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?

I am an academic in the sciences myself. It is nowadays possible for an academic to be a professor in the late 30s (like me) when 20 years ago there were 50+ year olds who were fellows of the Royal Society but who were still not professors. Around 2000 the salary for a professor was fixed at 40k. The average salary for a professor now is around 70-80k and can be higher under some circumstances.

I am in an extremely competitive field where indeed the vast majority of PhD students and post-docs don't get academic jobs, and where the average age of getting a permanent position is mid 30s. Career progression tends to be very rapid after getting a permanent position, though, since having ERC or equivalent grants is pretty much a prerequisite for a permanent position.

Interestingly one of the Times leaders and a main story today is exactly on this issue private schools pricing themselves out of the indigenous UK market - worth a read if you have a subscription

I'm really interested in the idea of sacrifice that often comes into these discussions. One of the principles that my family operates on is that there are four of us in it, each with different desires and needs, and we try to balance those. No one gets what they want all the time, but neither should anyone feel that they're the one always making the sacrifices.

Maybe I'm selfish, but I find the idea of one generation sacrificing itself for the next a bit odd, and ultimately a bit pointless (if each generation sacrifices itself for the one after, then who ever actually gets the benefit of that sacrifice?).

Apologies for the random philosophising!

Thanks for drawing our attention to today's Times, toddlerwrangling. I added it to my basket in Sainsbury's just now.

I am thrilled to have The Times on my side. Parts of its leader could have been lifted straight from my posts up thread, from the active SPGS thread and from other threads I have contributed to in the last 6 months or so, eg re Alleyns and KCS Wimbledon.

As the leader says, "little serious thought has been given to the option that would do most to preserve an element of economic diversity in the schools' intake - to hold down fees".

There are as The Times says, "a few notable exceptions" to the private schools which have decided to cater exclusively to the "entrepreneurs and bankers able to count on bonuses". These can be identified from their accounts filed with the Charity Commission.

As found on the SPGS thread, the admirable exceptions include JAGS, which kept fee increases to a minimum while expanding the intake of pupils and keeping costs down during these last 5 years, which have been so difficult for most of us. Meanwhile SPGS recruited 11 additional teachers and put fees up by a whopping 37% in 5 years, the biggest such increase of any school in the UK (as reported recently in The Subday Times). And now it's engaging in one of those building projects for "gleaming new facilities", which The Times rightly says is the wrong path to take. The leader concludes, "Expansion of places and opportunity should be the aim".

To allow fee rises to depart so dramatically from salary rises is a choice which the schools themselves have made. It is not the inevitable result of economic forces, as TheWordFactory would have us believe. I'm delighted The Times agrees with me on this.

Of course, as I pointed out on another thread, journalists have become interested in this issue because they themselves are affected by it, surviving on salaries generally unadorned by bonuses and the other exotic hand outs which people keep complacently explaining on here you can use to pay these fees. But as I also keep saying, once middle class opinion formers take note, these schools will eventually be in trouble.

OP was this a genuine post or did you throw in a grenade to start this discussion, maybe as research for something (?).

In your first post you talk about a 'day boarder'. Maybe that was a typo but I don't know what that is! Either you are a day pupil or a boarder.

Fees for boarders are around £10-12K a term.

toddler I wonder if the OP was someone contributing to that Times leader you mention? They haven't joined in the discussion much have they?

Day boarding is a term sometimes used to describe DC at schools which offer boarding but don't sleep there.

They do their prep there, eat their evening meal, go to clubs etc. But they go home at some point.

granola I did not say the fee levels were an inevitable result of economic forces.

I pointed out that running schools is expensive and that keeping fees low by scrimping on facilities etc would actively put off a sector of the market that can afford to pay, and would still leave many traditional middle classes unable to afford it (4k a term is still wildly out of the reach of most families, taking house prices etc into account).

There may well be a market for no frills private education, but much of the current parent body wouldn't want it. Different market.

I also think there won't be many people out there too worried about the plight of the trad middle classes, except the trad middle classes. Not being able to afford private school is a problem the vast majority face. It's hardly new or shocking.

Ha ha - yes, pinkfrocks; maybe! I think the Mail does that (using MN for content fodder), but I'd be if the Times resorts to it. It's a neat coincidence that this thread happened to pop up the day before, but then lots of these points do get raised on MN quite often, too...

