High earners to pay for their children state schools

[Verycold]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25798659

librarybook are you sure your children are at a school selected by house price??? Thats sounds quite unique - where is this school?

Whats more than likely is that they are at a school where houses prices locally have become expensive because the schools criteria is something like the following:-

1. State looked after children
2. Children of staff
3. Brothers and sisters
4. Distance as the crow flies. etc.

The house prices will rise based on the school having great results. The great results are not exclusively down to the school in anyway shape or form. The results are driven by the parents of the children attending - extra curricular activities, reading at home, etc etc

barbour, I'm not sure what your post is saying. I don't think slagging off different groups or even rushing to classify oneself within a certain group is that helpful. I just think the term "politics of envy" sounds so defensive, I don't know why it's so popular, it makes me judge the user I'm afraid.

barbour We'd lose that neurosurgeon to the US. Guess brain drain would be rampant (no pun intended), but many people here don't think about that.

FWIW... DH and I would move abroad if there was a chance. Let's see what people say when all those on 80k and more start leaving the country. Who's going to pay into the tax system then?

you can judge me how you like, but too many posts on these boards are riddled with it .....and very transparently so.

As well as the catchment area house price issue, there are also state boarding schools where, AIUI, the school itself is free but the boarding fees top this up and mean that better off families are more likely to send their children there (in one case, I happen to know that the boarding places are in addition to the non-boarding places, so better off parents are topping up the free education in order to get their child a place at a state school. There's a second school like this locally but I'm not sure if their admissions policy is separate for boarding or non-boarding places).

I am going to encourage my clever hard working m/c children to emigrate one day ...I think the dependency culture here is getting worse and I find it depressing and divisive.

Why do people not find it obscene that so many people think it's their god-given right to have children (i.e. dependents) early on that they can ill afford with expectations to be subsidized wholly by others and claim poverty when many others who work hard actually wait much longer to be able to afford them and provide for them properly themselves.

Well we have a high level of inequality in the UK by international standards, it is bound to be reflected here. I think the issue is that the perceived haves are getting relatively poorer, but so are the poor (except for the poorest pensioners). The economy is hollowing out.

I hope the government can get cooperation worldwide to collect tax from big business.

I think the main thing we can agree on is that 'rich' is a very subjective term. We should be in that category but as our mortgage is £1,100 a month & tax & NI is several thousand, we actually have less disposable income than my friend who lives in Nottingham on half our salaries. And they get benefits too !!! If I lived in the same size house in her city I would be rich. As I had the misfortune to have been born in South East (& have elderly parents who I would like to spend time with), I'm stuck here for now. So, under this plan, even though I have less money in my pocket each month I would have to pay, whereas my seemingly poorer mate, with more money (& much nicer house & car) would get it free ????

I know that some people who pay full school fees don't like those on lesser income receiving bursaries and have witnessed this first hand, both here and in rl. I started a thread not long ago.

My point is that a good education should be for everybody, irrespective of income.

Snowbells

We live in NW, house paid off, no commute, only one very old very cost efficient motor, never had childcare.
You have a very expensive lifestyle, so 80k isn't so much to you, ours is a cheap lifestyle and it is an enormous amount to us.

mumsneedwine you do have the advantage of access to far more work opportunities and higher income, who knows at some point you may be able to go and buy a chunk of Nottinghamshire.

a large proportion of the benefits bill is spent on pensioners. over 74 billion pounds

the old people are crippling the welfare bill, not young parents, I can't believe anyone who has done the smallest amount of research into the matter can believe otherwise

Do they pay the boarding fee to get the place and then not use the boarding facility then?

I believe they have to use the boarding facility - the closer school is the one I know about and I would imagine they have residency rules for the boarders like most boarding schools would - weekly boarding would be possible I'd think.

The only family I know personally who did this also had the constraint of a possible future overseas posting for Dad (which had happened by the time I met them, but they chose the boarding at the outset just in case), but were at one point living locally with at least one child boarding locally - weekdays only I believe. They told me about other families who lived locally enough not to board, with no such issues, who still had a boarding place.

Of course such schools are generally pretty good, though, so they have a lot of non-local children paying for the boarding place to get a good secondary school place at a fraction of the cost of private school, as well.

but if you have a house in the south east with a crippling mortgage - the returns are going to be proportionally higher than someone who has more cash in pocket and is a home owner in the north.

those with huge mortgages are paying into an investment which will give them - or their children a greater start in life than those in a similar situation up north.

if this were not the case, if wages were higher and property more profitable, then there would be a surge to the north surely

If all the most educated people "seek their fortunes elsewhere where hard work and talent pays" then you're going to lose an awful lot of the best people from jobs where intelligence and effort count, but aren't valued by the capitalist business dream or particularly highly paid. You'll lose the best academics and teachers to business, for example.

Custardo we are renting. We are of the generation that missed the property boom and would now have to buy high.

mprethanpotato If I had a paid off mortgage, I'd be happy and definotely thinl I'm well off. For npw, it's our landlord that's rich. He owns at least 4 apartments in our building alone...

custardo The difference being that the pensioners we're supporting today have paid into the system. Many young parents have not. We live in different times now.... there is a culture of entitlement in some social groups which needs eradicating. I don't mind paying my taxes to support pensioners as it goes. I do mind paying my taxes to support the segments of societies that view benefits as a lifestyle choice. The families that have several kids, and refuse to work and spend much of their weekly budget on drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. I personally know many many families living like this.... It makes my blood boil, when I read they want to make me pay further for educating my children in same school as these dossers who get it free, aswell as my tax money to fund their choice. In addition I know many people that get payments from the fathers of their children if separated, which the government chose not to take into account in terms of benefits. I know people who's children are now of school age and the government is trying to force them to look for work, and their work around is to 'go self employed' but not actually make a success of it so they can still claim and sit on their arses.

Also your point on the property prices and large mortgages -a mortgage costs money to service through interest. I will pay a couple of hundred grand in interest on my mortgage over 25 years. Further if the government bring in a school fee for the 'rich', and a lottery system, you'll have a house price crash and negative equity in housing pocket areas that were supported by the existing schools system of distance to gate.

I don't profess to understand what it is like to have a different lifestyle choice to the one dh and I made.
However, as this thread is so interesting I will add our experience.
We bought in East Anglia quite cheaply in 1992, made a little bit in 12 years and moved up here, giving us a deposit to buy in NW.
Always has one low income and sahp, so no childcare.
We had the option to live in London or SE but decided against as it is so expensive, always has been really.
We saw it as giving our dc a better start in life as money we saved from not working afforded our children private tuition, hobbies and interests and a parent or at times both parents at home.
I don't think any decision anybody makes in life is better than anybody elses, we are all different and want different things in life.
I think there is only a problem when people are narrow minded and don't see others as having a different situation working/not working for themselves.

Sorry, the above reads like my dh doesn't work, he is a musician and is at home sometimes.

Charley

You would not believe some of the parents I have met who look down their noses at me and my family.
The weirdest thing is I met a lady at an open day on Saturday who must have been worth Millions, really.
She was so lovely, down to earth, obviously born into the money but so nice. I could imagine her being at home with Royalty or a tramp. That to me is class

morethanpotato Yes, it's different choices but also different age groups... in 1992, I was still a kid and could not buy a house (not even a doll house)...