Is anyone else worried about the effect of rising private school fees on state schools?

[BabyIcecream]

Where I live there already aren't enough school places. Three big state secondary's, one is catholic, they are all over subscribed and bursting at the seams using old buildings with not enough funding.

Ive seen reports that at some private schools upto a third of pupils might leave if the fees go up due to VAT.

I'm worried about all these extra pupils needing places, DS already finds his school overcrowded and whilst I don't agree with private education putting extra pupils into the state system is just going to further disadvantage our children.

Unless money raised by increasing private schools costs is going to be used to fund state education? Does anyone know?

No. I'm not worried about this at all.

As we're often told, people work really hard and sacrifice on other things to send their kids to private schools. They can just work a bit harder and sacrifice a bit more and it'll be fine.

This is worth a read:

The money will be frittered away, schools will be in the same state they are in and private schools will carry on.

One of the local private schools has sent an email out saying they’ll reduce feeds to mitigate any VAT costs for parents if they sign up for X years.

I don’t think it will dramatically level the playing field- but it will raise some money- money the public sector need.
Also people already buy closer to decent schools for advantage- you won’t be the first.

So let’s all not pay tax on anything then?
I don’t care if private schools reduce their fees, they will still now be paying tax, what they charge parents I don’t care

What makes something a charity? Why is a school not a charity and the local farm park or the large national charities with a large bank balance are? What share holders are there in a school? Why are academies allowed to hoard money and pay large salaries?
in cost comparison are they taking into account the SEN children who can’t cope in enormous schools and would need an EHCP or a special school
place?

You are right to be concerned.

In private schools 1/3 children receive financial assistance with fees. There are plenty who pay but it is still a stretch. The report that Labour cite says 3% of pupils will move. However, the basis of this estimate is upon 2% annual fee rises over a 10 year period and a study on catholic schools fees in a US state.

If every penny of the VAT raised was given directly to the current state schools the funding per head would fall well before you get to 1.3 of pupils moving. That doesn’t account for the need for capital expenditure on extra capacity (because there is definitely not any need for capital expenditure on getting the existing schools up to standard…).

I was educated in a state school and would have hated to have to deal with an influx of private pupils (in my experience a number seem to have been moved because they would have been a real pain the state sector).

In the 1990s it was identified that actually the best use of parents money would be to send kids to state school and spend the money for fees on outside help. Luckily many parents don’t know this and keep their kids from being a pressure on the system.

I am also happy to see that. Private schools should never have been tax exempt. If they go bankrupt, then they can sell their buildings to the state and we’d have more state schools. We need the well off to have a vested interest in state schools. If their taxes are going to their children’s education then the well off wouldn’t be lobbying so much for tax cuts now would they? They’d be lobbying for better state education.

@DoThePropeller

Wealthy international students will always be able to pay for the fees, the sector will continue to exist. There are lots of families who scrimp and save to pay the fees and they are the ones who will find it difficult.

I agree. People need to understand the difference between private schools for the mega-rich elite in and around London, serving non-doms, etc., compared with private schools out in the regions serving pretty normal working people.

In our run down Northern town, we have a private school. It's certainly not serving oligarchs, non doms, etc. Fees are pretty low really. I've known a few people who've sent their kids there. They're normal people, including a shop manager, a plasterer, a back street garage owner, etc. They sent their kids there for a reason, usually because their kids were struggling, bullied, or getting in with the wrong crowd at our local crap comp. I know the plasterer and his kid better than the others. Around 14 he'd got into the wrong crowd, police involvement, constant detentions at school, etc. The lad wasn't "that type" of person at all, and knew himself he was in with the wrong crowd, but couldn't see a way out. Parents suggested this private school which is well known locally for it's work with problem kids and disabled kids etc and the lad agreed to go. Parents had to sell a car, give up holidays, work overtime, Mother took a second job, etc., to pay for it. Lad took to it like a duck to water, they set him back on the right track and he's now at Uni doing a Maths degree! Parents think it was money well spent and well worth the sacrifices even though they couldn't afford it and got into debt through it!

I think people need to stop believing all the crap they read about private schools being only for the mega rich. Plenty of them outside rich areas are doing good work for kids being failed by the state system.

It also removes any incentive to share facilities, which lots (all) do around here and offer generous bursary schemes. When they are businesses, they’ll start acting like one, charging for use of a swimming pool, Astro, cricket pitch etc. no customers who can’t pay the fees. That won’t harm the pupils who attend or their parents.

