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.

I don't disagree. I feel like the life my parents had on one salary with 4 kids, 2 cars and a huge house looks very different to my life would on one salary! As it happens we have two decent salaries, 2 kids, 1 car and a much smaller house...and have just started paying school fees for DS. Not originally in plan...but we've had to pivot due to the rapid downhill of our local state offering...but cheaper where I live than what you're having to pay. Same school would have been about £5k a year when I was a child.

Although what I would say is that if I listened to MN opinion on what we should be earning before considering private school, DS wouldn't be there!

It’s always always always been unobtainable for the majority. You are now just falling in with the majority.

Do you realise that state-funded sixth form colleges have been paying VAT for 50 years? I think it is perfectly reasonable, and actually far too late in the day, that private schools now also have to pay VAT. Rich people already have far more opportunities in life than the rest of us, and it isn't because they work harder, or are necessarily more capable. It's often down to luck or the ability to do a job "valued" by society, but not always more valuable. Private schools, and their customers should pay VAT.

“I am just accepting the political reality here that grammars are not coming back.”

@justanotherdaduser - well you should not just accept it because the comp for all followed by as many as possible in higher education has not led to greater social mobility for working class boys, nor greater income equality. It has led to the worst outcomes for working class boys possible, directly leading to things like Brexit and Reform etc type thinking taking hold.

So rather than accepting Bridget Philipson’s dream for all, of a poor girl going to Oxford, we need to openly acknowledge that this comes at a cost. We cannot in a very fast-moving technological world just keep harping back to Blairite and earlier thinking. We need to train the many into good jobs and fair wages.
We need to make sure that the average and lower average in society has good income outcomes. That has to be were the priority goes and we have to cater the education system accordingly. And messing around at the top with private schools is a complete waste of time.

This is a really horrible thread. entitled and judgmental. Get some perspective on your own privilege.

Whete has all this privilege narrative come from all of a sudden?! Privilege comes in many forms after all....

Another man that doesn't like it when a woman dares to make a fuss and suggest that things aren't good enough? Imagine my surprise.

Mentioning privilege, right on queue.

Well, I suppose anything can be nationalised

But I’m not at all sure that buying land and property in order to spend the same on running costs and 10% more on your annual capital costs to provide the same service is currently a good use of funds

But the state pays them? I don't really see why they should decide admissions.

‘And messing around at the top with private schools is a complete waste of time.’

Yes it is a waste of time. It is however a vote winner and people pleaser. 🤷‍♀️

Sorry, haven't read through the thread.
Private schools have always been unattainable financially for most of the population, so I think Op is simply now part of that majority.

And private schools have been in an arms race in the last generation of so to spent on ever shinier facilities and frills - fees increasing way above inflation. So to blame Labour's VAT measure for any exodus is misguided.

I think it's the state system that is a mess in terms of catchment as population grows and people move in the catchment gets increasingly smaller. I live in an area with good & outstanding state high schools, many sought after. I am in a position where I have to seriously consider even options 4&5 as nothing is guaranteed. The nearest high school is 0.4 miles away but a religious school so we are number 10 in distance criteria. The second closest is 0.7 miles but only those within 0.5 miles ever get in. The other is 0.8 miles away and we are just within but still a risk. The fourth is 1.2 miles away but accepts usually within 0.8 miles. It's an absolute shambles imo.

What man?

Are you talking about me? I'm female. And leaving your horrible thread.

Like the majority, you're priced out.

We are in a similar position and I understand finding it frustrating but I am far more annoyed with private schools for endlessly raising fees well above the rate of inflation than the government

I would be too in your position.

I'm in the opposite situation - I didn't go to private school but I now send my DC to private school. I understand what you're saying but I'm a governor and see how the finances are run at our school - there are no surpluses - it's a tightly run ship although we are on the "cheaper" end of the scale. Maybe someone else can shed light on why fees have increased to that extent.

I do think, though, that people in our professions / positions a generation or two ago would generally have been much wealthier than we are.

I do think, though, that people in our professions / positions a generation or two ago would generally have been much wealthier than we are.

Certain things, like education (or houses), have become relatively more expensive than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Others, like airfare, flat screen TV, mobile phone connections have become cheaper.

Most professional jobs pay more (inflation adjusted) than 30 years ago.

But that earning growth has not been able to beat education price inflation, which for whatever reason has far outfaced UK CPI or RPI.

This chart shows annual education inflation rate, consistently above CPI, on average seems to be mostly above 5%. Most of the input for that is coming from public sector, private sector education inflation rate was probably much higher.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7gh/mm23

I think you've probably identified the main issue - housing.

My parents both left school at 15 with no qualifications. My dad worked in an unskilled manual job and mum was a SAHM. But the house we grew up in is now worth over £1m - that wouldn't be achievable now.

Well, if I look at the private school that I went to, the reasons behind the fee increases seem fairly obvious - the facilities and site are far far more extensive. Sports facilities in particular, these used to be shared costs between two other local private schools and now all three schools have their own. But also they now have a fancy reception area, an alumni officer, glossy magazine sent to alumni etc

Ironically, the exam results are much poorer than they were when I went there - which seems likely to be because they have priced so many parents out, they can't be as selective academically

Not true.

I won a place at a grammar school as did my siblings in the 1970s. All from a FSM household. Four out of six of us have degrees, two have masters.

It allowed me to escape the life my parents had planned for me, to have a profession, and to give return to the state through 45 years NI paid and 35 years higher rate tax.

Well, if I look at the private school that I went to, the reasons behind the fee increases seem fairly obvious - the facilities and site are far far more extensive.

I am sure that is true for some schools, but many, especially smaller ones with less than 300 students (and these are the majority of independent schools), have not embarked on a massive expansion of facilities and grounds.

A large part of their fees rise have come from staff costs (which has to at least keep in pace with state sector), better staff/student ratio, more specialist staff for SEN etc.

In London with some of the highest day school fees, many schools run from fairly old and cramped campus, with no on campus playground or much of a sports facilities. Yet, their cost have risen too, and their accounts show that bulk of the money is spent on staff.

@justanotherdaduser how have state schools managed without a similar increase in funding?

I don't have any special insight I am afraid. Someone working in a school would be able to explain better.

From a purely user's perspective (DD went to state primary till year 6), my guess would be - larger class size, lack of spcialist teachers (foreign language teaching was on paper only), cutting down on extracurriculars, poor quality/non-existent teaching outside the core subjects, increasingly poor quality school lunches, poor equipments (broken down computers etc), very little support for academically ambitious children and so on.

As users of the state sector, between reception and end of year 6, we saw very visible deterioration in 'service quality' due to lack of investment.