Private school fee increases

[stripedpenguin]

My DH and I are trying to do the sums to see if we can afford private education for our DC. Last year's fees in a couple of North London schools seemed to increase by 6%. If you have DC at private school, what have been the average percentage increases over the years?

I've seen the recent thread on a similar topic but didn't get a sense of what the average annual raises have been (I confess I skimmed it a bit!)

Thank you in advance

MrsUltracrepidarian - claiming a houseful of servants was ever the norm is, I think, a bit rose-tinted on the spectacle front. The help obtained was, I suspect, not much different from the modern situation, given the number of middle class people who appear willing and able to pay for a cleaner, gardener, childminders, handymen and labour-saving devices... (you don't even need to get off your backside to get your own supermarket shopping...) except, of course, the general expectation these days is that said help goes away at the end of the day and doesn't expect you to provide them with a roof over their head.

Assuming fees of £18K per year per child, a relatively small but large enough number of dual income household probably can afford fees for a couple of children, and that is why they have been able to increase fees to that level. The median household income for people in the top 10% of households is about £150K, and only 7% of children go to private schools. Add in an ability to borrow against property value, and you can see why schools aren't struggling to attract pupils - it's just the times we live in.

The median household income for people in the top 10% of households is not £150K - that's the median household income for the top 10% of households containing two adults and two children. There are completely different figures for different types of household. Besides all of which, I can't help thinking that is a bit of a crass statistic, given the huge differences in income between those at the bottom of the top 10% and those at the top. It basically tells us diddly squat about how affordable private schools are to most families in the long term.

My imaginary dual income family paying fees of £36K/annum has two parents and two children, therefore that figure does seem relevant. I agree that it is a bit rough and ready to compare the 7% of children going to private schools with the 10% of 2 parents 2 children families earning a median salary of £150K - but 2 kids, 2 parents is a pretty common family size so I would guess that a large number of households with children at school will be in this household type.

People in the top decile of one adult households may only have a median gross income of £60K, but I don't imagine that they are that worried about paying school fees.

Even without those figures it is self evident that enough families can afford to send their children to private schools now because children are going to school and fees are being paid.

If schools can't fill their places they will close or drop their fees.

Yes, but it doesn't factor in what proportion of the 10% live and work in London; or how much they have to pay out in tax or accommodation expenses (the £150,000 figure seems to relate to pre-tax income, as the institute for fiscal studies site comes out with a much lower figure for post-tax income of the top 10% of 2-parent, 2-child families); or how many people using private education are dipping into relatives' incomes or inheritances, or not paying much in accommodation costs because they bought their houses many years ago, etc, etc... Which is why I really don't think it's helpful. However, I do agree that if schools can't fill their places, they will drop their fees or close and if people want to stretch their finances paying school fees, that's their choice and their problem.

Quite a lot of the people with DC at the London indies are older in the sense that there were two earners who had DC in the late 30s, so a few years to accumulate savings, and if those two earners continue to earn (as DH & I both have) the it is doable. As Rabbitstew said, if there weren't enough who could pay, then school would have to adjust accordingly, but at the moment they are massively over-subscribed, so clearly they are affordable by more than enough people to fill the places at the current fee levels. In fact, would be counter-productive to reduce the fees, as then they might be even more ridiculously oversubscribed...

Presumably most high earners live in London and the South East, where I am pretty sure most private schools are located - certainly most private day schools. Generally people in their 40's will have got on the housing ladder in the 90's and early 2000's and well paid people with children entering secondary school tend to be in their 40's.

Grandparents have always helped with school fees, so no change there, and many people in their 40's will have inherited money from a parent or other relative.

I'm not trying to make helpful predictions about the longterm future of private schools. Just pointing out that all the evidence suggests that schools can more than fill their places at current fee levels so there doesn't seem to be an immediate need for them to drop. (Unless they feel they want to encourage diversity by increasing accessibility for slightly less well paid professionals, which would seem unlikely).

I believe at the recent Bursar's conference, they were forecasting fee rises over the next 5-10 years of 3.6% on average per annum. I was surprised how low this was. Sorry if this has already been mentioned but I haven't RTFT.

Approx 4% rise this year in fees for DS school.

A bursars' conference "forecasting" fee rises of 3.6% when RPI inflation is down to zero? Isn't that what they call a cartel?