Level of family income required for private school fees?

[TheABC]

Had an interesting discussion with DH over tea tonight, after reading in the independent supplement that the average cost of fees per term for a day boarder is 4k. We are approaching that in nursery fees for DS and it's a struggle. I can't imagine trying to juggle that sort of cost for two children over 7 or more years. However, clearly a lot of people are, as 6% of all UK pupils are privately educated and I doubt we have that many millionaires.

DH thinks the income ceiling is around the 80k mark, I think it could easily be lower, depending on family circumstances (e.g mortgage commitments). Who is right?

mmm1701 - Solicitors who charge their clients for their services don't claim to have charitable status. They might still do some pro bono work, of course, but they wouldn't get away with charging their paying clients more so that they could afford to represent other clients for free: they would be expected to do pro bono work out of the goodness of their own hearts and at their own expense. Which means they don't really bear much resemblance to private schools with charitable status...

Private schools don't on the whole make any profits so I am not sure how relevant that is.

My heart is certainly not bleeding for professionals at the lower paid end of the spectrum who want to be able to afford private schools.

Have to say (if these are real people) it seems extraordinarily distasteful to be picking over the private finances of parents and their children who happen to have been awarded bursaries. I sincerely hope such families are in no way identifiable. (As that rather defeats the aim of these things being confidential ...)

I don't think most children have any idea what bursaries some people have. I do know one of my daughter's friends had just about 100% of fees pays but that was only because the girl told my daughter. No one is really particularly interested except hard working parents who earn mroe than a couple with a housewife who could easily work but does not and as a result gets a bursary I suppose or the self employed who fairly easily can pretend their income is low.

Some schools are more transparent about what the maximum bursaries are for any given income level

www.roedean.co.uk/bursaries/

However, my understanding is that these are really the maximum amounts - I know of girls who were offered significantly less and couldn't take up places there.

Most schools don't give bursaries to families with only one parent working unless there are reasons for the parent not working (preschool siblings, disabilities etc).

The Telegraph has a strange article today about the wide availability of scholarships and bursaries:

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationadvice/11489313/Private-schools-more-parents-pay-less.html

This runs counter to my experiences, since most scholarships seem to be 20% max, usually 5-10%, and are very competitive. E.g. at my DC's school you don't get a music scholarship of 10% aged 11 without being grade 5+ on at least two instruments, usually more. But the cost of the music lessons to get to these levels is then more than what you save on secondary fees!

Seems there are lots of bursaries and scholarships out there, lots should get applying!
Ps for Roedean when it says "assessible income" this may be the cut-offs post tax/NI etc.

Jilly

Anybody would think you don't think children with a sahp should access private education

There are some good bursaries from the sound of the article above, my dds school has nearly all parents having some or all fees paid.

Careful with the bursaries and scholarships. Ds's school only offers bursaries for year 7 and 6th form starters. If things go belly up for you in between then there's no funding as it's already been allocated. A lot of schools only offer scholarships in name or a tiny percentage off the fees as a token. I really wouldn't rely on either of these to cover the fees. It's wise to have a back up plan or school fee insurance.

Scholarships better than bursaries if you can get them as they are not tied to salaries.

I think it depends on why you need them. If you're on a low income then bursaries are better as they can work out to be a higher amount off the fees. Also bear in mind that a scholarship can be withdrawn if a child underperforms too.

Of course families with SAHP should be able to access private schools. They will just have to pay the fees like everybody else. My dd is a sahm and yet they pay full fees for their dc at prep in london and will do so for the 2nddc when she is older. They pay fees out of income but sort out their priorities because private education is important for them (and the local state schools are very poor and oversubscribed). Their income is probably £130K

I actually do agree with rabbit that when ever a society reaches a point. Where the elites of society become so out of touch with reality. The very fabric of society will implode.

Some people blame the schools for putting up fees. Some people blame the Oligarchs and Mandarins. Some people blame society.

I see it in a simple analogy where the big brand names are not sort after in HK. They have become to expensive and the quality is not up to standard. So how do these brands survive. HK brand names love our northern brethren to come down and buy it. The locals tend to use local or overseas brands that are cheaper but have a higher quality of craftsmanship.

I think this also applies to schools too. Especially private school. Where the marketing is slick but the teaching is poor. So you really need to look around. There are schools out there that are affordable and of a very good pastoral and teaching capacity.

Yes there is a Harrow in HK I think there is a Wellington college in Shanghai too. They are over subscribed....You will never stop the Super rich from pricing you out. Yet you have to look at the product they are pricing you out off. Is the product worth you selling an arm for?

If I was super rich I'm not sure I'd even bother sending my DC to school.

