Do people expect ROI after paying private school fees?

[Enrew]

By ROI, I mean getting into top unis/ prestigious job/ high performer in a sport etc?

I ask after a family friend spent around 120k on child's education and child dropped out of good uni course to become personal trainer/ influencer. Nothing wrong with that career choice imo but friend seems resentful/ annoyed that after spending so much money child won't be doctor/ lawyer / banker and they could have done this career regardless of where they went to school. It's as if they had expectations all along.

I have no experience of private school system myself and my DC will go to local state school but thinking about it if I was paying out thousands per year for DC to have top education, I'd probably have some extra expectations.

I think different parents have different motivations. Some want it to give thier child future options and opportunities they might not have had otherwise.

Some just want thier child to have a nice time now and think it will be nicer than the alternative today and that's the return.

Private school might have given them the confidence and the networks to be a social influencer whereas state parents/,kids nowadays are thinking about careers due to frightening cost of living, student loans etc

Yes I do if I'm honest. Not in the sense I'm going to add up all the fees and look at it as 10 Yr capital investment I want to see the money coming back on in the context of my kids income.

I do want to see them in careers they are happy and fulfilled in, and which give them choices in life through the financial income it generates. I also want them to realise that they can ff right off with any view they can coast through life in expectation of inherited wealth. DH is still living in a bit of a bubble whereas I'm fully expecting to sell the house and cash in any assets to fund our retirement and care homes. Not hand out hefty lump sums for 1st time buyers.

I wouldn't send my child to private as a financial investment. A lot the children come from generational wealth and don't have to work - this attitude can rub off on the children. I think grammar schools tend to promote more traditional careers.

I have the money to send DS to private school but I know too many privately educated relatives and friends I was at state 6 form with that have massively underachieved that I wouldn’t dream of sending him to private school. The multi millionaires I know are state school educated. Some of them didn’t even do that well at school. They did all grow up with supportive parents in benign environments, which I reckon makes it much easier to experiment and potentially succeed.

DSis has sent her kids to private school.
Ive decided to give DS a state school education and have invested the equivalent fees in a JISA. Who knows what will happen but I think he’ll do OK.

Truly, honestly no. When I first decided to send one of my kids to private school, about 15 years ago, I made a very conscious decision that this was a choice I was making and I would not ever hold it against them- he wasn’t choosing for me to spend thousands of pounds on his education! And I’ve also made a conscious decision to support my kids in the ambitions they have - not what I’d quite like them to do. So DC1 is at uni doing a course many would think was likely to be a “poor ROI” - but he’s taking a crack at something he’s passionate about, and excellent at. Plenty of time later to be sensible and boring if he has to. DC2 also following a slightly optimistic path, but following his dreams. I’m sure people who know me mutter about the waste of school fees and how much better their kids have done in state school - but both lads have terrible dyslexia, and I know that without the schools they’ve had, they would not have got the reasonably good grades they have got!

DC3 is exceptionally intelligent, but also autistic, so the private education for her is really me just trying to buy SEND support again rather than battle for an EHCP. DC4 is a winning combo of very bright and very well adjusted, your textbook “will do well anywhere”. But having sent the first 3, I would worry by not sending him, it would sow bad feelings between the siblings. If I avoid that, the money will be money well spent. That’s enough of a ROI for me.

I don't care about my child becoming a "high-flier". To be honest, I'd prefer it if they did something worthwhile rather than chasing the money. But the most important thing is that I'd want them to be happy.

A career (if you can call it that) as an "influencer" is neither worthwhile, nor a recipe for happiness. Take up a musical instrument or train as a landscape gardener.

It's the journey, not the destination.

I hope my orivately educated kids have been given whatever opportunity to explore anything they want to and the confidence to do so.

If they end up bumming around - thats on them .

My money qas being spent on giving them opportunities and shaping their character. I won't regret this even if they don't make the most of their opportunities

Same - I'm happy to drive an older car, have UK holidays and buy cheaper clothes for my kids not to be bullied and for them to have the aspirations to have a professional career IF they choose to do so. I don't think of it as any kind of financial investment. I live fairly close to an Ofsted outstanding state school, a couple of weeks ago a kid was stabbed in the corridor during the school day and the exam results are terrible but its still considered 'outstanding'.

They would be silly if they did. It's an unnecessary waste of money in some areas - our local state school gets better results and has smaller classes than the 2 closest private.

None of those in my social circle who were privately educated have done anything that they may not otherwise have done....several are stay at home mums, couple of teachers, couple of nurses, a midwife. However some of their grown up children who also went private seemed to have struggled more and had problems with addiction in comparison with our local comp kids.

Children are not an investment opportunity.

Many people educated at private school go on to quite low-paying careers eg acting (where the vast majority make very little, and only the lucky few get highly paid roles) or careers where you need to spend years earning virtually nothing bedore you finally get a role that pays eg Journalism, music.

If you come from a family with serious monet you can afford to take a job that pays peanuts to do something you genuinely love doing.

The idea of ROI for education is ridiculous. Parentimg doesn't get a score sheet where the total sum earned by an adult offspring less the cost you spent to get them there is some kind pf objective measure of value.

