Who can afford private schools in the UK?

[wjchoihk]

Hi. I am not sure if this is an appropriate question to ask here. But I have always wondered how rich you should be to send children to private schools in UK. Fees are anywhere from 3000 up to 10000 per term. Even allowing for wide gaps in income, thinking of 'avearge' UK wage of 26,000 pound, math simply don't add up for a normal life with such high fees. I also know only 7% of children go private though.

How much of private parents live on "inherited" wealth and how much on simply superior current earnings? I have my kids at SW London privates but I wouldn't be able to afford this without current int'l expat package. Some parents at my kids' schools LOOK and ARE very very rich but most of them LOOK quite down to earth. But I can't ask....

I am in legal and I can endorse what yellowtip says.

worse - the world around you isn't all there is. Just because the people around you aren't landing those kind of jobs doesn't mean other people are talking out of their arses.

worcester lawyers need only one year professional trianing post degree and many city firms help with the costs of that. It's two years if your degree was not law.

City firms offer around £40k as the starting salary for a trainee.
Next tier down (what used to be called a West End firm in ye olden days) around £30k.

Even in the CPS you'll look at about £20k.

You'll get a pay rise every six months and qualify at the end of two years, when pay jumps up very nicely indeed.

Tis good money.

Trainee investment bankers start at £30k - £40k. No post degree quals necessary (though many do have MAs of course).

6 months only for some LPCs now word.

Didn't know that yellow.

Though it makes sense. Better to get it all out of the way rather than stringing it out. Although I guess some students need the full year so they can work alonside if they don't get any assistance.

I must admit that I think students would do well to sign up for a city firm even if they don't think they'll ultimately want to end up there. They help with LPC fees, the wages are very good form the get go, and it looks fab on your CV...

Though the training is not that great TBH.

Apologies for not having read whole thread, but regarding bank of mum and dad and grandparents paying for private school....is the irony lost on them that their children went through the private school system and yet came out of it not being able to pay for private school fees for their own kids?

We have friends like this, it's hilarious! Always banging on to us about how everything they have achieved is because of private ed. They live in a 3 bed semi on a joint income of about 60K.
I do want to say something about the glaring irony but never do.

On the saving for sixth form point, the rumour round here (Surrey) is that parents are taking their DCs out of private school for sixth form to boost their Oxbridge chances. So that knocks 2 years off the fees.

Nit - the poster said that £60 a day in fees is no big deal. I made the point that to some people £60 is their income for a week.

If you want to develop a sub thread based on this one line post then go for it dudette.

Aunt there is a generation of middle class people, now parents of school aged children, that had many advantages in life.

However, they used their advantages to choose interesting employment over well paid employment. I give you the swathes and swathes of folk working in the meeja and publishing and the arts .

I give you the nouveau pauvre.

Aunt - although I am not one of those people, not everyone measures success in terms of pay checks and the house they live in. So it's only ironic to people that think like us.

Though to be fair, school fees are much more expensive (relatively) than when they attended school.

House prices are at an all time high.

Pensions/investments etc are all down the toilet.

So what their parents could manage on the wage of one GP, is simply not doable by today's standards.

Many many middle class adults are not able to give their DC the same standard of living they experienced as a child.

oookay. It was helpful then that you did the sums for £60 a day two posts before you explained your highly satirical point about £60 a week. Maybe that was all part of some wider point as well, I don't know.

But you're right, it's tedious especially when there are so many other instances of your skim reading for which you have yet to apologize.

Isn't it good that some people are in the media and publishing and the arts? I think it is!

Of course! I am one of them!

But, it aint gonna pay you what Goldman's is offering. It actually might pay less than a teacher's salary.

You need to appreciate that and accept it. You need to accept that your DC won't get your start in life or if they do it will come from the bank of Mom and Pop. If you can't suck that up, you're in deep shit.

And I have yet to meet a middle class journo/novelist/editor who seem able to suck it up .

"However, they used their advantages to choose interesting employment over well paid employment. I give you the swathes and swathes of folk working in the meeja and publishing and the arts"

I give you the nouveau pauvre."

They're not 'pauvre'. Most of these people are earning perfectly respectable incomes. No different from teachers and nurses, who I also wouldn't describe as 'poor'.

Bluey I know some parents pull their kids from top indies and sling them into sixth form or comps hoping to dupe Oxford and Cambridge into thinking their kid is underprivileged or at least not super privileged. But it's charmingly naive. And may even be counter-productive. GCSEs are assessed against the school they were taught at.

I am a huge fan of teachers who started out by going into the arts, didn't make a living and then turned to teaching. My DD's current class teacher is a failed actress. She is a fabulous fabulous primary school teacher!

Well, yes you can't complain it's not fair that you haven't enough money if you had the choice and chose not to have, sure.

Though middle class journalists/novelists/editors who were privately educated might very well have come to the conclusion in adulthood that although they personally benefitted, they can see that, more broadly, that system isn't fair. So that kind of complaining about fairness seems.... fair

Agree. The nouveau pauvre are those who used to have phenomenal inherited wealth and have lost it, through bad management, gambling, war or whatever.

Well of course they're not!

But they are living a much less comfortable life than their parents, and their DC don't have the luxury of private school etc.

These are the folk that write those endless bloody articles...and these are the folk that make comments about the nouveau riche.

sixth form colleges or comps. I really should read these posts before I hit send.

bonsoir yes indeed. I give you DD's singing and LAMDA teachers.

nit I agree that some people might come to the conclusion that their advanatge wasn't fair. But my experience is that the arts world is populated by those who just can't quite get their head around how things have turned out. They were told they could do anythingafter all.