Private school fees- is it worth the £250k?

[SchoolDilemmas123]

AIBU about potential school fees?
I want to send my DS to the local state secondary but my DH wants the private route.

My DS has a place at an independent school for year 7, starting in Sept 2026.
The fees in his first year will be £30,000 (£10,000 per term) plus uniform and trips.
So we are looking at least £250,000 for his education until the end 6th form.

When you put it like that…. It’s an awful
Lot money that might be better spent elsewhere. We could invest the money now and give him £300,000 when he turns 25 for a house deposit for example

There is so much to weigh up! It’s a great school, not a hot house but pretty academic. The school suits him very well. He would thrive there.

we have a ‘good’ state secondary school to consider. Not outstanding, gets very average results. He would hopefully be fine there. I want to send him here with his friends from his state primary.

We can afford the fees but it would eat into our future savings. We live in a normal house, no mortgage, and both work full time.

I don’t know what to do for the best long term.

Anyone else had these considerations? If so how did you reach your decision, and are you happy with it?

YANBU - send him to the state secondary.
YABU - go private

@Primrose86 Lots of thst is pie in the sky. Plenty of high paying London jobs are still occupied by very highly educated dc from abroad. The world over. They do put down roots and buy. DD has many friends who have done exactly this. They like it here.

We are not building all over the London! London isn’t empty, and the green belt means housing isn’t everywhere. People actually do want high paying jobs in London and like living there. It’s all very well saying prices will come down, but even in the far flung areas of the SE, £60,000 doesn’t go that far. £250,000 makes it much easier!

How can it be when the birth rate is below replacement

The birth rate has been below replacement for years though. I do think the housing market going forward won’t be as as it was the last few decades. Prices will stagnate & soften but interest rates are unlikely to be very low so it will still be expensive.

My flat hasn't gone up in 10 years

Flats are different to housing though.

Also my dc may need that deposit to buy a house in another country that does offer better opportunities.

We don't have furries in our state secondary 😂and there absolutely is vaping in private schools too.

Saying that, at my dc old primary there are a small number of girls who attend school with a clip on furry tail. This is regarded as one of the best schools in the area, very academic and traditionally very picky and strict uniform policy yet the SLT have embraced furries.

And yes wages are pretty crap here but we will likely have to do more to attract skilled migrants, keep skilled young people here.

We live in an inheritocracy now. Help with buying a first home tends to make far more difference than education level. And that's before we factor in what AI is likely to do to the job market

I come from abroad and i like it here. I did university here. But I also got settlement after 5 years and am married to a Brit and bought my flat in my 20s. Which is not usual for most immigrants. The arithmetic is totally different for immigrants settling today , the route to ILR is a lot more uncertain, and the frozen tax thresholds do not help either when comparing what you could earn in other countries. I came here in 2011 as a student and started work in 2016. The arithmetic is very different today compared to 2026. Its why a record amount of millionaires have left the UK. The ones who do not leave (like me) are those who don't see living in the UK as a purely financial proposition and who also have other ties. But in real numbers we are small and this would affect house prices going forward. Now average house is 11 times median income, I suspect they would be closer to 5 times median income currently so much more affordable for dc provided they are in good job.

We have relied on immigration from higher birth rate countries. However that will stop as even India is slightly below replacement rate (and lower for the richer areas that our immigrants come from).

We are reaching a state where all western countries will have ageing populations and also a lot of developing countries. It is unprecedented.

We live in an inheritocracy now

I bought in London with help (6 fig help) & I don’t really know any friends who bought without some form of help

We are reaching a state where all western countries will have ageing populations.

I am not disagreeing with that and do think we will have to do more to attract & keep workers to compete with other countries

most western countries already have again populations, it’s happening now.

That is our generation's problem. Our dc will have different issues. What is it, I dont have a crystal ball. But I wouldn't assume housing is it as the demographic trends point the other way.

As I said I don’t think it will be the same but I don’t think housing will be cheap. And life will be more expensive eg utilities, food etc.

Plus the healthcare & pension model will likely look different going forward so if my dc don’t need as much for a house they certainly are going to need it for life!

Yes but the developing countries didnt. What happens when birth rates everywhere are crashing and here are fewer young people everywhere. The birth rate in 1990 in India was 4.27, so a young middle class Indian born then is 36 today, peak productive working age. The birth rate for India is now 1.9 and below 1.4 in some of the more middle class areas where most of our Indian immigrants come from. DISK- dual income single kid is acrually a trend! It has halved!

