20% vat on fees

[namechangedforthisone35]

IF Labour get in and IF the 20% does get added to fees, how many private school pupils will be moved to state? I have three kids (one not school aged yet) and in private school. One of many reasons because I didn't want them in a class of 30. I couldn't afford the vat increase so would have to move them but then that class of 30 becomes, what, 40?! In an already strained and unresourced system?!

Wwyd?

Y - I'd have to move kids to state
N - I'll pay the vat

Well you're not average are you? Unless you genuinely believe that most people are only unable to send their kids to private school because they don't tighten their belts. Maybe 'elite' isn't quite the right word but you are certainly able to buy your children an advantage that's not possible for most in this country.

‘My DS is starting private school in August. Will cost £12.5k a year.’

2nd kids about to join, so you’re spending £25k a year on something that could be free? If that’s not ‘elite’ I’m not sure what is.

Anyway, if the business you are paying to educate are your kids decides to charge you more, that really is between you and them.

Nothing is free.

If you are not paying for your childs education, then someone else is paying for you.

@Heatherbell1978 I'm with you on this. I'm a single mum with a mortgage. I have a ds, very strong in maths, sat for an academic scholarship and then was desperate to take it up.

I've mortgaged my soul for him to attend. I only pay half fees and it still takes every penny I have. He's in GCSE year and on track for great grades so I'm hoping it will be worth it.

But A'level provision is either another two year's fees 😰or the only state school to offer A'level maths & further maths near us is 20 miles away, and no bus. So I might be spending the same on taxis just to get him there.

I'll be working until 67 at this rate.

Well, lets be honest. It's between them for maybe a couple of years until the mob realise that state education is still mostly dire, and private schools still have better outcomes.

What then?

Should we ask the government take even more money from them and spend it on you?

I'm not aware that all UK universities and courses interview all their applicants. AFAIK, it's only Oxbridge that do so. And the Oxbridge admissions tutors with whom I've spoken say that they are primarily interested in ascertaining how much and how quickly an applicant can learn, not so much what they know at the point of the interview. If they decide that an applicant with relatively low expected A Level scores has relatively high "potential", they should be able to make an offer with lower score requirements.

As for why the A Level results should be given less weight for applicants from poorly resourced backgrounds, consider the case of Further Maths. AFAIK, no course formally requires the Further Maths A Level because not all sixth forms offer it. Courses often overlook its absence for applicants from schools which don't offer it. But very few courses which strongly recommend it will make an offer to an applicant from a sixth form which did offer it where the applicant either didn't take it or did poorly in it.

More generally, support and resources can take the form of, among other things, more educated and involved parents, better residential accommodation (access to a quiet place to study), a less disruptive classroom environment (more likely at both leafy comps and private schools), smaller class sizes and more personal attention, a more advanced and homogeneous classes where the teachers can spend less time on the basics and more time on extensions (more likely in academically selective schools, both state and private), and access to tutoring to ensure gaps are filled. Are you suggesting that these things are not likely to result in higher exam scores? What's your reasoning in assuming that?

Their plan is to raise 1.7bn by VAT increases alone, then there is businesses taxes too which they currently don't pay.

The education budget is £116bn, so its just under 2%, not transformational i agree, about 2 weeks worth.

Thought the idea is to provide free school meals? 4m kids are living in poverty or put it another way, in a state school class of 30, 9 will be living in poverty.

The UK simply doesn't have £2bn to subsidise the wealthy but if labour get into power, then i'd expect this and any other policy to be looked again for effectiveness.

My brothers kids went to a mid range private school, the idea that many parents are struggling and can't afford the extra costs is ridiculous.

Because I personally have a lot of very educationally privileged friends who harbour inverse snobbery type sentiments towards private schools

I actually know an Oxford graduate who, due to their parental support, were able to take a couple of years off to work on a book and whose DC were apparently eligible for FSM for six years (I don't know if they applied for it). And I very much recognize the sentiment.

To me educational privilege is linked to parental educational attainment

I very much agree with this. In the United States, it's now common for students to be asked what the educational attainment of their parents is, whether they are the first in their family to apply to university. You can guess how the information is used.

I don’t think uni admissions should be artificially second guessing amounts of privilege, because it is not possible to do it correctly.

I'm not sure that society shouldn't do something just because it can't do it perfectly; we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of better. The six years will be long over by the time the DC I mentioned above are applying to university, but I wouldn't have thought they "deserved" any preference. But I'm not about say that we shouldn't use FSM as a criterion just because I would disagree with some of the outcomes.

The 1.7bn figure is calculated by assuming numbers in private schools remain constant and all parent funded VAT is available to spend on state schools.

It ignores even a single additional child needing funding for a state school place if they decide not to use private schools.

It completely ignores input VAT which the schools will be able to recover.

I’d be astounded if the net figure ends up being a positive let alone 1.7bn but that doesn’t really matter because the intention of the policy is not economic. It is designed to look like giving wealthier people a bloody nose to help attract votes. You only have to ask yourself why such a policy that in the overall scheme of things is very much small fry is promoted so heavily. It suits Labour for people to draw incorrect conclusions regarding the impact it will have on the state sector.

