School fees have risen by 19% in the space of 12 months

[Findingfactsaboutfees]

AIBU to think this is outrageous ?! Fees are exorbitant anyhow and in the last 12 months we have had an increase of 19% by way of 2 increases in a 12 month period. Fees per year for the senior school are £16690 per year and do not include state of the art facilities as other local schools do. The junior school fees aren't much less either! This is a school in the north of England. If you are paying for education, where are you based and how much do you pay? I wonder whether it is comparable.

Private education will only be for the ultra-rich if fees continue to rise at the rate that they are. It is unsustainable for most working professionals who are comfortable but not ultra-wealthy! Parents locally have tried to take their children out but can't as there are no state school places to be had within a 12 mile radius. The only other option is home schooling which isn't possible when the parents are working full time. We're not yet at the point where we are thinking of taking our child out of school but hearing the plight of those who are in the process of trying to is worrying. I've always been a labour voter but if they do go ahead with the introduction of VAT, I fear it's going to get even worse.

Lots of people do both. We moved to Wimbledon because it has the private primary school I want my daughter to get into. We are looking into buying a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb because it has the grammar secondary school I want my daughter to get into.

If/when Labour get into government one of the first things they plan on doing is adding VAT on to school fees. That will make them even more expensive.

Instead of an independent school we paid for 3 hours tutoring every week. 1 hour Science, 1 hour Maths and 1 hour English. We always got extra hours in school half term periods too. A much cheaper way to go.

For the love of God don’t move to Hampstead, it’s full of lefties.

VAT act 1994
this whole arena of different institutions benefitting is one of the reasons nothing has changed so far.

Absolutely
This is another private avenue to explore OP.
We have many friends that had tutors all the way through from age 4yrs, much cheaper. Plus 1 to 1 in many cases

I have friends that are lefties and righties, it should be fine.

I think @mixedrecycling is almost making a valid point, but not about fees, about the valid reasons why some people (who can afford it) feel that their spending on education is a necessity not a luxury.

for those people it would be hypocritical to simultaneously moan about contextual offers to pupils whose families couldn't afford the private option, because a lot of kids who could equally have benefited from such an escape didn't have the option.

Where the argument falls down is that no effort has been made to check whether the "I use private schools because my child was being massively let-down in the state system and we felt we had no choice" cohort has any overlap at all with the "contextual offers are effectively discrimination against my little angel" cohort. I doubt there is any overlap at all, but the anti-private-school cohort can't seem to absorb the facts of very different attitudes, any more than of the differences between profit-making business with shareholders types of schools, vs elite-luxury "keep fees high to keep out the plebs" socially exclusive schools, vs non-profit-making modestly functional independent schools with minimal additional facilities, just trying to provide, at "cost price" the quality of education that should be available to all pupils if only the government funded education enough, without any additional luxury facilities.

I am sure that my DC will be doing significantly better in qualifications than would have been the case in a mainstream state school, because in the state school they would be overwhelmed with school phobia and probably get no qualifications at all. I am very happy for anyone who achieves good grades within a context that would have defeated my DC, should be acknowledged as more able than my DC who needed additional resources and support to reach that standard. I am totally in favour of contextual offers.

Well written
However PP was really just throwing out irrelevant accusations that have not been made on this thread by anyone.
Its a thing on MN. Which is why this entire thread hasn’t been a lot of help to OP. I dare say she knew that though.

Blossomtoes · Today 14:12
I don’t want to raise the fees @TheThinkingGoblin. I want private schools abolished completely. That includes Eton, Harrow, Winchester et al.

So say they are abolished completely, what will happen to all the buildings and facilities?
Will they be sold off and used for housing or other uses, or will they become state schools?

'Vast majority' makes it very clear that it's not a blanket judgement. There are exceptions. There are individual circumstances. But given that the vast majority of private school parents are in the highest income decile, they are more likely to live in affluent areas with high house prices - which tend to correlate with 'better' state schools.

There are no doubt many reasons people choose private school. We considered that route ourselves, but have decided against it. However, it's not incorrect for the vast, vast majority of private school parents to say that those choices are available to them because they can afford it, one way or another.

The buildings are privately owned. What happens to them will be up to the owners.
Including those that are World Heritage sites, doubt the state can afford to keep them maintained tbh

Like many institutions that are no longer needed, but where the buildings have architectural merit, many could probably be turned into residential developments, luxury flats etc hopefully with a requirement for affordable housing to be included, and allowed to use the same communal facilities as the luxury housing owners 😀

Finland haven’t outlawed private schools. They said you couldn’t make a profit out of basic education. Therefore, private schools do exist, and the Finnish government funds the basic education which everyone receives. There is partial state funding of private schools.

