To think good school places will be even harder to find next year because of the VAT on school fees

[Nesca1]

We are are looking at secondary schools for DS. We have our eye on a decent school bang in the middle of a solid middle class area . The school is always over subscribed; this year we would have gotten a place but last year we would have missed out because of how far we are from the school.
Usually, the school offers places to children living 1600m away, last year it was 1400m due to a large number of sibling applications.

Due to the whole VAT issue, i think more parents from the local area are going to be sending their kids to this school, rather than sending them to private schools.

Is this a reasonable assumption? I don't think parents will wait for the policy to be enacted, but they will move their year 6 children into this school.

Some universities may give credit if someone comes from a poor performing state school but usually there are also other criteria. Most state school students are not looked at more favourably.

There might not be if there is a mass exodus from private schools but I doubt that will happen if VAT is initially only 5 or 10 percent. They could try it and see.

the impact will be minimal

it’s not going to happen over night schools can take on some of the costs

and the money raised can be put into state schools

vast majority of parents that can afford to send their children to private school can afford the extra costs as much as many would love you to believe otherwise competitive poverty becuase of HAVING to pay for fees is a real thing 🙄

@HRTQueen the vast majority might well stay in private regardless, but if there is a 10-15% reduction (leaving OR not starting private) then this policy fails to raise revenue. More than that and it actually costs more money than it raises.

and btw, Labour have stated that it WILL happen overnight and potentially be applied retrospectively in order to exert maximal pain on schools and families.

This is my experience as well but I have checked and @SabrinaThwaite is right that at Durham you only have to fulfil 2 criteria, one of which could be to have attended any state school and another, which could be entitled to FSM. Hopefully, this is a sign that contextual offers are evolving to reflect the different advantages given to children.
My DS wasn’t eligible for a contextual offer due to our postcode but would have been under this criteria. He faced a great deal of adversity, parent dying etc, and ended up missing out by 1 mark. The university take a great many privately educated pupils.

@wombat15 where are you getting an initial 5-10% rate? Everything Labour have said on the topic asserts 20% effective asap (and potentially retrospectively applied). If this were serious policy they would take their time, assess the potential consequences, and implement in a way that allowed families and schools to plan around. But this isn’t serious policy, it is red meat for their base voters.

It’s been proved the impact will not be minimal 135,000 initially ( many of those will be on burseries, exhibitions etc )
Obviously some students that previously would have attended an Indi won’t now be able to.

Starmer has already said it will happen @20% immediately and possibly be retrospective as well, nothing gradual or at a reduced rate.

No money will be raised, that’s been proved by many analysts, Labour hasn’t done any number crunching themselves. The policy will be running at a loss.

And finally

Starmers private school tax policy is about as believable as his thoughts on what a women is. 🤣
Full of bollocks 🤣🤣🤣

No such thing has been proven.
Parents saying in a survey they will take their children out of private schools is very different from them actually doing this.

It’s not parents saying. Who said that.
Its schools identifying which families will not be able to afford the increase in fees.
So that’s just the parents they know of, the situation could be worse than currently identified.

@Kandalama can you show me research where schools have looked into the finances of parents? Because that is an extremely intrusive thing to do.

No, not what I'm saying. Parents appear under the impression that switching to state, even just for 6th form gives them a better chance at getting into Oxbridge. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/23/britain-new-persecuted-minority-privately-educated-schools-oxbridge

It doesn't matter for this conversation whether it does or doesn't. My point is, combine the apparently strongly held belief that it helps (judging by parents around here) with the additional 20%, and you get more pressure in catchments of good state schools. @scarletbegoniass

That is absolutely true, and many pp are already doing this. Oxford are anti private school, openly discriminating against them.

But would they have sent their kids there in the first place if they had had to pay 20% VAT on top of the fees?

I think this thread is focusing too much on whether kids will leave the private sector. I think the majority won’t and parents will beg, borrow and steal to keep their kids there once they have already started. However, I think a large proportion of people who might otherwise have sent their kids to private school will choose state school instead. Or, they will send their kids to state secondary after they finish prep school. In which case, the biggest pressure will be on year 7 state school places.

@Polishedshoesalways
"Oxford are anti private school, openly discriminating against them."

Bollocks.

Surely not all schools will automatically uplift their fees by 20%? As they will be able to reclaim their input VAT too on the taxable supplies they buy

I would hope labour do more work on lessening the over representation of the privately educated in the top unis and jobs when they get in and levelling up. It will be a widespread expectation.

The schools already have all sorts of intrusive personal financial data of parents who currently receive bursaries. They need to know that the awards are being issued fairly.

Most of their costs are staff so very little to offset against

Would you like to provide any evidence for this ridiculous statement?

Good job you are not in charge then eh?

Of course we don’t know how it will pan out. The point still remains, however, that it IS a luxury to pay for private school fees when there is free access to state education. So therefore, it should be subject to VAT.

And state schools are free ‘at the point of use’. The user doesn’t pay for the service directly. Of course they cost money to run. That’s hardly rocket science.

The population of school age children is dropping and schools closing in some areas so won't necessary mean state schools are under pressure.

Oxford and cambridge have a huge proportion of privately educated students.

Or, alternatively, Oxford is levelling the playing field to recognise that state school students are equally as talented as the privately educated but may not have enjoyed the same socio economic privileges.

FYI, Oxford considers the school where GCSEs were taken to benchmark individual students performance against school performance, so switching to state for A levels isn’t going to be very useful.

It’s going to take a massive upheaval to address the shameful and gross inequality in this country. I think it will take decades. I remember the 80s and it feels so much worse than then. At least, growing up in a family without money, I could afford to go to University. Labour are the only party that will try to level things up, but I don’t think they will be able to do much. The country has been utterly decimated by global events and extremely poor government.