Private school fees

[muffinhead4]

I have been try to work out if we can afford private school fees for our 2 children in the next few years but after doing sums we could barely manage 1 let alone 2 😔
Before tax we earn approx £100K which is most definitely not enough, this got me thinking how do parents pay for private school for more than 1 child? Am I missing a trick? I know some grandparents help but those that pay them selves how do you do it? What kind of jobs? I am in finance and DH is in training, neither very high up.

We looked into a school fee Liam a few years ago.Basically, a long term loan to pay school fees over a longer period than the child is at school. I think it was secured against equity in the house. We didn't do it in the end.

Thank you @renna123 , you are right there are more options that i can explore, thank you 👏

Thank you all, sorry there are too many to mention individually, There are some more options i will explore that i hadn't thought about/known about until i read through the suggestions.

You have done seriously weird stories or have been extraordinarily unlucky. Doctors are not so rare that someone would say 'my father is a doctor so I am not speaking with you'. I rarely say this but I don't believe you. Or I don't believe the conversations happened as you say they did. You come across very bitter and angry. I wouldn't be surprised if it was your attitude toward others that might be bringing out the weirdness in them. Just to make you go away

Yes that’s is very odd. Genuinely could not tell you who was privately educated and who wasn’t in our friendship group. When is being a doctor some sort of elevated job?

@deedledeedledum exactly!

That explicit 'She told me that she would not speak to me in the choir, because her father was a doctor and she was better than me' is rare, but in lots of more insidious ways this happens every day. Cliques, bias and prejudice because of schooling and background is very common.

I think many people don’t realise just how much some people earn.

For lots, the idea if £100k family income would be unimaginable riches. For many others, it’s an excellent family income and many would think that surely it’s enough to fund private education. But in most parts of the country that wouldn’t cover 2 kids. When you look into the fees especially in the south east and LOndon, you realise the very large amounts needed, especially as fees rise rapidly across the 14 years kids are at school. But it’s also the case that there are a small proportion of the population, who still make up thousands of people who do earn well in excess if £250k or in excess of £500k who can and do put their 3 and 4 kids through very expensive private schools and who can afford it, some with little trouble and others who feel the impact even on those salaries.

When you look at the jobs people do, at schools where fees are £25k+ for day fees, they aren’t just any professionals, but in the very high paid professions or those running their own businesses. Most of those schools only give small monetary scholarships and even though bursaries might be available to those earning significantly over £50k in lots of schools, for those who are pretty well-off, bursaries are typically small and families still need to find £10-18k in fees - well beyond the reach of many families.

A private education in a quality independent school these days is very much something for the privileged, not those who are relatively affluent. Every year, on MN and out there in the world,many families who are relatively affluent and who oerhaos attended I depend t schools themselves start to think about it. They remember that they went private on their father’s decent but not amazing salary, know they too have a good job and quite likely 2 good incomes in professional jobs and therefore must surely be able to do the same for their kids. They know their income is impressive and well above average at perhaps £85k or £100k or £150k or whatever. And they look into it and find it’s not enough for 2 kids. They might conclude they can pay for one stage of schooling but not the full 14 years. They moslty decide to move house and face the huge mortgage and decide good state schools are the way forward, with lots of paid for extra curricular and bits if tutoring if needed.

Thousands every year go through this thinking and realisation that their very good incomes are not enough for the fees if they have more than 1 child.

When you look into the fees especially in the south east and London, you realise the very large amounts needed

I'm astonished at the difference. I have just googled school fees for private schools in the two cities near me - Sheffield and Wakefield and the highest fees are just over £15K per year.

I do feel (not on this thread BTW) that some posters on MN have absolutely no idea what it is like to earn an average wage or below average wage and not even have private education on their radar.

Yes it did happen.

I could argue to you, that if you are rich, this kind of thing is not going to happen to you. So how would you know? How can you say it is not true? I have have had wealthy people look down on me loads of times . There is a class society. Even though I am older now and I have money, people will still look down on me because my father did not have as good a job as theirs.

I remember being in that choir when I was younger. some of the women in the choir asked me what my parents did. I said that I grew up with a single mother, and she did a admin job. One of the women said to me in reply sneeringly "my father is a doctor" and then refused to speak with me again. Very true story.

I remember that night I went to my friend and cried. I said "why are some rich people so cruel". I was so tired of being made to feel like crap

Even though I am older now and I have money, people will still look down on me because my father did not have as good a job as theirs.

So people still ask you what your father’s job was? Really? I can’t remember if or when anyone asked me what my father did.
Are you sure you don’t start off these curious conversations by saying to anyone who you think is posh “I can’t stand you posh gits!’

Agree @Andante57; my parents are not in high level jobs and DH's were in unskilled roles prior to retirement. Neither of us have ever encountered any sort of snobbery because our parents are less qualified than others. I was at university with someone who's parents own a successful multi million pound business (which everyone on this forum would recognise). No superiority whatsoever from them

We are less well off than majority of parents at DD prep school and cannot afford regular foreign holidays like they have. They don't treat us any differently because of it

Having so many experiences and all of them being put down to an individual being privately educated is more a reflection on you than the private education system

So people still ask you what your father’s job was? Really? I can’t remember if or when anyone asked me what my father did.

Me too. As for looking down on people, it's considered very poor manners to do that, as is any judgement on relative wealth.

