If you send your child to private school…

[Quej]

Do you genuinely think it’s worth it or do you regret it… and why?

I have a friend who went to a prestigious private school. She is now late 40s and has never worked in her life. Relies on family money. Not great wealth, her parents both worked really hard to pay the fees and continue to support her. I've often wondered if her parents regret paying for schooling.

For me it’s about the opportunity cost. If you invested £20k into a stocks & shares ISA for seven years instead of paying school fees, and left it invested for a further seven years until DC was 25, the pot would be worth around £250k at an average annual growth rate of 6%. That’s a really good first home deposit in London or the south east.

I can’t afford to do both school fees and the generous house deposit, so I’m hoping I can make state schools work for my DC.

I teach in a state school and its fine. Kids do well there. Depends massively on the school though.

If you can afford it then private offers so many more opportunities.

But... saying that, we get lots of Y12 students at our state school as either the private school doesn't offer the subject they want or as 6th forms don't tend to have naughty kids in class there are fewer advantages of private school. The state school Y12 pupils are so much better prepared for A Level though. They have been in bigger classes rooms and not many had tutors so have learned to do battle with the work on their own. The private students have been so heavily spoon fed for GCSE that A Level is a shock for them and they struggle.

We are nearing the end of our private school journey, relatively speaking. One through (went from age 6) and one with 5 years left (10 years in). I’d do it again and again and again in a heartbeat.

We looked at moving for a better secondary for my daughters but 1) my disabled son is in a lovely specialist SEN school after 3 years of fighting for it and 2) I care for my elderly mother (and am all she has after my brother was murdered) so moving wasn’t really an option. We still live in the first house we bought so our mortgage is very low, and we don’t have holidays etc, which is the only way we can afford it. Like you say, it’s choices. People generally try to do the best they can with what they’ve got.

People are saying it depends on how good the state school is but honestly I think it’s just as relevant what you will be giving up by committing to those huge fees. If you scale down holidays a bit but can maintain a wealthy lifestyle, great. If it is a huge financial struggle and you have to do without lots of other things, probably not.

Best investment ever. Our child is happy, well balanced and now ambitious for the future. It's been the making of him.

In the state sector he was anxious, depressed and shutting down.

I would make the same choice again in a heartbeat. Worth every penny.

They can’t be. My DP and I have a combined household income of 135k and we couldn’t do it at all. Just out of the question. So either these people earn huge salaries and have low outgoings or they get help from grandparents or an inheritance/remortgage. You’d have to be netting about 10-12k a month for 5k on fees not to be an issue.

I’m in Scotland. Violence is absolutely rife as the government has banned permanent exclusion at the same time as mainstreaming as many kids as possible. We live in the catchment of one of the top schools in the country and it’s appalling for violence..

Yes 100% over and over. Would rather sell my soul than my children go to our local state.

Just to be clear, when I say it’s about choices I obviously don’t mean that if everyone had a low mortgage and no holidays they’d be able to afford private school. I just mean that with our household income we could afford a much bigger house and lots of nice holidays/a snazzy car etc, but instead we personally choose to spend it on schooling.

My DD is 25 now, but fees were about £12k a year - London day school. Fees have increased massively since DD was at school.

We moved one child a year ago as her state primary was failing her due to the poor behaviour endemic in her class. It was the best move we made. It’s expensive but I can see what I’m getting for the money and the main thing is a calm environment with specialist teachers. She benefits from all the extra curricula and sport provision but the safe and nurturing environment alone is worth the cash in my view.

I haven’t moved my other one yet and have a real dilemma about what to do.

Yes but even £12k a year in purely disposable income is a hell of a luxury. The average cost is £19,000 a year.

Yes, it’s been absolutely transformative for my two. Our state options weren’t great, and instead they’ve thrived at the small friendly independent school near us. Both now hugely happy and really love it there. My own school-days were bloody miserable and that’s affected me my whole adult-life, so feel extremely fortunate that we could make the move to private.

State school pupils do better than private once at Uni and at post graduate level so the cost of private from an academic point of view in the long term is questionable. Plus there is a wider question about what education is. Is it just about grades at A level eg or is it about preparing them for the wider world? Is it important for professional people eg doctors, teachers, employers, politicians etc to be able to relate to a wider range of people? Be aware of the challenges faced by poor people? By the disadvantaged?

But that’s only if the reason you’re sending them to private school is for better grades. That’s not why we do it.

Not really. My friend sends her daughter to a very expensive private school in Brighton, 35k per year plus.

She's been there for 5yrs, all paid for via the sale of her deceased grandmothers 2 bed bungalow in Wigan which she bought for £850 on 1959 and sold in 2020 for £280,000. It was tiny, knackered, but on a good plot, hence bulldozed for flats.

So, in this case a very humble, northern family managed to pay for a top school yr8 to Yr 13, and uni costs for a BA degree, all via the sale of a mediocre house.

Property and inheritance changes lives these days just as much as good jobs and salaries. The North, Wigan, ain't cheap any more... Watch homes under the hammer to see...

Worth every penny for my children. If you have kids who you feel would do just as well in your local state option then I’m glad for you and yes, you should save that money. We tried our local state options and my kids would’ve ended up with mh issues they were so unhappy.

as for the whole ‘invest the money compound interest’ stuff - a good education and a good attitude to learning skills, trying things, enjoying and not enduring your life, that also compounds over your life.

A £280k windfall is a huge thing and, again, is a privilege. Trying to pretend it’s not is really bizarre imo

Our local ones are around 18k a year for day school to be fair so it wouldn’t quite be the 60k of the other post. But then there’s extras on top of that and things like school trips. We take home about 8k a month and 3k would go on school fees. Maybe we could do it if we really stretched ourselves but our mortgage is 2.3k a month and bills about 600. Then food, petrol and general living expenses another 1500 or so. Maybe we could do it now I’m looking at the figures. But there’d be no savings and no holidays.

Our take home is similar, and fees £3k a month. Our mortgage is only £800 a month though, so it’s just doable for us.

Normal working person here, single mum, with one grandparent contributing towards one term a year. Up north.

Small classes, amazing SEND support, extra-curricular stuff that is hugely confidence-building for my child.

Downsized house, old car, modest lifestyle including holidays. Utterly skint most of the time. But all of it by choice.

Worth every single penny. A happy and fulfilled child, and a happy mum.

Yes remarkable that she was able to pay the 200 odd thousand in school fees with the 280 thousand she inherited.

Jeez how much do you earn to be able to keep your lifestyle exactly the same?