That is how it is for my son's birth year (2025).

My colleague’s child is at one of the main Edinburgh private schools and has suffered years of horrendous bullying, about which the school has done nothing. My husband’s cousin sent his son to a particularly exclusive boys’ school and the bullying was off the charts. Violence, bullying and inept leadership seem to exist in the private sector too, but you will be £10000s lighter in your pocket annually.

Yes but the developing countries didnt. What happens when birth rates everywhere are crashing and here are fewer young people everywhere.

money will help! i’m still saving for my dc but you do you.

Yes two of my best friends went to one of the most elite Edinburgh private schools and the stories they have to tell about drug use, sex (and sex abuse ) and bullying absolutely shocked me as a child who went to a state School.

You simply cannot buy protection from those horrors and in some cases because of access to ready cash there is a lot more drug use in the private sector. None of my state school peers could have afforded the drug binging that was going on in the private schools.

And one only has to look at the papers in recent weeks to realize that sex abuse most certainly happens in even the most elite public schools

It's foolish to assume you can purchase a safe childhood for your child in this way. Wherever they go to school you need to stay alert and aware there could be issues.

@CuttheshurtainsI mean it’s horrendous and I’m sure much more regulated now! But the amount of male teachers having relationships with pupils at my private school in the 90s was wild! One actually did get taken to court and is on the sex offenders register now! (I’m sure it happened in state schools too)

I think it depends on your motive.
If you're looking at is as a long term investment to buy better grades/uni/career then no - it's absolutely not worth it. Kids from all walks of life and all types of school thrive and achieve with parental support and encouragement.
But if you're looking at it as 7 years of enjoyable school with a quieter learning environment and lots of extra curricular opportunities - so more like paying for the now rather than the future, then yes, it's money well spent.
Certainly it's costing an absolute fortune, and grandparents are footing 50% of the bill in this household - but to me, and for my dd, it is emphatically worth it.

Is there no in between option or is state or 30k per year private the only choices? I am in Ireland so yes we have a very different education system and as a parent with 3 kids in our local state secondary I do not recognise the profile of state schools described here. Our local fee paying schools (they are not completely private in that teacher salaries are paid by the state) are financially more affordable for most middle class people, you are looking at price ranges of €5000 to €8000 per year, but if you are living in a middle class area there is very little difference between state and fee paying and many rural areas would only have state option unless your kids boarded.

You don’t know the income figures I was working with then or now.

One thing I will say though, I may not have just ‘gone for it’ if I hadn’t known I had a safety net in the form of my parents. As things turned out, I didn’t have to ask them for any contributions at all, but I know they would/could have done if the shit had hit the fan. That, I know, was a massive privilege I enjoyed.

I am in London and doing a mix. Sending my son to a local prep (22k to 24k per year) followed by a state school archer academy (i live 0.3 miles away albeit in a small 2 bed flat but it is in catchment) which has a direct partnership with Woodhouse College (top 5 sixth form colleges in the country) so if you meet the minimum criteria, you will get priority admissions. I would love him to get into a north london grammar but it would be very difficult and I dont want to hothouse him

My baby is 7 months old but I went to look at our local state faith primary school and 4 independent schools (3 non selective, 1 selective at 4+) when I was pregnant and I liked the local ones prep better and they also do 11 plus prep so there is an off chance he may pass the grammar exam. It also has a small class of 11 people.

If he doesnt he will just go to archer (distance based and free) and then woodhouse college (which is also selective but easier to get in from archer).

Has your DS passed the 13+? If you didn’t intend to send him to the school, may I ask why you entered him for the exam? I assume you were aware of the fees beforehand?

Yes we are aware of the fees. We can afford them, I’m just not sure I want to, for various reasons.

There are lots of parents who enter kids into 4 or more school entrance exams, and they will only accept one of them, which may or may not be fee paying. Because it opens up more options.

DS might still go to the private school. I haven’t decided yet, but he has earned a place.

I have privately educated 3 children and it goes far beyond just fees.
I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of doing it for my boys and not my daughters.
There were a lot of extras, trips etc, beyond skiing and fun trips.
We are very very comfortably off, but it was an unexpected huge inheritance from a bachelor uncle of my husband's that funded ours.
We have huge savings, pensions, always morgage free, but it was still an unexpected inheritance that paid for them.
All children are none, for sure.
Anything else is unfair IMO.