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?

Looks like we'll have to go for the revolution option, then.

Mind you, the education of the UK workforce is colossally important to the UK economy and has an effect on peoples' voting decisions. Successive governments have failed to think through the impact of the fact that immigration is the biggest cause of a burgeoning population of children needing an education - immigrants have a higher birth rate than the indigenous population. Failing to cater for the education needs of all these children by failing to increase funding for state education significantly only gives flame to the fire of people upset by immigration. Not ensuring that state education is not reasonably funded is therefore not really an option. It's particularly not a sensible option for any politician if a growing percentage of the UK population has to rely on state education and cannot afford to opt out of it.

Not ensuring that state education IS reasonably funded...

rabbit the death knoll for the traditional middle classes, has been sounding for some time.

It has taken them a loooooooooong time to understand the newly changed UK and their position within it.

They can no longer afford their privilege and their cultural capital is no longer highly valuable.

They are, in short, in much the same position as the working classes.

Now the middle class and the working class together is a huge group, who could effect a fair bit of change...

We've paid school fees for three on one doctor's income. That said, we only have one left in school and her fees this year are the same as we were paying for three ten years ago.
My dh's salary hasn't gone up in that time (it's probably dropped), so we would definitely have to think again if we were starting out now.

" her fees this year are the same as we were paying for three ten years ago."
well that kind of says it all really

Myself and my siblings were privately educated for varying lengths of time (my db the whole way through) in the 80s and 90s. Yes, our dparents made sacrifices and had older cars and we didn't go abroad on holiday and my gp chipped in for trips and uniforms, but they could afford it as 2 public sector workers (not particularly senior either).

DH and I are both in fairly senior positions, have postgraduate qualifications coming out of our ears and both work and there is no way ever that we could sacrifice enough to send our dc. Short of not having a home or transport or clothes or food anyway.

My dsis is in a very highly paid (imo) job as is her dh, and I think they would struggle to send more than one dc to independent school. This is mostly because to earn their big salaries they have to live in London and most of their wages go on their mortgage afaik.

Yes, we could still do it, but we'd have to downsize (or remortgage) not travel so much and my salary would have to be used too. Would it be worth it? I'm not sure. They're at school for a long time. I guess it'd depend on our state options and I think we'd only do it for secondary.
We've be really happy with the education they've received though and we don't regret or resent the money we've spent.

I know this is completely different but may give an indication to what the gov decide is an appropriate income to pay full fees.

Their award scheme for music and drama (MADS) allows family income of up 190k before full fees are payable. The only allowance that is made though are for other dependant siblings in the family. I don't know how much this is though. There is no allowance for other expenses such as other dc in private school or high mortgage.
So, you could be a middle or low earner attract the scheme but unable to attend because you have too high a mortgage or other debts.

The exclusion of the middle classes from academic independent schools could indeed have all sorts of benefits for society and for education more generally. Nobody should weep for them.

These schools pretend, though, that they are maintaining their traditions and serving a wide public with their bursay schemes. The stats and their accounts filed at the Charity Commission show this to be untrue in many cases. They don't like to let this be known because it puts off their former pupils to whom they appeal for funds but the facts speak for themselves.

These schools could have made different choices. They could have left it to the super rich to go off and found their own "all frills" schools but they decided instead to pander to that particular market.

cauchy, this has been happening outside London too. Under its previous head (now head of KCS Wimbledon), the fees of Magdalen College School in Oxford shot up to such a level that they became generally unaffordable for the University's dons, who had certainly been able to pay them twenty or so years ago. I dare say two professors (like the "two doctors" in the Fawlty Towers episode ) could still cope but not one plus, say, a teacher.

Schools should not find themselves in a position where they're offering bursaries to professors and doctors. They would be embarrassed to reach such a point of lunacy. Many have chosen, though, in practice to outprice the professional middle class, which is entitled, at least, to point this out to them, as The Times did, in blistering terms, on Tuesday.

When I and my sibling were students in Oxbridge 20 years ago (undergraduate and PhD), few staff could have afforded to send their children to private schools. Those who did would have gad a partner working in or outside academia, or themselves done consultancy work. Amongst all the staff I knew from my subject and my Cambridge college through the 90s, I can actually only think of two who were sending their children to private schools - one of those had clearly inherited money and the other was a media superstar. Maybe a third one whose partner was a barrister although I don't recall which schools their kids went to.

In my experience the number of university staff sending their children to private schools has not changed that much. The Leys in Cambridge was always considered a "public school" and not really affordable (unless you were a media superstar - he was teased about it!). The Perse schools and St Marys in Cambridge have gotten more expensive but are just about affordable for 2 income families. The preps such as St Johns or Kings are generally out of reach for academics who use the state schools at primary level instead but again this was true 20 years ago.

MCS in Oxford may be an exception but at 15k per year it is just about affordable for a 2 income family.

