Just wondering... how do you think the financial turmoil will affect private school applications this year?

[PrincessPeaHead]

It was difficult enough to see who the hell could afford boarding fees of £8800 per term in a boom economy... now? Do you think there will be a big move from boarding to private day options (cheaper) or in fact also a big fall in private day applications as people try for grammars/use the good local comp ?

Just musing really.

Just had a look at Manchester Grammar School's website which says:

'We award a large number of means-tested bursary places - more than 200 throughout the school - aiming to exclude no boy who can pass our entrance examination. Fees are kept to the lowest level that can support the excellent education we provide'

'Assistance awarded is based on the total gross income of the household in which the boy lives and will be on a sliding scale such that parents in receipt of assessable income of £36,250 or more (2008/09 cut off point) will receive no assistance, whilst those with income of £16,250 (2008/09 cut off point) or below will receive full remission of fees.'
That means over 200 pupils' parents have a family income of less than £36,250 and receive financial assistance from the school.

FC, we are close to MGS and they really do have a blind entrance policy. They have a strong ethos of meritocracy and their ultimate aim is to accept those boys who scored highest in the exam regardless of whether their parents can afford to pay the fees.

And of course, MGS is rated as one of the top schools in the country.

DS1's old school - in similar league to MGS - offers bursaries to 10-15% of its pupils, though being in the south the cut off rate for parental income is around £50k joint income. It has recently started a major fund raising drive to increase bursary funding as part of its (multiple) centenary celebrations. Like many of the major independent day schools it started as a free school for local boys, was a direct grant, then took part in the assisted places scheme. The bursary funds drive is intended to ensure it continues offering places to the best students regardless of parental income.

First of all I should declare I'm an educationalist. I think independent schools have wasted a great deal of money of expensive building programmes and so on over the last 10+ years. Only those with very canny governing bodies and/or huge endowments are likely to survive. Independent schools have relied on guilt-tripping middle class parents into borrowing against the value of their houses and borrowing from grandparents in order to pay fees increasing exponentially ahead of inflation. Now such people are finding it impossible to cover school fees and they are putting pressure on state schools to improve instead. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do think we need a flourishing private sector to compete with the governmental model, so people have a proper choice, and to keep the government on its toes. BTW did you know MGS was state until the mid 1970s as a Direct Grant school, but when its funding was withdrawn it went private. However demographically it looks as though the same group of people go there as when it was a state school. Interesting, eh?

Its good that MGS and Lilymaid's DS's old school offer bursaries.. However there will be a number of children who will be bright enough but still unable to go to the Schools mentioned. In Lilymaid's example the cut off is £50,000 for a bursary. Our income is higher than this but we cannot afford secondary private school fees.

Therefore generally speaking to use private education I imagine you would need to be quite wealthy probably earning £80,000 plus (for 2 children) or have an income of less than £50,000 and qualify for a bursary. Or have a rich Granny!

I don't we can say most private school parents aren't going to be able to afford fees and the private sector will collapse. I am expecting to be able to pay them out of income as I've been doing for 20 years continuously. My brother and sister will too.

MGS is very good and that is not because it was ex direct grant but because of the way it teaches and the selective entrance test and its reputation as are the schools my children were at like Haberdashers, Merchant Taylor's, North London. i don't see why these type of schools will be threatened by a recession/depression as only 7% pay fees anyway in teh country and I would expect the top 7% of earners to be able to weather the economic climate we will be under and are under reasonably well such as to be able to continue to pay fees.

As for what you need to earn to pay fees depends if you have a big mortgage/big house and other high expenses. If 7% of people pay fees presumably that's usually the top 7% of earners being more likely to pay fees. My sister has got a small bursary due to low income/being a single parent for her boys recently although it is not a huge sum but she has no mortgage so finding £20k for fees is not that hard I would assume for her.

I wonder what constitutes a low income if finding 20k for fees isn't hard.

MGS is very good but makes no bones about being fiercely academic. It's a shame Withington doesn't follow suit with the income blind policy.

I wouldn't send my kids to either though, partly because I prefer co-ed and partly because I wanted something more rounded.

I think we'll have to wait and see Xenia. I've heard from other Mums that two large investment banks are laying off today. And DH has already heard rumblings from the magic circle.
What are you hearing?