Labour seem to not want to be elected... in my area i would say 20% of kids go private ( SW london) the state schools are full and there is no space to build more (although some brownfield land is being turned into a massive complex of flats with no facilites 🤐). As we need to be near the train station we are only just within distance for the high school. It is literally impossible to expect an even 10% increase without having to bus kids to god knows where. Ironically if my DC did have to bus to a random school miles away I will pay for y7-11 even with the VAT. But i would much prefer comprehensives, i like the state provision i have experienced thus far but unless they build another 2 x high schools in my area alone it will be a disaster. I would like all the PS school kids to stay where they are so my kids can go to their local comp fgs.

Overall I'm not against discouraging PS generally but it needs to be accompanied by MASSIVE school building in areas that will be badly affected.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers no but the money won't get into the system immediately so there won't be a drastic utopian cash injection.
If 10% (conservative estimate) of parents in a private year group decide not to send their DC private but instead move house to a better state school catchment area then that's 6 parents per school, there are 2 local private schools so that's 12 parents + 12 Yr 7 school places suddenly taken up by MC parents. That's 12 kids from poorer families prevented from taking a place at a good state school because their parents can't afford a house move. Multiply that across the whole country.
How does that level the playing field?

We are at a private school because our state options are poor to middling. Since Covid/striking teachers it is oversubscribed with a waiting list for nearly all year groups. I can’t see a mass exodus happening here.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

I don’t think it will dramatically level the playing field- but it will raise some money- money the public sector need.

No it won't. The tax generated won't be as much as the extra state funding needed to pay for the influx of new state pupils whose parents can't afford private school anymore. There'll almost certainly be a shortfall. As usual, Labour hasn't done it's sums.

No government could really "abolish" private schools. They could absorb them into the state sector over time, but requisitioning the land, buildings etc runs fairly counter to our understanding of property rights in the UK.

There is huge inequality in the UK education system, but as PP have pointed out is not just a state/private issue. We also have grammar and faith schools and selection in a variety of ways. We would need an extremely big reorganization of the way the system works, which moves towards most schools being quite similar and children attending the nearest one. I'm not sure parents would want this -everyone seems to strive for the "best" school even if they think private schools are wrong.

There are a few things that private schools can do to absorb the VAT increase without just passing it all on to parents (lots of them are considering these). One is withdrawing from the TPS if they haven't already done so. The other is reducing their number of bursary places. Neither of these is really to the public good.

@TrailingLoellia the state wouldn't be able to afford to buy the buildings! They will most likely be sold to developers to convert into flats + build houses on the land.
Don't be so naive.

Not really. The school cohort fluctuatesover time anyway.

I am sure in some areas it might impact much more than others for a short bit, but its not as if the whole 7% of children in the private sector are going to arrive at state schools in one go.

I already think state schools are massively polarised postcode lotteries

The State would be with the extra VAT taken in.

It will also worsen the teacher shortage. A lot of teachers in private schools are there because they don't want to work in state schools due to behaviour etc. When the private school closes, they'll just leaving teaching. So the state schools that are already struggling to absorb huge numbers of extra pupils won't be able to find teachers to teach them either.

Also, as others have pointed out I think state schools will only be inundated in areas where the private schools are already struggling. Where I am there are several which are very well regarded and they have long waiting lists and are very oversubscribed - it might just mean they are not able to select quite as much. The 4+ we are thinking of for my children has 250 applications a year for 48 places.

It happens already- you don’t think the better rated schools already have an overpriced housing catchment area? That’s an open market for you.
i don’t get the issue- the cost of something will always dictate a certain pool of buyers- we don’t lower the price of Lamborghinis to ensure that our second hand run arounds stay cheaper.
Private schools are a luxury and should have always paid tax- private schools will always price people out, they do now and you aren’t screaming “unfair”. It’s already an unfair system.

No, because as been explained many times on this thread, the extra VAT generated will be less than the cost of all the new pupils moving into state schools, meaning more teachers needed, bigger premises, etc. There will be no extra cash, it will cost more than it raises.

What the gov could actually do is fund state so well that people dont need to spend the money on private school (like a lot of european countries). But that would require a long term effort and actual plan....

Probably yes- I think the upset on uni fees if how quickly it rocketed in the last 20yrs.