Do you think labour will actually implement 20% vat on school fees?

[labpit]

We have two in Year 7 and year 10 and I am not sure what we will do if this happens. It is a certainty do you think?

I’ll never understand the take away from others mentality

It’s sad bursaries will drop

izimbra · Today 16:19

What I'm often struck by is how accepting we are that educational charities - namely private schools, with assets and turnovers of billions of £££, do almost nothing for the children most in need of educational charity.

What do you think they should do?

I agree but the school doesn't gave wealthy endowments so bursaries mainly come out of fees/profit. The school decided that if they have to put fees up then they will try to mitigate the cost to existing parents.

I don’t blame the school but the poor policy from Labour

"The £8 a day argument is ridiculous. On school fees of £20k, it’s £4k a year extra, for one child. For some private school parents that’s a drop in the ocean, for others it’s a lot of extra money to find."

Yup. It's an extra £10 a day. Luckily, if parents can no longer afford an eye wateringly expensive educational experience for their child after the imposition of VAT, there will be plenty of cheaper private schools schools that will have places (if you believe the research suggesting 20% of parents will be priced out of the sector). You cut your cloth etc.

"It’s sad bursaries will drop"

Only 1% of bursaries are full bursaries. All go to kids from hugely supportive families, most of who are already achieving very highly in the state sector (because only supportive ambitious parents will enter their kids for entrance exams and then jump all the hurdles involved with applying for a bursary, and because private schools aren't interested in helping low achieving kids).

You seriously have no idea, sat there in your London comprehensive school bubble where your children have their mental health needs supported and go off to RG universities.

There are DC of state school teachers, police officers, nurses, paramedics etc at my DC’s independent. Not all private school parents are rich and not all parents have access to decent state schools.

I think you are being naive if you think there's any transfer of funds from prosperous townships to poorer ones in the USA. School funding is the sole province of the municipality and most towns will only have one high school, so that's the one that's funded. Not one cent will go to any other township.

PARSLEY1234 "Most people already pay VAT on extra curriculars like ballet, music lessons and swimming" ... no they don't. most ballet and music teachers aren't VAT registered.

And what about children already at the cheaper private schools? They’re the schools and parents who will suffer most. Also, £10 a day for 2 children is over £7,000 a year. Perhaps that is small amount of money to you, but I can guarantee it’s not to many private school parents.

The state sector lets down a lot of bright children. It is complete crap that clever kids do well anywhere. Kids do well if they are happy.

It’s also crap that private schools aren’t interested in helping low achieving kids. There are some that do this incredibly well. I went to look at one near me recently. It’s full of kids who were unhappy and unsupported at their previous state school. None of the kids go on to RG universities. That’s not the aim of the school or the parents that send their kids there.

"You seriously have no idea, sat there in your London comprehensive school bubble where your children have their mental health needs supported and go off to RG universities."

My child's school has no more funding per head than any other school - other than what's needed to pay London teaching salaries. It doesn't have special additional funding for mental health. It doesn't have tiny classes like private schools. It has crumbling buildings and many children living in severe deprivation, & it's ridiculously overcrowded after the head took in hundreds of additional pupils in response to austerity cuts.

What it does have is a good number of kids from middle class families, alongside all the kids from more challenging backgrounds. It's a true comprehensive. And I can promise you that there are many local parents who'd rather saw their own kids feet off than have them there, hence nearly double the average number of privately educated children in the area, despite almost every state secondary school in the area being good or outstanding.

Agree with this. It’s odd to see someone end up with the same outcome and have anger at private

I know not everyone has the same. We could have spent ££ on private and Ds would be at the same university doing the same degree if it went just as well

I don’t begrudge anyone having to pay. I don’t want to take more of their money on top

@izimbra

Here is a thought:

Why don't you and the masses of people making less than £50k/year pay more income tax (only 20% marginal rate) to fund these schools properly

How about that?

Thats how they fund schools in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway etc.