And 1 x professor plus 1 x teacher equals the salary of 1.5 professors (which would be enough for us to pay fees.)

BTW I know many children of Oxbridge academics who are themselves academics. I cannot think of a single one from my age group (mid 30s to mid 40s) who was educated privately. I am very much in a minority, as somebody who was privately educated themselves and is privately educating my children.

The anecdotes on here go to confirm what The Times leader said on Tuesday: "Since the first Thatcher government day fees have risen from an eighth to a fifth of average pre-tax earnings while boarding fees have risen from a quarter to a half...When fees have tripled in real terms in three decades, the schools that charge them are straying from their original purpose. They should compete on cost as well as class size and facilities. Expansion, of places and opportunity, should be the aim."

Times leader writers have been stung in the same way as other professionals. This is hardly a national crisis worthy of a Times leader, let alone the top one of the day. However, it is certainly an issue worth highlighting.

There are solutions in the heads' hands right now just as there might eventually be in the government's. The DfE could supplement its budget by selling off the assets of private schools, which the Crown should be entitled to seize if they are stripped of their charitable status.

Was the schools' original, stated purpose to educate the professional middle classes, then? Or is that just what they did?

granola

That is terrible and I completely agree, if a school ws founded for a particular type of person if they then change this in future years it does need to be publicly stated and transparent for all to see.
Then if people choose to continue the support they are informed as to the real ethos of the school.

Well, then, I insist that Eton return to its original purpose, to educate less than 100 poor boys for free and send them off to Cambridge university afterwards.

And I reckon the monarch should fund it. Chuck out all those fee payers for a start.

Schools' stated purposes vary. They can usually be found in their statutes and will be predominantly educational. The poor would often get a look in.

I am not aware of any school whose purpose was to ask the super rich what they'd like and then give it to them. Even under flexible English law, that's not really charitable, so the behaviour of a number of schools (and Eton under Tony Little might even be an honourable exception here) could lead them to losing their charitable status. The Times hinted at this on Tuesday.

Since the first Thatcher government day fees have risen from an eighth to a fifth of average pre-tax earnings while boarding fees have risen from a quarter to a half.

These numbers seem very strange. Average boarding school fees are around 27k per year, which is surely not half of average pre-tax earnings. Average day school fees of 12k would be a fifth of 60k.

The average level of funding for a state secondary school pupil is around 5k per year, nearer 6k in London. If a private school offered a cut-price basic service of 7-8k per year, offering very little more than the state secondary, I wouldn't bother wasting my 7-8k on it. To offer the kinds of things people want from a private school (latin, greek, more music, drama etc) they presumably do actually need to charge at least 10k or so. Many people also want smaller class sizes which again forces the fees to be significantly more than state school funding levels.

We have a state boarding school nearby (effectively a private school with state funding as you can't go there for free) which charges £3K/term boarding fees and about half that for day boys. It's a lot lower than most public/independent schools. We also have a Steiner school which charges between £1500 and £2500 per term - but I doubt if that's what the OP means by private school fees.

I am amazed by some of the comments on here about people being able to afford school fees if they 'put their children first' and give up on ' 2 new cars every few years, foreign holidays, meals out etc'. What planet are they on? Paying for one car, one foreign holiday and a meal out every couple of months comes to about £5000 per year - that wouldn't go very far in putting 2 or 3 children through private school (and I don't suppose it would be de rigeur if they turned up on the bus, us having sold the car to pay the fees.)

But granolamuncher - the super rich want a super education for their children.... They want them to learn to swim brilliantly (need swimming pool), they want them to learn to act and produce plays to West End standards (need state of the art facilities), they want them to be trained in a colossal variety of sports (need state of the art sports facilities), they want them to be taught by people who have phDs and who also know how to teach (need expensive teachers), they want them to have the opportunity to express themselves through music and art (need yet more expensive resources). It really is very expensive to have the best education money can buy. It's still an education, though.

Yes, I agree, rabbitstew, except on "expensive teachers" (PhDs often lack QTS and are content with a state level NQT salary - it's the numbers of teachers required for tiny class sizes (the educational value of which is unproven) that make for the expense).

The super rich want all the things you list but a good education does not require them. Others less well off, attracted to the same schools whose reputations were built by wiser heads, would be happy to forego some of these frills if it meant they could afford the fees.

Forego some of the frills and you can have an education in a state school.

Some people want all the things rabbitstew lists but then don't seem to care that their DC leave school unable to function in a couple of foreign languages and properly numerate. And that goes for pupils at what are considered "top" schools. A-levels in, say, Geography, Biology and English Literature? That would not be considered an education in many, many countries, however many lengths you could swim/mountains you could ski/plays you had directed.

not properly numerate

Indeed you can, rabbitstew, but there used to be a wider "some frills" offering in the independent sector (including some of the top academic schools) and its diminution, at the behest of the super rich, deserves to be acknowledged.