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 agree BISJO!

Ah bisjo but you did say it wasn't possible to have a good state education without those things: you didn't qualify that by saying 'where I live'. Sorry.

My secondary has been in special measures for over 10 years now"

I would need to see some proof of that statement!

"Ihad a good state education but that is no longer available unless you want to tutor and compete with league tables. "

As I pointed out in my last post, my state educated children gain advantages in the form of bilingualism that would be impossible to find in a private school, especially near where we live.

If you had that many rooms you could turn the house into a free school

The thread has moved on from the original question, but according to Wikipedia (which is never wrong btw) the income in the highest-earning fifth of households in 2008/09 was £73,800. So, while not all of those households would have kids, they more than plenty account for the 7% of children being privately educated.

We are some way below that figure and our DS is at a private school.

And I don't think that all the assumptions about why people send their children to independent schools are are true nor fair. I didn't choose private education because a state education was too ghastly. I chose it because the state could not offer us an education full stop.

"I know you believe people choosing private schooling are making an implicit judgement on (all or some) of state schooling (and I almost wholly agree with you) but you seem to be making an explicit judgement on the quality of life of an only child, which is quite hurtful to those who had no choice in the size of their family (and those who knowingly and happily chose to have an only) regardless of how they're educated."

No I'm not. I have said there are many good reasons to have 1child, or 5 or 10. But being terrified of state education is not one of them. And if, when a child asks why it is an only child, I find it hard to believe that it is going to find" so you didn't have to be educated with 93% of the children in the country" is going to be a satisfactory response.

I don't think limiting family size because you want to afford certain things is so weird. People do it for all sorts of reasons all the time.

I suspect though as said before it is more likely that if you find yourself with one child you might be more likely to look at private because it is more affordable.

However this is all somewhat off topic I merely wanted to point out that the vast majority of private using parents are pretty well off. No amount of shopping at aldi or camping holidays in wales will bring it within our dual income doing ok but not minted budget.

SEEKER - why can you not just believe me that my school was never an option for dd? I sunk without a trace there & I am sure dd would have done the same!
& I will not name the school in question for obvious reasons

Bet my parents never thought their council house brought for £4k in 1971 would pay for their grandchildren to attend independent schools? No way we could afford for them to attend without a bursary & on our usual monthly income!

Having our first holiday in years this summer now DCs have left the private sector & can't wait to be a bit selfish for a change. Such fun.

I believe that. I don't believe that it gaps been in special measures for 10 years. And youy child wouldn't have had to go to that state school anyway-it's not hereditary!

People make those decisions all the time. If you choose to phrase it in an emotive way, that's up to you. None of the reasons people limit family size sound particularly pleasant if you put them like that. It makes you sound like one of those fundamentalist Christian 'quiver full' people.

And of course you have to phrase it as 'terrified of state education'

Ok, oK, I sort of give up now and, yes, you did say that about 'all sorts of reasons for only having x number of children' but you also said several times something along the lines of a child would always rather have a sibling than a private education...which is a criticism of the life of an only child, surely (especially if the state option would be damaging and totally unsuitable for the child in question - although I'm trying not to blur the two issues)?

Anyway, peace and goodnight all.

...oh and why would my child ask me why he's an only child? What is so terrible about it?

Really am off now

We moved ds to the indy sector when we knew we had enough capital to fund it through to 18. We are in SW London like the OP and felt safe to do it at that time because we thought there were realistic state options for girls. There weren't when it came to it and we were lucky we had the option to move her otherwise the original decision to move DS when we did would have been very wrong.

OP - in SW London you would think we were the poor people; but some of the people who look very wealthy are exceptionally highly geared - some of course are just stinking rich but mostly the genuinely richer ones are the ones who look the most ordinary. And an awful lot of parents do it because two parents are working their cotton socks off; albeit at professional jobs. And we know a lot of families who have lost one job in the last four years and who have sold a prime postcode house for one a few miles further out to fund the £200k of outstanding fees. mostly because they wanted a bigger garden

Original I'm not a politician so I limit my comments to what is within my personal knowledge and experience

Apart from when you said a good state education is not possible, bisjo."I had a good state education but that is no longer available unless you want to tutor and compete with league tables."

