Discrepancy in attitude towards school fees and nursery fees

[Happysallie]

I find it very curious in the various debates around school fees that:

1. School fees at an avg of £1,250-1,500 pcm is the preserve of the rich due to the sums involved; but

2. Nursery fees at an avg. of £1,250-1,500 pcm is… just an ordinary expense that parents should plan for

Every parent of a child under four is effectively paying the equivalent to a private education, probably at a far earlier stage in their careers / earning power.

No observation on private education right or wrong, just bizarre to see people spending £1,500 a month on private school as impossibly wealthy while most parents I know are scraping by, begging and borrowing, fund £2-3k a month in nursery fees.

This more an observation at the acceptance of insane nursery fees, than the cost of private education!

Nursery fees - subsidised , often part-time ( we send our kids 2 long days, 1 short, then both dropped to 4 days working) and short-term with an end in sight…
The children - nursery kids smaller, cheaper. Less activities ( or none in our case) cheaper on food and clothes, cheaper or no travel…

Our nursery fees don’t even come close to the cost of private school…

Also - ANOTHER f-ing thread about private schools??? I’m on the social media grps in this topic so am aware that making as much NOISE as possible is a tactic by private school parents - alongside harassing councils, schools and applying for state school places that no-one has any intention in taking up, but still…

I dont think people think nursery fees are manageable. They moan about them a lot.

They do it if there is no alternative. Ie people adjust hours, juggle use grandparets etc to avoid fees as much as possible.

they also might find it possible to do a mix of saving and debt for 3 years but not be in a position to cover 3 years and then a further 12 through debt.

I’m not a private school parent.

Most people I know are paying for full time or 4 days a week at nursery - and it costs the same as the local private schools.

Your nursery fees alone might not be close to the cost of private school, but what do the sums look like when you factor in the sacrificed wage from you both dropping a day at work? There are a lot of people on this thread working part time and claiming that their low nursery fees aren't comparable to private school without accounting for their lost salary.

Private schools are a nice to have (except in some cases where a child has special needs that they can more effectively accommodate).

Nursery/childcare fees are so you can go to work (and no, being a SAHM isn't the alternative - people need to eat and keep a roof over their head - or, shock horror, they just want to work). Are also temporary, or at least reduce significantly as the child gets older. Private school fees increase as the child gets older.

University fees are so you can get a job/a particular job.

The essential point is that people need childcare and to an extent university. Nobody "needs" a private school because there is a "free" alternative. They want it and that's to the same.

For me it’s about what is necessary or not.

It was necessary for me to use nursery or I wouldn’t have been able to work. We really struggled to afford it but knowing it was a short term cost made it bearable.
We had our kids 4 years apart deliberately so we didn’t have to pay 2 x nursery fees at the same time…. We were 35&39 then 39&43 when we had them.

Also, for some people there is help with nursery fees (funded hours, tax free schemes, UC etc).

However, school is provided by the state and therefore not necessary for us to pay for private education. Thank goodness. Youngest is just finishing reception year at school and we’re just recovering from the nursery costs!

If we had to pay for private school there’s no way we would have had a second child, it would have been way beyond our means.

Because it’s short term, therefore more manageable eg can be saved for / acceptable short term hit to quality of life, as pp have said. Assume 1 year mat leave, age 1-3 paying nursery fees, then funded hours etc.

Private education requires committing to 7+ years of fees plus all the uniform, trips etc on top.

I do get your point OP, kind of.

We were paying £1600 a month for five days a week, however just before DD turned three we moved and enrolled her into the local primary school nursery where we now pay £150 a term thanks to 30 hours funding.

I appreciate that our situation isn't the norm but neither is saying that childcare costs are simular to private school fees, they are but not for as long.

There are options to help manage nursery costs. There is the National Savings scheme and other workplace help, funding from certain ages, nursery isn't compulsory so you some people are able to work opposite shifts or have family help. If you are on a low income you can eligible for a golden ticket.

School is compulsory in the sense you can't just pick private education days on the days you work and is an expense for at least 11yrs.

However I do think families should get much better support through the early years or have the option not to work but get more support through UC etc to be home with 0-5yr children.

It’s about 1200 a month for 4 days once the discounts (30 for him, 15 for her, plus tax free childcare) and top ups (110 for him and 90 for her) have been applied. 7 years of nursery between them. We’ve spent over £30k so far. Luckily only one year with them both in. I’m going to feel like a millionaire in September 2025 when little boy finally starts school, I drop the little one to term time and I’ll be up more than £700 a month.

Oldest was born in September so 4 years for him! Our total bill will be in the region of 60k, would have been more like 80k if I’d had to work 5 days.

