vat on fees- can we have another thread with numbers/type of school ONLY?

[dietcokewithice]

I think it would be very useful for many of us to know what other schools are planning, but it's difficult pull this info out from the other thread as it became full of debate!

Be great if people could just post along these lines - eg

'15 percent rise from Jan '25 - London girls private'

'8 percent rise from September '24, rising to 12 percent in January '25 - North East boys private' - or whatever.

Our school (London co-ed) is raising fees by 4 percent in September. No info yet on what they will do from January '25!

thanks

Very worrying to see the comments on 2025/26 rises in addition to this and the 6.5% already added.

Ref GDST increases, I wonder how this works for bursaries and scholarships. Maybe existing ones will continue but there will be no new offers. There hasn’t been any mention of this. They did say they hoped to absorb as much as they could of the VAT increase but 12% is more than I anticipated .

I understand that many private schools aren't charities, but what I don't understand is how a school goes from being a charity to not being one: but still being an operating school.

I assume the school was set up as a charity by someone in the past, who bought some buildings and provided a fund of money. Maybe they made some rules about how the charity should run. Then over the years, fee income has been used not only to educate the current children but also to improve the buildings. That's all fine whilst it's a charity. But if it's no longer a charity, who owns those buildings now?

Ah, I see!

I think I had the idea that a charity was a sort of company with charitable goals and it was the goals that gave it the status. I know that charities can own companies.

I’m going to look that up now.

South West school - mixed day and boarding - 12-14% from January - letter today.

There is a process. It depends if it's Charity by royal charter or one of the other structures. Generally to close a charity you pay of debts etc and then any remaining has to go to the purpose of the trust.

I know the College of Law sold itself to a private equity firm and the proceeds of the sale set up a Legal Education Foundation. I also know a school that closed, sold the land and then uses the money to fund bursaries at other schools.

I dont quite get the mechanism for transferring the assets of a trust to a non charitable company without some sort of financial exchange. Unless the trust sells itself to a company and then immediately decides to use the proceeds to donate to the company as furthering the aims of the trust. Not sure on that.

Co-ed SW.

6% annual rise from September.

Will try to hold VAT to 15-17% from January, but no promises.

DC currently in Year 11 and will be going to state school for A Levels.

i didn’t identify the school!

There's only one GDST school in Hampshire though.....

Haha! I’m not very stealthy then

@dietcokewithice are you planning to collate and summarise this information? It could be useful information in support of a challenge.

That's really ambitious did they explain how to achieve it?

Boys school 15% from Jan.
Girls school 12% from Jan. GDST.

South east England.

I was speaking to a teacher in the private sector and they fear that the private sector will freeze wages like the public sector did for a while.
Om the flip side it will make the public sector more attractive and they might be able to recruit better.

Normal inflation based rise for 2024-25 announced back in March : 6% rise compared to 2023-24 fee.

From Jan 2025 the actual school fee will be going down below 2023-24 level so that with the 20% added by the government the overall effect will be an increase of a further 6% on the spring and summer terms. The school will be operating at a loss during this time to cushion the impact for families. There will be further rises from September 2025 and September 2026 until the school is no longer operating at a loss.

This is a selective co-ed 4-18 school in a non-London city.

By not being able to increase bursary provision from 1 in 5 pupils to 1 in 3 pupils as planned. So those students will miss out in future years.

Any reason why we are not using school's name while posting % increase from Jan?

Because this is an anonymous forum and disclosing which school DCs are at can lead to patchwork identification.

Absolutely will not do that. I haven’t even said if it’s my dc’s school. It’s well known as details taken from local paper.

Because this is an anonymous forum and disclosing which school DCs are at can lead to patchwork identification.

Oops.

All through co-ed, North West of England, 10% increase from Jan 25.

Just wondering whether parents who paid fees in advance will benefit from these discounts as well as not paying the VAT?
Or will applying the discount to the fees mean that VAT is due on the whole thing?

any thoughts on Eton 20 percent?! I thought they had a huge endowment and had indicated to parents earlier in the year they wouldn’t pass ANY VAT on?? (This was a friend with a child there so not just guesswork)

Yes, from personal experience.

The growth is from overseas students - who are less exposed. Eton and others have been assiduously promoting themselves to overseas students for a while - growth is strong from India, China and the Middle East.

@EverythingAllatOnceAllTheTime - thanks so much but not quite sure I understand the reply! Yes they suggested to parents they wouldn’t pass any vat on and have now done a big u-turn? Thanks for explaining!