Running schools is expensive, and teachers' salaries and pensions are a key factor. My DC are a leading indie day school - the teachers are extremely (and deservedly) well paid, and they also have subsidised places for their own DC.
We are happy to pay the fees for the first class education the DC are getting now - their 'results and destination (uni?) is irrelevant - for us, we would far rather they had the most stimulating and interesting education available than having a bigger house or fancy holidays.
Friends think we are bonkers - can't understand why we would not buy a bigger house instead.
House is just brinks and mortar - education is nourishment, and lifelong benefit (not financial, but enrichment of the mind and soul). That's our priority.

TWF I don't believe for a minute that the super rich would be "put off" if independent schools ceased pandering to them. Nor would I feel in the least sorry for such parents if that did happen. After all, they could just go off and found their own "all frills" schools.

Most of the buildings in independent schools are relatively modern. Only a small core will generally be historic and there are often grants for the upkeep of those.

You can see what costs schools actually incur by looking at their accounts filed at the Charity Commission. As The Times says, too many are choosing to spend their money on yet more "gleaming" buildings and other brand new luxuries for their lucky pupils.

Independent schools used to be run on different principles and they could rediscover those for the benefit of a wider and more diverse customer base.

It is not inevitable that, because there is a market of greedy people with more money than sense, schools have to cater exclusively to that market. As the article in The Times illustrates with an historical analysis, this is indeed a "new" phenomenon. It may not be "shocking" but it's worth protesting about. The Times thinks so anyway and it's traditionally been a powerful voice.

Schools are businesses and will go with what they can get and each will decide how to target new potential parents. If faults are made in what they spend money on then they will either be rectified, or the school will fail, or sell off assets etc.
I do think that at the moment the diversity in a number of private schools is probably less than a generation ago. I do think that this has a lot to do with the cost of fees along with the rise in housing costs. I do not think it is shocking or suprising. Still not sure if it is worth protesting about.

granola it is absurd to think that schools should be run for the benefit of the nouveau pauvre.

That this group are so special and deserving that they get to set the pace.

It is also absurd to think a few journos from The Times amongst the parent body makes for 'diversity'.

It is no less fair that the children of GPs cannot attend private school , than it is that the children of shelf stackers cannot attend.

Are you up in arms about the later group being unable to access private school? Thought not.

The traditional middle classes find themselves in the same situation as the working classes. May you love in interesting times as the Chinese ( at Eton) day .

Toddler I think the Mail does that (using MN for content fodder), but I'd be hmm if the Times resorts to it- so you think that Times journalists never read Mumsnet? . Beware is all I'd say.

Those whom the schools were established to benefit are generally set out in their statutes.

Very few schools were established as businesses which should focus exclusively on those who could pay the most.

On the SPGS thread, I quoted Dean Colet (founder of SPS) on the subject of covetousness, as pertinent now as it was in his own interesting times.

Not a case of coveting more wanting the best education available.

The best education does not require gleaming new facilities and tiny class sizes. That's not how these schools built their reputations. It certainly is covetousness to demand such things and thereby set yourself above the "nouveau poor".

Again, people are assuming the motives of parents instead of asking us... I know no parents who care about the facilities - straw man set up by non-parents of these schools. Like Rabbitstew said.

Good for you, DontGo. Have you made your views known to the head and asked what efforts the school is making to reduce costs and thereby make the school more inclusive and diverse?

That's what I did at my DCs' schools. To little avail, I confess, but as this thread and today's Times show, the voices are building now.

School is very diverse - more so than the local comps.

Bu the point about the building/diversity is irrelevant - it is the teaching that matters, and the teaching is better than I have seen anywhere (I am a teacher myself) - so definitely worth the money - nothing better we could possibly spend it on.

That's certainly unusual, DontGo, and something worth treasuring.

What we have been discussing, and which The Times has highlighted today, is the trend amongst independent schools to sell themselves only to the very richest. The figures cited by The Times confirm this.

The diversity which many schools have so far harboured successfully is in danger of being lost within a few years if they continue on the path they have chosen. This is why I said up thread we had reached a tipping point.

On the teaching, DontGo, I couldn't agree with you more. If these schools got back to basics and back to the bigger classes they used to have, more children would benefit.

My ex school was in an old rickety building, had rubbish facilities and relatively large class sizes.

It did very well in the league tables though.

In mid 90s it was £4k pa.

I can't believe there's not a market for that.

I think it also depends on which part of the country you live in. Some of the private schools in the north are only 8K per year and the rent/mortgage is much lower too, so it is much more affordable.