Would you just buy them some friends pickledsiblings?

If the schools wanted to be inclusive (like subsidised schools such as Chethams) there would be a sliding scale of fees based on income and taking second homes and the odd Rembrandt into consideration.

Although many schools do not make a profit they do plough back money into capital projects which are not necessarily pandering to certain parents but increase the value of the real estate and bring in outside income and charity status points (sports centres and performing arts). They also have additional income for hiring out facilities in the holidays.

TBF I suppose the other charity contribution for some schools includes preserving historical buildings.

The new charity law is one reason academic scholarships for the very bright have almost fallen by the wayside if the parents earn reasonable amounts. I think those of us who can afford fees can live with that. I regard the boys' music scholarships as a token (it's £1k off a year) and an honour and in return they support the music of the school. They had 2 grade 7s (although actually I think one was still grade 6 in one instrument as he was working for his grade 7).

Chetham's has always been different. My music teacher at school (who was divorced and on a pretty low income) whose children were at a fairly rough Newcastle comp but were brilliant at music, sent the one of her children who wanted to go there to Chetham's and the local authority paid a very large part of the fees.

On charitable efforts some schools have very little except their fee income and small sites - schools in converted houses and the like and others have large endowments like Eton and can afford to subsidise more places which is why the Charity Commission allows for differences - for one small school affording 2 subsidised places might be a big burden on parents struggling to pay £10k a year whereas a bigger school with a lot of cash could afford more.

Some schools have spent a lot and still have lots of applicants for places. Others have never had much money, keep their fees around the £10k a year level and don't have swimming pools and the like.

I think it's very regional though. In Cities you tend to have a choice of different kinds of private schools. In the country there may only be 1 or 2.

Thinking a bit more about this, wasn't one of the reasons for the abolition of the assisted places scheme when Labour came to power in 1997 that a lot of the assisted places were allocated to children of middle class professionals such as teachers and not manual low paid and low skilled workers? If teachers and similar were in receipt of assisted places back in 1997 then doesn't that show that those professionals couldn't afford private school fees back then? I assume that there must have been a financial means test in order to gain funding for an assisted place.
Is part of the reason for a rise in school fees that schools now have to provide bursaries to less well off students rather than those places being funded by the government through the assisted places scheme?

Yes, it became a bit of a con. People could pretend their income was lower than it was if they were self employed and just like grammar school places in the few areas with them it tended to be the sharp elbowed middle classes who got the assisted places although the Sutton Trusts thinks it worked well and would like to see it all brought back.

I don't remember that many children being on assisted places to be honest actually.

In 1997 when the scheme was scrapped I believe that 34,000 children across 350 schools were receiving support from the scheme. It isn't a huge number in the grand scheme of things but almost 100 pupils on average at each participating school is quite significant and once that funding was removed and the schools began to fund places through bursaries there must have been an impact on fee charges at some schools.

Summerends

Chets is quite an interesting one. They solely look at family income and the only allowance they make is for other dependant children in the family.
I don't know how much though as this doesn't apply to us.
I like the idea that most parents there receive help with fees, many have the whole fees paid if they are on out of work benefits.
I also like the fact that everyone no matter what their income can receive funding, right up to 190k before the full fees are payable.
They aren't bothered if you go on 10 holidays a year, have a second home, etc.
Although most parents seem to be working class, no flash cars on the car park.
I don't think we could have allowed dd to go if she would be seen as the poor relative.

why on earth would any parent send their child away to 'Chets'?
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/chetham-music-school-sex-inquiry-more-than-30-report-widespread-abuse-8608192.html

We earn roughly £80k and have 2 DCs in private school. We have no mortgage though.

At the moment DS1 has an academic scholarship for 50% fees so we have a bit of leeway to afford any of the extra curricular stuff and trips without worrying, without the scholarship we would be quite tight financially I think especially if we still wanted to go on holiday and so on, without holidays then it would be fairly comfortable.

It all depends on priorities though. There is a really diverse cohort at our school, some parents earn a lot less and prioritise school fees over everything else. Our decision was based on the fact we wanted our lifestyle to stay roughly the same but still be able to pay school fees.

Sunny, I am not a boarding school fan so not the person to defend Chethams. The girl I knew there loved it and did well and had no complaints though.

Sunny

Why not? There is nothing untoward happening now, the inspectors were crawling over it last year and the previous year.
They are completely transparent and so much has changed since the 1980's.

Don't get me wrong I am not minimising what happened in the past it was absolutely disgusting and my heart goes out to those who were affected.

My dd promises to skype me every night (yeah right) and she will be home after school on friday and return sunday night.

"so much has changed since the 1980's."
the last known offence was in 2010.