School fees are just one aspect of what gets spent on a child - holidays, tech equipment, extracurriculars, cultural and leisure pursuits and housing are all costs that families will spend on whether or not they are paying school fees. Each family takes a priorities decision on what to spend their money on. In a lot of cases option A will cost ££££ more than B but will be a more enjoyable and positive experience and if the family has ££££ available they have the power to choose that regardless of whether it might or might not lead to getting ££££ back later.

One of the reasons I have an issue with private school is the expectations it puts on children. Particularly in families who struggle to pay the fees. Children often see far more of what's going on in their family than we think they do.

Both our kids have been in private since kindergarten and will be in private until the end of their schooling. Neither husband nor I have any expectations of our kids. The only thing we want is for them to leave their education and not think "I hated every minute of school".

Interesting to see quite a few people saying they would send their bright child to private school, but save their money if their child was average or below-average.

My own inclination would be the opposite - that the child who might struggle would benefit more from smaller classes, etc.

My husband went to an independent school. He feels that he benefitted more from this because he was quite average at a lot of subjects. It turned out that he was very good in one area, but he feels that he would not have had the opportunity to take himself further in that field, as the grades he would have achieved in other subjects at GCSE without the extra support would have been too low to get into the best universities for his course.

I was state-educated, and was academically a good all-rounder. He says that private education would have been money wasted on me, as I was always going to be a straight As student.

That’s obviously an over-simplification, as there is a lot that private education offer in terms of enrichment activities that the state sector just does not have the funding or staffing numbers to offer.

I also think he is wrong that I would have thrived wherever I went. I probably would have still got all As, but the effects of your school experience cannot be simply summed up by the grades you achieve. I don’t ascribe to the view that you often hear that clever children do well anywhere. I was fat, shy, bad at PE, interested in classical music, and an ethnic minority. I would have been eaten alive if I had gone to my brother’s school during the 1980s. Fortunately, there were other options and I was viewed as deeply uncool, but mainly left alone at my school. However, that’s not a state v independent sector issue. I think I would have also had a miserable time if I had gone to the well-known public school that my cousin went to.

Ultimately, it’s all about the right school for the right child, within the constraints of family finances.

@Strokethefurrywall "The only thing we want is for them to leave their education and not think "I hated every minute of school"."

And the other 93% of the population don't care whether their kids hate school or not? Right.

Few will admit that, but parents will want ROI in terms of academic achievement, movement in the ‘right’ social circles or even that much-vaunted private school ‘confidence’ (charm, arrogance…) to overcome the fact they might be a bit thick, by smoothing their way to success.
There are an awful lot of Tim-nice-but-dim banker/landowner/trust fund types about too.

We sent out two children to private school.

Both of us were not from money but my ExH made a lot of money in business and so he (we) could afford the school fees without really noticing.

We didn't go without to pay them.

We don't care about return on investment.

Lucky really because one went into music (no money in music). The other is still finishing her degree but is seriously disabled and getting a job might be tricky.

The schools they went to had a lot of generational wealth/business owners etc who didn't really notice the school fees.

No. My ROI is happy and rounded children. That will do me as that what I think sets you up for adult life.

I’d rather they weren’t influencers 😂. They are doing very well academically (not quite there yet but I’m guessing they’ll perform in exams) but they’ll make their choices like the rest of us when they become adults.

Wherever they go to school, I’d be disappointed if my kids dropped out of a good university course to become an influencer as that industry is so fickle… best get the qualification, be an influencer if they want, but have something to fall back on when fashions change/they’re out of favour. My eldest is at private school for SEN reasons and I’ll just be happy if she feels happy at school and eventually finds a job that makes her happy. I would worry about her being an influencer though, as it’s tied up so much with how ‘popular’ you are and it must be pretty devastating for your mental health when one day no-one is interested and has moved on to the new thing.

Return on Investment!

Why put words in people's mouths? @Strokethefurrywall hadn't remotely said that. Maybe she's reflecting on her own experience, maybe the state schools near her are awful, maybe, like mine, her children were bullied to fuck and developed EBSA in their state school. My eldest is likely to leave his small, not really academic private with not much in the way of GCSEs but he won't be a gibbering wreck wanting to kill himself. I am not remotely suggesting that that is the experience for all or even many but it is for some and I and @Strokethefurrywall are in a position to alleviate that. I know parents in the same situation as me who are not and it's awful and desperate for them. I don't think they care less. I hate the way these threads always make massive assumptions about what private school parents think and often ignore what we actually say.

Out of interest why are people so down on someone becoming an influencer? A very close friend of mine is one and she earns really well, works her own hours and is her own boss.

@puzzlesandactivediscussions because it's mostly vapid shite that is basically just monetising your own life, kids, latest trend. It's hugely dependant on an incredibly fickle audience and offers no stability. The vast majority will not earn enough for security and it puts enormous pressure on them to always be "on". It also encourages appalling consumerism and the concept that if you can look like this or buy that you will be happy. I think it sends a terrible and unrealistic message to very impressionable teens.

Do you ask the same question if someone moves house and pays out a ton of stamp duty to get into the catchment of an excellent comp?
I suspect that any parent who invests in education, be it time or money, expects that investment to be “worthwhile”. Whatever that means. For most parents it will be to enhance the child’s abilities across the board, health, including mental health, confidence, memories etc - academics would be a small percentage of that. Most of us engaged parents are trying to raise well rounded human beings who will contribute positively to society because their foundations are right.

But I think wholly depends on the type of influencer you are.

Anyway I probably should have asked this on another thread as don’t want to derail op.