2025 Private School Costs (just a rant)

[sherbsy]

Just a rant ladies as I wanted to get something off my chest...

My DH and I were lucky enough to go to private schools as kids. These schools weren't exactly posh, they were just former grammar schools (i.e. academic student factories) that converted in the 70s to private schools because the Labour government at the time told them to.

I know it's a privilege to go, there's a choice involved, a compromise etc. Neither of us ever went on holiday as kids or had many luxuries and our parents endured a lot to be able to afford it. I'm grateful for all they did and I wanted to do the same for my children.

But despite having good jobs...we just can't.

My rant is just at the excessive cost of it all in 2024. We both earn well and it's still beyond our means. With VAT being added in January, I'm not even sure it's worth it anymore.

When I left in 2000, it cost our parents ~£6,500 for a year. Inflation adjusted, that's about £12,000 in today's money. By no means cheap but both the schools we went to are now charging ~£22,000 per child, per year. That's before you factor in uniform, lunches, trips, exam costs etc.

Finding £44,000+ after tax every year with today's marginal tax rates, mortgage costs, food costs, energy costs etc just isn't possible for us...and I'd surprised many people can find it.

I know it's a middle-class rant, I know there's privilege involved but can anyone else empathise with us? It just feels like the Labour government have twice pulled the ladder away from capable kids (once in the 70s and now in 2024), offering it only to the rich ones.

Thing is it’s market forces isn’t it? There are plenty of people willing and able to pay the fees.

Our son is at private but he is an only child. I naively thought that he might have a chance of meeting quite a few fellow only children at school because I figured that private was more affordable for people only paying for one kid. I have found that pretty much every one of them has at least one sibling also in private school and in fact a huge number of them have families with three or more children! There’s a lot of money out there.

The independent school that I went to charged about £7-800 per term in the late eighties. When we looked at the school in 2008 when dd1 started Reception, the fees ranged from 6-16k a year. I’ve just looked at their website again and now fees are 10-26k!! Blimey. With VAT they’ll have doubled. This is insane. Why weren’t parents complaining when the fees were rising year on year long before Labour got involved?!

I went to a private school on full AP in the early 90s. I left BC there was zero pastoral care. My dad dropped down dead from a heart attack suddenly at the beginning of y8 and not one teacher even asked me if I was Ok. In fact I was victimised, othered and bullied. Like they thought my tragedy and loss was contagious.
I was delighted when I left for a comp.

In the early 2000s I lived and worked in South Africa for a decade.

No matter how pro-equality most white South Africans were, almost all struggled with their children not having the first class schools and universities they had, the elite earning power as professionals, the detached house in the suburbs, the holiday home.

Exactly. Thread after thread after thread on here about how it’s Labour that’s made private schooling unaffordable. The numbers tell a different story!

It was a Labour policy, that when Thatcher was Education Secretary she wanted to end (overruled in Cabinet).

One of the very first things she did on becoming PM herself was direct that the policy be ended.

I'm relieved that my parents chose not to send us to private school and opted to go on holidays instead. Some of my best childhood memories were travelling with my family. It makes me quite sad what people will sacrifice to pay for schooling.

But Thatcher was still the Education Secretary in Heath’s government who oversaw the most grammar school closures between 1970 and 1974.

From the FT:

archive.ph/ApdJW

Most of the drop happened in the 1970s when Margaret Thatcher – then education secretary – approved the closure of most grammar schools.

It might have been a Labour policy but it was enacted by the Conservatives.

Thatcher knew that the 11+ was unpopular.

As education secretary, Thatcher changed almost nothing. She withdrew a 1965 Labour circular requiring local councils to submit plans for comprehensives. But she did not block plans already in the pipeline because, by then, the 11-plus was unpopular with middle-class parents, who feared their children might fail.

amp.theguardian.com/education/2013/apr/15/margaret-thatcher-education-legacy-gove

Well, yes. It is amazing how many parents believe in selective education until their child fails the 11+.

I worked briefly in a grammar school a decade or so ago (back office job).

40% of pupils had gone to private primaries. They took in an extra form at 13 to accommodate prep school pupils.

None had siblings at the secondary modern. If the sibling failed the 11+ they went to a private non-selective rather than following through on 'believing that selective education is best for everyone '.