EVERYBODY pays in. Low, middle, high.

The problem here is that you want "others" to subsidise your kids schooling.

My answer is no. Pay more income tax yourself and we can then talk about private schools in the UK. Until then, you are functioning as a freerider in UK society.

Not true. I went to a private school and some of the teaching was awful - two teachers could not do class control at all, so you had to try and listen with kids constantly shouting and throwing things. One other teacher was an idiot and didn't know what he was talking about - I can recall correcting what he was teaching us (and that one also did things like refuse to mark homework randomly and then deny it to parents). Another was just hopeless at teaching people in general.

And because you live in a London bubble you don’t understand that there are comps in the rest of the country who have hardly any middle class families. In fact many have no diversity whatsoever. My brother teaches in one of those schools in an ex mining area.

Do you think this VAT change will change that? Or will the gov take more money off the private school families, waste it on contracts for their mates, leaving the kids at risk of educational failure in exactly the same position as they are now?

And @izimbra state schools which have plenty of middle class parents often make the most of that. Like the majority of middle class parents at my DC’s state school, we make a monthly contribution via direct debit. There is lots of fundraising for building projects and equipment. For example,the sixth form centre and the sports hall were heavily funded by parental donation.

Income taxes on higher earners here are similar to Scandinavian countries. Not many realise the main difference is low income tax on lower earners.

My worry is that it will mean lots of children's activities, currently viewed as educational will end up being VAT rated.

Things like swimming lessons, music and dance lessons are vat free.
Will they remain vat free?

I am still waiting to hear how the state school would improve if I had taken my kids out of private school and had them enrol in the state sector.

There is a lot of talk of how state schools would improve if the private sector shut down. The private sector is existing because there is a market for this.

Fund an excellent state education for all, like many other wealthy countries seem to be able to, and the demand for private schools will go down. It won’t vanish, but it will certainly make the state sector more appealing for ‘ordinary’ people like us who just about managed to afford a private education, but who would have preferred a decent state education for our kids, had we had access to one near us. It is a shame the government cannot see this.

If all education was made subject to VAT, then music lessons etc would remain free of VAT unless the provider of the lessons had income of more than £85k a year, and therefore had to register for VAT.

Which is probably unlikely - how many piano teachers do you suppose £95k a year from giving lessons?

Or, hypothetically, the music teacher could voluntarily register for VAT in order to reclaim some VAT - but they are unlikely to have any supplies related to their lessons that incur VAT, and so from their point of view it would be pretty pointless and just generate loads of painful paperwork and time-consuming VAT returns, as well as pissing off all the parents that suddenly found their DC's music lessons costing 20% more.

Sorry, typo, that should read

"Which is probably unlikely - how many piano teachers do you suppose earn £85k a year from giving lessons?"

But, VAT on uni fees could be a more realistic possibility, as I don't see how you can really argue that a university is too much different to a private school. They both charges fees for education.

Yes, I know there is no free state alternative to uni - but you don't have to go.

Alright, yes, MDV degrees are pretty necessary to be a doctor, dentist or vet, but the vast majority of jobs do not really require a degree in order to do them - employers might like them as a marker of ability or achievement, but that's about it.

And yes, I know it's not all about the graduate job market, and that we need people doing research and generally being specialists in things, which stems from going to uni, but that doesn't detract from the point that unis are providing an academic education to undergrads, in return for fees, and that people have a choice whether to pay for it or not.

Which sounds pretty similar to a private school.

Of course, in reality, surely no political party would be foolish enough to try to slap an extra 20% on uni fees. I am just making the point that to argue for VAT on one and not on the other is a bit

@RockaLock
Individual teachers might not break the VAT threshold but if you have a music or dance school employing 3 or 4 teachers they'll easily break that threshold.

Same with swimming pools holding swimming lessons, usually there are multiple classes going on at the same time.

We shouldn't be relying on the VAT threshold to keep things VAT free.