Given that the majority of those with high incomes do not choose to send their DC to private school, I would suggest that your logic might be flawed.

As if Eton will ever be abolished, they make over 25 million a year just from their endowment, the fees parents pay probably are not even necessary to keep the school going.

Even if you outlawed the school here somehow they would just take the brand and set it up in another country. And many rich Indians, Chinese, US and Middle Eastern kids would flood in anyway.. Westminster also has a strong brand, so naive.
Socialist revolution coming, innit. The rich will leave the sinking ship and set up shop elsewhere. Most have already accumulated Swiss francs and dollars anyway.

You can’t take away private property rights without killing the whole economy. And what is left of the British reputation.

Eton and Westminster are a totally different world to the vast majority of small private schools in U.K.

Fine. Let them fuck off elsewhere. Suits me.

The owners will chose to sell to the highest bidder.

That won’t be the state school system.
I’m guessing a lot of schools which are of architectural merit are listed and it wouldn’t be affordable to convert to residential, let alone part affordable housing. So would end up idle and be lost.
Then there’s schools ( actually I know of only one tbh ) that are within world heritage sites. That, given its location, would be a logistical nightmare and a catastrophe for the site and all those who visit it from across the world. Currently protected and maintained by the school.

@Nordicrain That's not what I meant. What I meant is that with the current labour proposals and the current government no matter how hard you work, it's not easy to better your life. For that reason my views no longer align.

@TheThinkingGoblin thank you for eloquently articulating thoughts I find myself agreeing with. As a charity - the school loans its facilities to some local state schools and youth groups. Specialist subject teachers also teach a number of workshops/short courses to local state schools. As a business I doubt they will do that. A lot of children receive bursaries/free places and that too will likely be removed. I believe in a lot of schools, military children also get heavy discounts and/or fee grants.

Decided to do a very very basic calc of loss to economy if all private school parents left the country. Just because a few on here have said that’s OK, good riddance basically.
So
There are 544316 p school pupils (2022 office of national statistics )

Lets ignore some parents run businesses and employ people
Lets equally ignore some get bursaries

Lets assume average family earnings per pupil is £200,000 ( that’s low as we re ignoring the super rich, but let’s be fare with the calc )

Tax payable on that amount £76,203 x 544,316 =£ 41,478,512,148 / yr
NI payable on that amount £7518.66 x 544,316 =£ 4,092,526,936 / yr

So basically £45.5 billion.
The current cost of state education to the tax payer for 2023/24 is
£57billion.

I could go up with the earnings which makes the loss greater, or down which makes it smaller but I did say it was a basic calc.

I believe in a lot of schools, military children also get heavy discounts and/or fee grants.

Only in very select circumstances and these are funded from a separate pot.

Maybe if they weren't giving out so many free places, then your fees wouldn't be going up?

Regardless of the wider picture, the fee increases you are seeing are much higher than most others. Which suggests it's something about the school's budget which isn't quite working?

Perhaps your specific school needs to be better run?

WRT the things your school does, I work at a state school that does similar in terms of loaning out facilities, and our teachers often teach workshops at the local primary. It's basically normal for a school to do this, I don't think it's enough to justify charitable status. If state schools were funded properly, they wouldn't need these things anyway?

You might be interested in this study into the forecasted implications of adding VAT to school fees.

https://www.isc.co.uk/media/5926/isc-vat-full-report-1018-for-circulation.pdf

I could go up with the earnings which makes the loss greater, or down which makes it smaller but I did say it was a basic calc.

For a start you seem to be assuming that all private school students are resident in the UK and have parents who pay tax here.

In what way?

That for the vast majority of private school parents, they have had the choice to send their children to private schools on the basis of their income and/or wealth? That income and/or wealth afford a greater range of choices in education - regardless of what choice you ultimately make?

That the affluence of the vast majority of private school parents - as you say yourself, even in the top decile most can't it don't privately educate and majority participation only hits at the very highest income centile - strongly correlates with housing wealth, and therefore more reliable access to 'good' state schools?

Given that the evidence you're taking umbrage with because it undermines your argument is from an article titled 'Housing wealth, not bursaries, explains much of private school participation for those without high income', I don't think either of these are particularly contentious statements or have clear logical flaws, so I'd be grateful if you could elaborate on your statement.