What is it you would be paying for OP? What ladder exactly has been pulled away from your ‘capable’ kids? All these threads and I don’t get it, what on earth do you think your £44k per year would be buying for your kids?

the only ladder being pulled away is the chance for mediocre kids with rich parents to get better than average results/connections is it not? Capable kids will learn work ethic, drive and determination to succeed in earning those things for themselves at state school on a level playing field…

the only thing awaiting the mediocre kids with better than average paid for results is a lifetime of being pretty crap at a job that’s probably too hard for them - leg ups and chumocracy doesn’t really exist in the elite industries any more, and (hopefully) will be even less so when your kids finish their £200k education.

Absolutely agree!

I do work in a profession with lots of people from private school and have become quite senior within my profession. I learnt work ethic and determination at my state school - and I was a straight A student / first class degree etc so I guess I wasn't "mediocre" as you say. But what I also got from my state school was years of bullying and a crippling lack of confidence and self worth. I honestly envy my colleagues' confidence and self-assured personas.

This will make plenty of people wince but I'll gladly lay out my cards. I really don't mind what anyone thinks...

You pay for your children to share a classroom with bright, ambitious and confident kids. Bullying and other problems will often be dealt with swiftly. Remember, you're treated as a customer not just another moaning parent. Opportunities are offered in arts, sports and other extra-curricular activities. Broadly speaking, people "look up".

You also pay for your kids to not share classrooms with disruptive kids or children whose SEN needs are clearly not being met by the appalling state offering. Hence they'll not need to learn at the speed of the weakest link.

It's 100% a privilege to be able to pay and give this to your children, I'm fully aware of this. It's what a lot of ambitious parents want to give their kids and despite slogging our guts out, we can no longer afford it. It's a shame that more parents don't get angry that state education has turned to slop.

I don't blame Labour, it's just that their 20% VAT policy is the final kick in the teeth that makes it a non-starter.

You pay for your children to share a classroom with bright, ambitious and confident kids. Bullying and other problems will often be dealt with swiftly. Remember, you're treated as a customer not just another moaning parent. Opportunities are offered in arts, sports and other extra-curricular activities. Broadly speaking, people "look up".

This is not true of all privates - I’ve worked in a few.

Of course not, but as a parent you do your best to try. Sometimes it's the parents that make it all miserable too...

One of my former colleagues worked at a certain North London private school and tutored a certain high-profile radio presenter's kids. She said he was so awful that his wife had to apologise for his appalling behaviour at parent's evenings.

My own grammar went comprehensive in about 1977. Labour Government 1974-9.

I also don’t recognise the narrative that private school parents are more invested in their DCs education vs state school parents. Maybe it’s a location thing as I’m a Londoner? Affluent neglect is a thing.

Schools will charge what people will pay, like any other business.

Plenty of people don’t even earn £22,000 a year, so moaning that you can’t afford twice this amount and blaming Labour governments for it is laughable.

The real scandal is that there are so many poor state schools - parents should not have to break their banks in order to get decent education for their children.

I know lots of people like you - privately educated themselves but not able to afford it for their own kids.

Indeed, if all the energy put into discussing private school fees was focused on the lack of funding for the other 97%.

There are good and bad state and private schools, but generally what you gain from a private school is breadth of curriculum. Some of my GC go to private schools, some to state, ditto my own children when they were young. What those at private schools gained was a raft of extraordinary opportunities - in music in particular - with choirs and bands and orchestras and music tours - and above all else the taking part being seen as the norm and not some poor relation add on. I wish I had the money to pay for this for all my GC, rather than just some being lucky enough to have parents who can afford it.

Having said that, my own children have done well in the end and are well-educat4ed adults, whichever school they went to.

The last decade has been a weird one, because of covid, when so many schools flatlined or had very small increases for a couple of years; then had a big rise a while after coming out of that, as that was also the time of the huge rise in energy prices and the changes to TPS.

There was also a major hike in the early 00s (about 2004) because of a large increase in employers NI contributions. That's roughly when fees really started to increase - always about 5% over inflation (earnings increased considerably in that period, ahead of inflation, and much of the schools costs are staff costs)

Edited: I have re-read and now see that you are not suggesting the pp considered you “mediocre”. As you were…