people, having a passion for something, putting yourself out there instead of expecting things to fall into your lap.

And having tutoring when needed and enrichment activities helps.

As I have already said, many parents are under the misapprehension that the cost can be completely covered by student loans. They don't realise that the loans will be means-tested because they associate means testing with the old grants system, where it made more sense. The whole point of a loan is that the student doesn't need cash up front and they pay it back later. There is no obvious reason why students from poorer backgrounds should finish university with bigger debts or why students with wealthier parents should be allowed to borrow less, and it often doesn't occur to parents that this might even be a possibility so they don't think to check. They just assume that any funding they are able to offer will either be extra on top of the standard maintenance loan or it will reduce what their child has to borrow.

Reading with intrigue