How do parents afford private school

[Tonnnnnn]

Around here private school fees for secondary school are around £30k per year.

What sort of salary is required to fund two kids at private school? I am assuming both parents need to earn around £100k mark or one parent needs to earn £250k.

Even then, mortgage, holidays etc.

Aside from a few high paying industries ( banking, law) most places would t pay this much unless you were senior, and there are thousands of private school places around London.

Wonder if people are using their salaries or if it’s family
money paying for the fees

The people I know who send have good household income and have also had chunky inheritances at some point (presumably reducing any mortgage or being directly dipped into)

Na, remember that 93% of kids go to state school - mumsnet is not representative of the general population!

Some people have lots of money, and/or lots of help. Housing costs are massively varied which makes a huge difference.
We could afford it easily for one child on our £120kish income, but we have 3 so no chance. Wouldn't even attempt it on an income below £250k.
Always makes me chuckle when some parents mention "sacrifices" like paying off the mortgage first... back in the real world...

Not everyone is on megabucks but it definitely helps!
My two are both at private school. They both have scholarships which provides a decent discount on the fees and we have a bursary on top of that. My share of the fees is approx £20k per year (I’m divorced) and I’ve just re-mortgaged to fund the fees for the next four years.

For us we have one child and prioritise.

We both have middling incomes part time, so about £100k per year jointly, schools here are around £1500 per month.

We bought a 3 year old car outright which will see us through the next few years which we share. Nursery fees are low as we work part time. We paid off our mortgage at 35/37 as we have a mid size house in an ok area (quiet village outside less desirable town) with low outgoings. Old mortgage payments being saved ahead of child starting to create buffer.

£1500 for us we rationalise as the mortgage we don’t pay (likely to move again but only with £100k mortgage) or full time nursery fees.

Ultimately for us the opportunity for private education is worth the sacrifice of other things. We couldn’t do it with car finance, a large house/mortgage or lots of expensive holidays.

we live in the south east and even with vat increases I don't know of any regular private school which is £30k. Most were around £6,500 per term for senior school - now £8,000 plus and no can't afford it anymore having to pay in instalments. move daughter to private due to her SEN so glad she is finishing soon - feel very sorry for parents with sen kids with years to go.

We earn around £250k between us, also have a large mortgage. DC are teens and have been at private since age 3. We're now paying £60k a year in total. We also have rental income from property and recently my parents have started paying half the fees, they are also paying half the fees for my sister's two DC. But uo until last year we were paying all the fees, so for us it's a mixture of salary, investments and now grandparents.

Forgot to add, we don't spend on much else and we have fairly basic holidays.

I went private myself and so did DH and it was important to us to give our DC the same experience, so we have picked our careers and made investments accordingly.

I’d say before bonuses my husband and I bring in about £350k, after bonuses it can be closer to £500k.

We’re currently paying about £60k a year for DD, who is six turning seven. We’ve just found out that we’re expecting twins, so that’ll push the bill up slightly! But DH is also on track for some promotions before our little ones arrive and we have some smart investments.

edited to add the £60k is with all tutors, music, sports, extra curricular activities etc added on.

My friend is a ģrandparent. She pays the fees. There are so many grandparents paying the fees that the headmaster has a tea party for them each term to keep the money rolling in.

My parents (ie DC grandparents) pay. It's about £15k a year each here, kids have gone private for secondary only.

My parents afford this out of the income from their 2 x NHS final salary pensions - and they have plenty left to spare. Weep for the poor pensioners...

Unfortunately we will not be able to provide the same generosity to our children 😳

Yeah those numbers make me nervous but best of luck to you.

Not London but I pay half a child on my c70k salary. XH pays the other half. Couldn’t afford more than one child and we have mostly camping holidays or staying with friends/family

DH income 250-300k annually depending on how his company does

we could pay the fees pretty comfortably for three DC on that (no mortgage + we drive v. Average cars + holiday in France + Pembrokeshire rather than the Maldives)

but we inherited a chunk from a great grandparent which will cover it all - and sits in a ring fenced school fees account.

basically it’s some combo of luck, hard work, priority + innate privilege… slightly diff for everyone.

Around here private secondary is about £6000 per term. Plus the extras and VAT. But base tuition of, say, £18k per year. Divided by 12. £1500 per month.

We don’t wish to pay that much, but we could if we wanted to. Household income of maybe £100k a year (Dh is a director so not strictly paid a regular monthly salary). We afforded £1100 a month in nursery fees when we had a household income of about £45k. 🤷🏻‍♀️Only one child in secondary at a time due to well planned age gap. It would certainly be possible.

I agree that £100k plus jobs are far more ten a penny than some people seem to think. They're also not generally enough to fund private school. We are loosely aiming to send ours at age 9. With a household income of around £200k in the North, we can only really do it by saving a big chunk of fees in advance. We hope to get to £200k in savings, pay the fees out of income and use the savings as necessary.

Parents both doctors, people running their own local businesses including a wine merchant and a chain of three local restaurants, bankers, actor, surveyor, teachers with one parent working at the school who has a discount, vineyard owner, posh vicar with family money, landed estate/big farm, builders, couple who ran a local care home, military, local corner shop owner/manager, people in tech start ups. (Off the top of my head, from private schools where I’ve worked).

Congratulations 🙂.

The privately educated kids I know whose parents have shared how they pay the fees:

1- father killed in an RTA, fees paid by insurances.
2- moved to a cheap area to reduce mortgage.
3- paid off mortgage early due to inheritances and a huge amount of overtime (they worked very hard, fair play)
4 - Father works offshore in oil industry; mum's a barrister (different families) - paid from salary
5 - Grandparents pay fees

Thank you! It’s a daunting thought now but we have years before we need to worry!

I suppose it depends on other outgoings. I’m not nervous at all - it’s well under a third of our take home salary (and that would obviously only be for the years we had both there at the same time). It’s not that different to what we paid in nursery fees! And we were earning 30k less then than we are now.

Of the people I knew in London with children in private school, high salaries seemed to be the main source. Many families had at least one parent in the city, often in law, finance or tech. But inheritance and grandparents were heavily represented too. Also, schools seem to have quite a few bursaries in the 10 - 20 % mark (but hardly any that would enable someone on an average income with no help to afford it).

We pay without help. We have saved the money through both of our profits from the sale of businesses. We moved to send our children to a top 5% state primary school now both are in private secondary. The cost of the move to the
outstanding primary plus tutors far outweighed the cost of the private prep fees. Plus we have a better quality of life living here and have gained more equity in the house, which was also funded entirely by the sale of the businesses.

good luck, good timing, and good decision making as well as sheer hard graft.

Oh I totally understand. It wouldn’t be enough for me but we have quite a large mortgage, we moved to a place with outstanding schools so invested in the house . ( albeit with a larger income too) I’m sure you’ve planned well.

I work 75+ hours per week. My salary is large. I make daily sacrifices.

DH's salary is also large. He also makes sacrifices.

No GP funds.

No generational wealth.

Education is worth it.