Our private school encourages pupils to be cognisant of their background and they clamp down on crass or arrogant behaviour around relative privilege very quickly. As do most of the parents.

I've never felt looked down on for going to a state school and, as I mentioned earlier, I spent a lot of time at university and work in the company of people from the more highly-respected private schools. Whereas some people with a slight inferiority complex saw everyday interactions with people from private schools as slights and judgements on their schooling which they weren't.

I don't recall anyone asking me what my father did. Maybe I have better friends.

@WombatChocolate youre right.

I don’t agree with private schools on principle but even if I did, we couldn’t afford it for our 2 kids (in London) even though our combined income is more than double the OP’s.

My friends very grand father asked Dh if he “had any ancestors” which was boggling because how would he have emerged to be here without any 😁. Think he meant any of note which is a no.

I was asked what school I went to at a job interview in the City as the interviewer had gone to a private school in the same city leading to a mortifying conversation as the chap hadn’t heard of my school funnily enough. Got the job though!

or don’t go on foreign holidays, don’t buy new cars, buy a house in a decent area (but not a large one) and send them private. Limit the size of our family too. Our day fees are £26k for both kids.

we live in an area with a good primary and good secondary the best by miles but still there are real failings in comparison to a prep education.

ShockedConfused, yes that can be the fee bill for 2 kids if they are still in Prep and not senior school, or possibly at senior level outside LOndon and the southeast.

I agree that some manage on smaller incomes if they have managed to offload their mortgage by the time they pay school fees or soon after, and if they live pretty frugally and go for cheaper schools, and this is much more possible at Prep level and outside the SE.

Most people find senior level at London or SE schools is a big hike in fees. Good day schools are often over £20k per head now and many closer to £25k. And increasingly, parents with kids of Prep age are too young to have bought in the 90s or early 2000s before house prices really hiked up, meaning many still have substantial mortgage payments or at least enough to mean there isn’t an extra couple of grand available for school fees each month.

There are always some canny people who spotted in their early 20s that keeping the mortgage small and clearing it early would mean more disposable income for school fees later. But most who are privately educating also live in larger homes and are paying for both fees and big mortgages too. Your typical school fee payer isn’t the frugal person living in a small semi. And most people on good incomes of £100k for a household have stretched themselves on their mortgages, thinking their earnings are good enough for this….without realising that those mortgages will make school fees out of reach, and actually if they had known, would probably still have chosen the house anyway, when they realised it might be a case of one or the other.

I should say Prep outside London and just under £13k per child. There are other peeps cheaper locally.

Senior fees £16k and rising!

We have three children and DH is what many would call a higher earner (~10k/month after pension contributions and tax), and we don’t feel we could comfortably afford the fees. Our savings and lifestyle would take too much of a hit. Our local independents charge around 20k/year (so 60k/year or 5k/month for 3 children), and that’s without any of the extras like extracurriculars, school trips, etc. It would mean a lot of sacrifice which we aren’t willing to make. At the moment we save quite a lot, have a big mortgage, like to ski as a family, the kids do some expensive extracurriculars, and we travel several times/year. We are comfortably able to give our children a life full of experiences and opportunities because we aren’t pouring half of our take-home pay into school fees.

I think that ‘affordable’ means being able to go private without it materially affecting the rest of your life to the extent that you need to sacrifice other important aspects of the children’s upbringing (music and sport, travel, theatre trips, etc). For that level of financial comfort, I’d say you need to be on closer to at least half a million/year gross income. Easily achievable for a city banker or successful business owner, but not so much for most people.

Absolutely agree. We are similar Blagger. We could do it but it would hurt. We love travel and experiences with our teens who are both thriving at local decent single sex states. Dd1 just got a string of 8s and 9s she really couldn’t have done better and has nice friends.

@Blaggertyjibbet @MsTSwift Another vote from me for the way you do it. State 'plus' schooling can be brilliant. There is so much we do as a family that I wouldn't give up and I don't think generalised fees could ever be worth it for us I prefer making our spending a bit more bespoke on the individual child. Quite often people on here claim that people like us are spending it on fancy clothes or cars, but couldn't be further from the truth here. Experiences, educational trips, skiing, sport clubs, music, theatre. I have a few friends who have done fees and haven't been able to afford it and it hasn't ended well (one dad with depression, kids being pulled out of school etc)

They key there is “decent” State schools.
I would have preferred for my DC to go to State Secondary but the one available is awful and I couldn’t sent them there if we had the means to choose a better option.

I agree, we aren’t spending on conspicuous consumption items here. We have one older family car and wear sensible un-flashy clothes (no big designer brands). It’s not as though we don’t value education, we just see a child’s education as much broader than just the school they attend. We also value the fact that we aren’t stressed about money.

I think our choices would be different if the state schools on offer weren’t very good, but that’s not the case. We bought in a catchment with great schools (and that is reflected in house prices), so I suppose in a sense we are paying for education through our mortgage instead of through fees.

We do have the funds set aside go private if it ever becomes necessary, but for now our children are happy and thriving. We won’t move them unless a need becomes apparent.

It wasn't my friend that asked me though was it. As I said , it was someone that I was in a choir with.

I find it very strange - all the denials , that rich people look down on poor people. Are you in denial? The whole premise of a class system - is that rich people look down on poor people. Especially in our younger years. When I was in school - the rich kids all hung around together. What your father di really mattered. If you were rich you were popular, if you were poor you weren't.

How can you deny this happens? It is insidious.