The issue surrounding affordability is also being misrepresented. The notion that people who earn more can always find more money is nonsense. There is a limit for everyone regardless of whether you earn 10k or 210k.

Consideration needs to be given to the bigger picture. Many people paying school fees also pay phenomenal amounts of tax. They are already more than paying their way and are subsidising others.

I will be paying some of the fees from income that has already been taxed at 62%. This after paying full whack for nurseries for several years while most others get 30 free hours + tax free saving options.

Remind me again who is subsidising who?

Yes, we are talking about Oxbridge here as they generally have tougher entry criteria. You are right that their focus is not on what a student already knows at the interview stage as they have this in the form of the grades they achieved. There's no need to retest them. The interview, problem solving test, and grades are taken together to inform their decision.

Your Further Maths example doesn't support your original point. If a candidate could have taken the course and didn't or did poorly then that is quantifiable evidence they lack competency in the subject. If the course wasn't available this a lack of evidence of competency. In either case the exam scores they do have are given equal weight against their better resourced peers. The results they do have to compare should not be given less weight.

On your last point - Yes, I expect these to result in higher exam scores - that's why they do it. They are better educated and therefore have achieved greater competency in the subject. Should they be penalised for that?

Trying to adjust for upbringing at this stage is too late. These candidates who did well and had resources now have this knowledge and competency. The course requires this because it will build upon this knowledge. We can't just assume that a person has greater potential because they had access to less recourses.

It should be about the way students think about problems, suggested solutions, problem solving etc, not just knowledge and facts they’ve managed to remember until then.

I agree. Unfortunately, AFAIK, the exams tend to focus more on the latter than the former.

You could have a student who struggled against all the odds to win an academic scholarship and bursary to a private school at 11/13. Should they then be at a disadvantage compared with another child who has had great family support, tens of thousands spent on private tuition but who attended an average comprehensive?

Perhaps. I do believe that there is a difference between the learning environments in an average private school and an average comprehensive which will also affect the exam outcomes. Which of these two approaches is "better" seems to be a focus of a large number of the education threads on Mumsnet.

I mentioned in a PP that American universities now often ask about your parents' educational achievement. Indirectly, they also ask about your parents' financial position through the financial aid applications (not applying for financial aid tells them something, too, perhaps even more). Perhaps universities here also should insist on that information.

I think we are using different definitions of the word "weight". I am using it in the statistical meaning. The raw exam scores should drive less of the evaluation of an applicant who attended an underperforming comp whereas it should drive more for an applicant who attended a "top" independent. The fact that a student didn't take Further Maths is given less weight if the student attended a school which didn't offer it than if they attended a school which did.

On your last point - Yes, I expect these to result in higher exam scores - that's why they do it. They are better educated and therefore have achieved greater competency in the subject. Should they be penalised for that?

Again, we come back to the definition of "competency". The relevant question is: where does the university think the applicant will be four years hence? It's for the university to judge the applicant's potential to learn. And they're perfectly entitled to, and entirely rational to, discount raw exam scores as they see fit in making that assessment. And the educational opportunities and resources that an applicant had access to is relevant information. By no means perfect, but still relevant.

This, exactly. A student who has had full private education and support throughout Covid, a room of their own, a personal computer, etc- and achieves several A Grades, is not necessarily more competent- than a student who has not been able to attend fully, in a Comprehensive with very large classes in poor area, and living in cramped conditions without parental support. Her/his B may indicate much higher competency, organisation and motivation, than the above A. Universities are very good at asking the right questions to work out true competency and motivation- and they should do, quite rightly.

“I think we are using different definitions of the word "weight". I am using it in the statistical meaning. The raw exam scores should drive less of the evaluation of an applicant who attended an underperforming comp whereas it should drive more for an applicant who attended a "top" independent. The fact that a student didn't take Further Maths is given less weight if the student attended a school which didn't offer it than if they attended a school which did.”

Sometimes a school offers children Further Maths but they don’t take it because they change their mind half way through Sixth Form what they want to study at uni. Let’s say they thought they wanted to do Law and took Maths, English and Economics but then ended up loving Economics. Suddenly they find that not taking Further Maths will be held against them just because they went to a grammar/private etc. If they are perfectly competent and high achieving then I am sorry, I find that ridiculous.

In most European countries, a child passes a stringent baccalaureate across many subjects and then gets to choose whatever course they want to study at a wide range of unis, often heavily subsidised by the state. The student self selects and the uni tests them every year. If they don’t pass Year 1 exams they are out. This is a far better system for all. The ball is in the student’s court.

