School fees inflation - what to expect in the long term?

[Pedent]

I'm trying to work out whether it's feasible to send our children to our local GDST school for some or all of their education. When running the calculations, the assumed rate of fees inflation makes an enormous difference: even half a percent makes a difference of tens of thousands of pounds.

I know that fees have been rising much faster than inflation in recent decades, but don't know whether that's likely to continue or to moderate. I guess that that depends on what factors have been driving the increases (teachers' salaries going up in general? rising incomes leading to rising demand for places?), and whether those factors are still in place, but don't really know how fees are set.

Can anyone offer an informed opinion about a reasonable rate to project for the next decade or so?

Happy you will find that it can only happen at the truely well established school. Which has a brand name that is well known to overseas parents. Im afraid to say sadly many overseas parents do not match the school for their child needs and assume sending them to a renowned school with expensive fees is what should be done.

The lesser well known school whose teaching matches the children needs are less sought after but still get the results needed.

Admittedly I saved money sending my daughter to boarding in UK as good international schooling in HK is also very expensive....

So yes you can expect more Chinese students. They are being priced out by the super rich in their own country.

So to the Chinese sending their children boarding is a win win. Their child gets a good education at a decent price. Their child will learn an accent that is native to the British isles. (good if your Asian and interview with a international company).

I went to a GDST school & the fees when I left were £550 a term. My brother went to KCS in Wimbledon & the fees were £764 a term. From looking at NHEHS & PHS' fees, the GDST schools are still substantially lower in cost than the other independent schools.

I didn't start at a GDST school until I was 8 but had I started in 1972 the fees would have been £64 a term. My parents couldn't afford it then but they became more financially successful.

Thanks for the replies. All very discouraging, but useful nevertheless. It seems that there's a real risk (likelihood?) of sustained 5%+ fees inflation, so we'll do better to start off in the state sector and then reassess at 7/11.

if you save money by not paying school fees for 3-4 years that is likely to cover the cost raising year by year
it may work in your favour in the end

if you save money by not paying school fees for 3-4 years that is likely to cover the cost raising year by year

but in many areas private schools are very selective and the older the child, the more effort it takes to get them in.

Next year's fees have just been published, and they're up 4.5% on last year, which is in line with what you all told me to expect.

If it is a London GDST the private school market is going to see increasing demand. The pupil bulge started to hit this year and in many boroughs they will need two or more 5 form entry senior schools within the next two or three years, it is far from clear whether they will materialise. Our borough has long relied on deterring parents into private schools at primary level regularly offering no school place at all, to 75 families this year, and it looks like that will soon become the case for secondary too. The private schools all report an increase in applications.

Add to that that there is definitely an arms race going on in terms of facilities, theatres, arts centres, Learning Resource Centres (or libraries in old money) . They all have to have development plans in place to compete. The GDST schools tend to be on crowded sites so are going to have to get quite imaginative about how they improve facilities.

Just a thought but if you offer to pay all upfront (if you can release the lump sum) most schools will agree to waive the inflation...

Friends who went to boarding school have their kids at day because the fee rise has been so much more than the earnings rise over the generation

Interesting to see how independent schools will try to justify fee increases over the coming year with inflation rates being less than 1%. GDST itself has a huge cash reserve/surplus and so doesn't appear to have an immediate need to increase fees at all.

As the head of KCS Wimbledon recently admitted, many independent schools in London have already lost the middle class professionals who only a few years ago could afford to pay their fees from net salaries. So huge have been the fee hikes at these schools in the last few years that they have become the exclusive preserve of parents with access to personal or family capital, or with their snouts in City troughs.

Far from contemplating any kind of inflation busting rise this year, these schools should be looking to cut costs to bring their fees back down to a level which their natural constituency could actually afford to pay. If they fail to set about this quickly, they will lose their supporters in the media, in politics and amongst other opinion formers, and will then lose their charitable status.

The GDST has been an honourable exception to the insanity that has gripped the now de luxe schools which feature so often in this forum. The tragedy would be if Andrew Halls' (KCS) and Clarissa Farr's (SPGS) departure to a planet inhabited by the international super rich was not halted quickly but led to the destruction of the entire independent sector, bringing down with them the worthy GDST schools with their grounded and reasonable approach to financial management.

Instead of looking for headlines in the Murdoch press, these so called super heads should be applying their minds to cutting costs and cutting fees and they should be doing it fast.

Inflation is down not only because of the oil price but because people in all sorts of sectors have made all sorts of efforts to get prices down and to hold onto customers. It's about time the independent schools made efforts of their own.