There are pots and pots of money in Surrey. Hence the 25% in independent schools here. 7% is NOT a national figure.

I think within the subset of those who could potentially afford it, however that is done, people who are more comfortable with financial risk pay for private schools. I would guess that people who are comfortable with risk are also likely to have extremes of income, higher or lower. Perhaps in some cases they just feel they have less to lose, but in a way that is also a kind of comfort with risk.

We can't afford private school for ds, but there was a time when we could have done. However, when dh was young, dh's parents could afford it at one point, and the costs of private education then escalated past what they could afford, and they had to pull dh out of his school and send him to a state school at a really tricky age. I know more than one person that has happened to, and in every case it has been a crap experience with a lasting impact. His siblings were also state educated as they could only afford it once, and that drove a wedge between them. I wouldn't take the risk unless we had the full amount of the fees for all the years required in the bank. I wouldn't rely on grandparents either, and not for any moral reason but because it's just not certain enough for me. Which is probably one of the reasons I earn £21K a year and think myself lucky to do so.

Also in SW London (and probably most of London) if one is aspirational for one's children the situation is very very different from the home counties and the state sector in general, apart from one or two pockets of excellence which have about ten children chasing every place. For many families the choice is to pay, somehow (family, remortgaging) or to leave London. SW London is not about comparing like with like where education is concerned. Rather like Surrey too the percentage is, I am sure, much higher than 7%.

To answer your original question, I don't know how rich one needs to be to send their child to private school. I admit that the situation here may be unusual but, I live somewhere with three state secondaries & one private secondary and, unless your DC is musically gifted and we are talking about performing opportunities/music exams, all three state schools outperform the private results wise.

As long as I live here (with musically ungifted DCs) I won't be considering paying for education thank you very much.

And the short answer is: Our two go to London day schools - that's about £35k net of tax every year. So after all other expenses are met (mortgage, bills, travel, food, car, holidays, maintenance, etc.) you need another £35, net of tax excluding the extras (about 5-7% on top) providing they don't board.

Funnily enough I think we could just about, at a push, afford to send ds private now that I've had a promotion.

I'm not convinced it would be money well spent though.

One reason we send our children private is because we could not afford a house in the catchment for the good state schools, and the one we are in catchment for is in special measures ? not a chance I'd send my children there until it improves significantly, which it shows no sign of doing. We can't find an additional £100k up front to buy a school in catchment, we can, however, find a similar amount over 7-9 years for private schooling...

And yes, we chose to stop at two in part so we could provide adequately for them in a variety of ways. In our circumstances, private schooling was one aspect of that. It's sensible to have only as many children as you can afford to raise in the way you would want to raise them, surely?

We are fortunate to have pretty good jobs, both. We worked hard to get them and we work hard at them. Neither of us come from remotely privileged backgrounds or were given legs up at any point. We have slightly above average salaries, not stratospheric law-firm-partner salaries, no bonuses and no wealthy parents stumping up the fees.

We're careful with everything else, I got onto the property ladder in my mid-twenties, (when any fool with a job could get a 100% mortgage, and by giving up every kind of luxury and living on toast for half the month, literally), did it up (on my own). After we married we moved to a slightly bigger house, renovated it ourselves, moved to a bit better area, ditto. We spend many hours late at night and at weekends sanding, drilling, painting etc.

We work bloody hard for whatever we have, we choose to spend a fairly large proportion of it on school fees for our 2 DDs, and anticipate doing so for the next 16 years, until the youngest leaves 6th form. If I add up totals it makes me hyperventilate, so I don't, I think of it term by term. Having been paying nursery fees we're used to not having it, I guess.

That doesn't mean I don't realise we are fortunate to be able to contemplate doing this. But for most people I know doing the same, it's a rather prosaic combination of good fortune, hard work and cutting down on non-essentials...

I went to private secondary school, but on a full academic scholarship, which meant that everything from fees to uniform to travel to music lessons was paid for. Even my underwear - which was regulation, was paid for! My parents were very clear that it was the only way I would be able to go, as they had NO money (father retired on state pension, mother worked part time around being his carer). I got lucky. School was amazing. I want that experience for my girls,and am prepared to sacrifice and work my tail off to pay for it.

So shoot me...

db
xx

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