Making private uni institutions second guess and socially engineer because you have an inflated A level system where so many achieve highly and everyone incurs huge student debt is just a terrible system. It is going like the US and we should absolutely be resisting it. The parents at our grammar with EU passports and opportunities are now sending their DCs back to Europe. They don’t want to get involved with the crappy social engineering going on and huge debts at UK unis. You are just sending your future tax payers abroad. The unis should all be good and all be offering the popular courses that the students actually want to study. If there is a mismatch, there is a problem. Unis themselves should not be elite but all at a certain standard. In that way, uni blind recruitment becomes less of an issue as well. Same goes for state schools. The problem is the actual difference in quality across state schools and peer groups within them.

“This, exactly. A student who has had full private education and support throughout Covid, a room of their own, a personal computer, etc- and achieves several AGrades, is not necessarily more competent- than a student who has not been able to attend fully, in a Comprehensive with very large classes in poor area, and living in cramped conditions without parental support. Her/his B may indicate much higher competency, organisation and motivation, than the above A. Universities are very good at asking the right questions to work out true competency and motivation- and they should do, quite rightly.”

Yes in principle I agree, but you are viewing this from an individualistic point of view. That individual student’s rights trump those of society as a whole. It makes far more sense for society as a whole to send the swathes of middle class grammar and privately educated/leafy comp kids who then pay the next lot of taxes and have all the soft skills already and end up being more productive in the work place (and then paying higher taxes to support those who can’t work/are ill etc). If you put the individual right’s above all else (and the above case is rare), in the end the social contract stops working. And this is exactly why US/UK and their individualism are now facing a brick wall. So good luck with that one.

This, along with so many others in this thread, is a debatable point. But it's been a nicely civil debate so far.

Unless you have a reason to believe that "talent" is concentrated in the top 20% of the economic scale, one can argue that a lot more talent and potential innovations are being underutilized in the bottom 80%. What is the value of this? Those accomplished, but not very high potential, kids from the top 20% who might miss out on places at the top universities are unlikely to spend their lives on the dole; they'll get jobs not all that different from what they would have had, perhaps with less authority and less pay. On the other hand, those high potential, but a little less accomplished at 17 years old, kids who do get the places at top universities are more likely to end up in positions with more authority. Which do think would be better for society?

Whilst not paying your heading rates of tax, i was a higher rate tax payer for many years and imho its a nice problem to have, i've always been a lot better off than those who are on the lower rate of tax.

However, i'd have thought that Labour need MC voters too, so it seems like a stupid policy to piss this cohort off if your re correct and its an ill thought out plan.

I guess it comes down to how many would take their kids out of school to go to a Grammar (if possible) or State school.

Doubtless some will, but the numbers are probably very small.

BTW i'm not 100% sure its a good idea, no tax is it raises less than it costs so, i'd like Labour to flesh this out a bit more, probably have to wait until their manifesto launch but we do have to address educational & sporting inequality, we are missing out on tapping into the talents of so many children.

‘Unless you have a reason to believe that "talent" is concentrated in the top 20% of the economic scale, one can argue that a lot more talent and potential innovations are being underutilized in the bottom 80%. ‘

Working in a profession that is heavily weighted to private school ‘graduates’ there is no way most of them would be considered the top of anything… overconfident? Sure. Smarter than everyone else? Nope.

Working in a profession that is heavily weighted to private school ‘graduates’ there is no way most of them would be considered the top of anything… overconfident? Sure. Smarter than everyone else? Nope

Whazza if these private school graduates are less intelligent than everyone else, why were they hired? Which profession do you work in?

In many “professions” you don’t need to be a whizz kid. It is stamina, people and other soft skills that are more relevant. And a child whose parents were professionals often has the “how to play the game” ingrained into them and private businesses are driven by quick profit, not social justice. They would rather have an easy to manage plodder who gets on with the clients than a volatile genius.

Whizz kid is only relevant in certain industries/academia etc.

A second parent in work earning an average UK salary can fund this.

Some choose to be SAHM others chose to earn an average salary and use it to fund private schooling.

Do you consider a SAHM to be “elite”?

Honestly, the comments on threads like these get crazy. Do you think this is the case for most state school parents? That they could afford to send their kids to state school if only they could get their arses in gear and stop slobbing around at home? Do you think that most state school families don't have two parents in them that work? Comments like this don't help in making you seem less elite you know, they just show how little you understand about the finances of the average person in the country.

Perhaps if you read what I actually wrote rather than what you wish I’d written then your response would make more sense.

My question related solely to SAHM and asked whether you considered them to be elite?

I know a number of families who were living on one parent’s salary who decided to both go to work to fund private school. Even a FT minimum wage job for a previously SAHM would fund a mid range private school.

Of course that’s not relevant if both parents are already working but that’s not what I said in the first place.

Jeez the privilege!

Most people don't chose to work FT, rather than be at home with the children plus that is a net amount and you don't inc childcare.

There are also a lot of extra costs with a private school education, trips sport music etc.

Might not be elite but you'd certainly need to have a smaller mortgage and earn a higher rate salary (Currently 15% of all workers)

The average net take home pay wouldn't pay for one child at some schools... Senior school my nephews went too were 8 to10k per pupil per term, 30k each (day)

£60k (2 children) per year but they cannot afford an extra 20% really?