Interested how you expect parents to work and pay their bills if they don't send their children to nursery, OP? Do you think all parents of preschoolers should either be very wealthy or on benefits?

Ignore the comparison with private education though I get what you are saying, it is a choice, nursery isn’t, I totally agree that nursery costs are crippling. This is a relatively new scenario and is a nightmare for parents of young children.
We have had many years of a government who believe that private is best so have no interest in state supplied nursery, they do not really believe enough in women’s rights to supply nursery to let them return to work and they do not pay more than lip service to the importance of early years development to supply good quality nursery care and education.
Others countries do it differently and we could learn a lot!
Not even going to start on why we have eye wateringly expensive nurseries staffed by carers on low wages.

I do sort of understand what you are saying, as prep-school fees are generally on par with nursery but Private school fees increase substantially in secondary school. Nursery fees are ridiculously expensive but you don't have trips, uniform, transportation, lunch fees etc on top of that. Plus the older the child the more expensive everything becomes.

The cheapest school round our way is £8k a term for sixthformers, so £24k a year. times that by 2 children that £48k a year just for fees, wich is more expensive than nursery.

Who said it was illegal or morally wrong? I didn't.

The OP asked why there was a discrepancy in attitude between the two.

All I was doing was pointing out the difference between nursery provision, which people have to pay for as there is no free alternative, and private education which is optional. And that could be a reason why people look on them differently.

People will fall over themselves to justify the difference. Two reasons. Nursery for the majority is often highly subsidised by net contributors via UC. Those that do pay the full whack are those evil so called rich that MN love to hate.

I think it’s a slippery slope that no-one has really considered. Is it preschool next? Uni? We already can’t afford the UC bill so that won’t be paying it.

There's a huge difference in budgeting for the short term essential cost of nursery than taking on a 14 year voluntary commitment of school fees. Besides, many average earners don't pay this in nursery costs, it's more than their wage. They use a patch work system of childcare that includes some nursery time, flexible or part work hours, and family help. People who can afford that level of nursery fees probably have a fair amount of cross over with people who could afford school fees. There are lots of reasons for not choosing to pay school fees that have nothing to do with affordability.

As someone who lives in a low income area, what I see in the mothers around me is that people just simply don't send their children to childcare until the funding kicks in because they can't afford it otherwise. This is the exact reason the government introduced the free funding for 2 year olds who's parents are low income/on uc even though the regular funded hours didn't kick in until 3 for most people.

So it's not exactly the case that everyone just accepts nursery as a given cost - lots and lots of people cannot accept it as a cost because they cannot afford it.

Obviously now there's the new funding schemes so the 2yo funding for low income families thing isn't very relevant anymore.

Get a grip. There are plenty of net contributors who choose not to privately educate their children. Good state schools do exist.

Are you ok? I am aware. I’m one of them. 6 figures in tax and we chose to spend our money buying in the catchment of one of the best states in the country. Thankfully, it seems I have a grip then.

@whistleblower99 Perfectly fine thanks. We are a net contributing household and very happy with the state schools that our children attend.
I still think there's a big difference between paying for nursery fees and paying for private school fees.

That’s great. I don’t. It’s because I’m looking at the bigger picture - not because I pay private school fees. I don’t. We are easily in the top 1%. I’ll be getting some return on the 6 figures of tax we pay. So not sure what your previous gotcha was supposed to be - I am that person.

I suppose we usually went into having another child with the mindset that we would need to be caring for them so nursery fees were going to be a necessary cost if we made the decision we would both work the same days. Lovely all these new subsidies that have come in and people make their plans around them like we also have so if rug suddenly pulled from under us it would be very frustrating but with our previous children we didn’t feel we were entitled to have our kids cared for for us. You took a financial hit either way having kids and either you managed the care between yourselves or had the benefit of same salaries as before but would need to pay someone for care you were responsible for

Sorry who was it that came on the thread and quoted me and told me to get a grip for giving my opinion? You. The gotcha fell flat because the point you were trying to make is literally me. All quite funny. The angry person is the one going on to thread telling others to get a grip and making personal attacks - I’d say.

@Wills890 we don’t send our children to the school we’ve selected in the hope of good grades, although obviously everyone wants their child to do the best they can. We send them there because we feel it’s the right ethos and setting for them. They also have double the school holidays so we can spend more time with them.

We plan to purchase two investment properties, the income will help to pay school and university fees, then they’ll both have a house at the end. I do completely recognise how lucky we are. I certainly didn’t grow up in the same circumstances and really struggled to put myself through uni, I would like to make sure my children aren’t in the same position!