But what happens if lots of parents want to use their "voucher" at the same school of "choice"? And won't this choice be, as it already is in the state sector, skewed by availability, distance, transport links etc?

I'd just like to say that I am still being misquoted and misrepresented, perhaps unintentionally. I have not said private school fees are "only for those who have a luxurious lifestyle". I have said they are "a luxury". Which they are. Subtle difference. You can have other luxuries (time, etc.) without being necessarily a person with a luxurious lifestyle.

Even if our household income is 45K, that's meaningless without factoring in all the other things like cost of living and the size of the mortgage.

Interesting to note from that bursary link that some were for pupils to remain at the school "at crucial examination stages". So we are not talking 30% of kids going to independent schools from the outset on bursary places. Some have parents who can pay for them initially and then get a bursary to keep them there.

It's clearly disposable income and the number of children of school age you have that matter more than baseline household income.

Regarding people not being able to pay the school fees, I've just done some research on this for my work. I think you can probably split people into these groups (broadly speaking):

1. Those who currently just scrape through and manage to pay fees but who have recently been struggling because of rising living costs and rising fees
2. Those who experience a sudden change in circumstances but who for whatever reason had not saved a 'war chest' to pay fees in such an eventuality.

Independent schools are expecting to lose some pupils. Some will be able to ride this out, the most popular, over-subscribed private schools will simply replace leavers with others. The schools which are less popular will struggle most obviously and some of these which have splashed out on capital projects to build flash facilities and borrowed a lot, will go under.

I expect that at the entry points, standards will drop slightly i.e. you won't need to pass the 11+ or CE with quite such high marks to get in to selective schools.

Applications are likely to be down a fair bit from this year onwards.

I am curious as to how the state sector will cope if there is more than a trickle of private exiles seeking places.

And very likely not only seeking places in the state sector, but seeking places in the handful of "best" schools in the authority.

Absolutely UQD but they're going to struggle to get in if their kids have been taken out of a private school other than at a 'normal' stage to change school.

They are not going to be getting the pick of the local state schools in that situation are they...

You may be right, chipmunks. Depends on time of application, academic year etc. But there may be - how can I put this delicately? - a certain sense of entitlement.

A nearby, massively oversubscribed Comp - the kind that people mortgage themselves to the hilt to move next to - makes it clear that applications outside the normal Year 7 are based on the child's current school report and a chat with the HT. Methinks some private school kids may have a bit of an advantage there...........

Oh there you go again UQD with your wild assumptions about parents who pay.

Parents who remove their children from the private sector have no choice but to take a place at whichever school has a vacancy which is usually the least popular school. This is just the same situation parents find themselves in if they have to relocate. We do know that if we don't apply for a reception place then we forfeit our right to a catchment place.

'A certain sense of entitlement' is just a rude and emotive phrase to use and shows that you have a very narrow view of the parents who use the independent sector.

And yet I don't hear many stories of kids leaving private schools and going to the local council estate sink comp. I'm sure someone will provide indignant anecdotal to the contrary, though. (Sigh. Starts stopwatch.)

Maybe not but you have to factor in the fact that many people actually don't have a sink comp within 15miles of them. Many more parents, if faced with such a school would just up and move to an area where, once again, none of the local schools were weak.

Your comment about entitlement is just pigeonholing an eclectic group of people whom you think you know.

Not indignant but yes our primaries are getting 3 kids each out of the private schools this month.

I'm with you on this one UQD. People will move/rent/lie about where they live/use granny's address to get into the best local comp.

Of course they will, bagsforlife. Just the same way savvy parents using the state system from the beginning do.

That does not mean they have an arrogant 'sense of entitlement though'.

In reply to UQDs post if people have cared enough about their children's education to send them to a private school in the first place they are not going to send them to a sink comp are they?

They would probably phone round the good state schools until one had a place and maybe travel further to get to a good school. It does not mean the schools are going to change their rules to accommodate them, more that the parents will spend time finding the best state option.

I imagine the effect of the credit crunch will be that in areas where there are good state schools fewer people will start their children in private schools at 5, they will maybe send them at 11 instead. As the year starting reception next year is supposed to be a low birth year there will probably be extra spaces in state reception classes anyway.

Well, it's not that they cared enough necessarily, miffy, just that they had enough money. You're probably right about the knock-on effect on state schools though.