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....

In answer to your original question OP we afford it by cutting back. We moved out of London and bought a cheaper house, only have one car, no holidays and we pay less in fees because the fees we do pay having moved do not attract the London premium.

I have two boys. One who is already at Prep and the other will be joining next year.

Both my husband and I work in London and commute and we are on a good combined income. Both my husband and I were privately educated but on full academic scholarships. Both of us come from working class backgrounds and our parents would never have been in a position to pay the fees.

Not everyone can afford a private education and a private education is not for everyone. I appreciate we are lucky to have the choice to go private and I am glad that there are alternatives to the comprehensive system.

We are affording Dds 3.5k a year school by me going back to work full time, having been 4 days a week. The extra day pays for both of them. We were lucky to have this option, although it is bloody hard work! Also, things like new cars have had to wait- mine is 12, ideally I'd have got a new second hand one at about 7, but it'll have to wait. If we didn't pay for fees, I guess we'd have more holidays, but one day.....

As I said before though, not all schools are so expensive (or maybe we're just lucky!). No way we could afford 12k per child! Although we managed 10k for nursery, as there was no option!

It would be helpful if people saying 'we make lots of sacrifices to afford private school' to give some idea of their income and expenditure, so those of us who are scratching our heads about this whole issue could get some idea of what's realistic and what's not. We have a household income of nearly 70k, three children, a 160k mortgage and high commuting costs. We couldn't afford to send any of our three to private, even if I wasn't already shopping in Aldi, restricting holidays to camping in the UK, buying clothes in charity shops etc.

I really couldn't magic 1k a month or more out of our current household budget.

I suppose we could afford to send the dcs to private schools (at a stretch).

But all we have is dh's income. No Great Expectations. If dh were to lose his job (and he has that type of job) that would be that.

Steam always comes out of my ears at those posters who drone on about bursaries. Those of us in the middle who are homeowners would be laughed out of the bursar's office.

I also hate this 'it's a question of priorities'. One poster said that some people could afford private, but choose holidays, nicer house etc as if they were somehow choosing between their children's wellbeing and these luxuries. We could afford private, but choose state because we think it offers our children a better education at this juncture. We might change our mind in the future, but I really hate the idea that people are looking at us and our nice house and our kids at the local state and thinking we're somehow sacrificing them for our holiday habit. And don't say people don't, because my neighbour was really sniffy about a mutual friend using a personal trainer and sending kids to state school as if it was a straight choice between her thighs and her children's future. I just know the neighbour will be saying similar things about us.

Morning all
SEEKER - My parents thought they were lucky getting me into that school because it was marginally better than the school my father attended. We had to accept that schooling in the whole area was a gamble. With the 11+ & grammars, yes there was always a chance dd would pass & get into a good school. But we would prefer to have the guarantee of buying that 'grammar' education through the private route! I agree with the person that said grammars were once a great ticket out of deprivation. Indeed it was the case for dh, but the flip of that coin is a horrible experience particularly if you were near the top of the failure pile! & now of course, everybody that can tutors. What started out helping dh out of poverty, would have got me completely stuck in it for life.
Not something I would wish for anyone!

Oh, how I agree with those of you who are sick of hearing about 'priorities'. We have no TV at all, one car (and it's a Prius - fuel costs) and very few holidays.

Ok, our house is on the big side, but it's also on a main road and it's miles from anywhere. And it's falling down...

And yyy to those of you who hate people who drone on about bursaries. I BLOODY HAVE been laughed out of the bursar's office.

We will be in debt for effing EVER because of the fees we paid for ds and dd, and it was tbh a huge waste. Up to a point.

Here's my summative assessment. All personal. Your dcs are not my dcs and you are not me.

On the plus side, DS did emerge with 12 A* at GCSE, but he was also severely depressed and constantly bullied. The school did pretty much nothing. Behavkour there was/is appalling. The school bus was a sink of sexual harassment and even assault.

He has just got offers from Imperial and Durham - turned down by Oxford, alas, but only by a whisker - and he is now at an FE College, which is where dd will and up next year. Ds has been incredibly happy at the FE college, much happier than he was at independent school.

DD is homeschooled - after 5 years in fee-payers - was bored to death a posh girls' school (exSam Cam) and is now 2-3 years ahead of her age group in four languages. She has lots of friends in reeneactor circles, and is on the whole very happy. She very reasonably wants to go to the FE next year, and it looks like this will be doable.

if I had my life over again, I would NOT send them to private school.

We sent oir kids to a priavte school after the first 4 years in State ( age 9) because we had the money, we would not have been able to it previously. We had the savings because we lived in a developing country for 8 years, where we did not lead the (expensive) expat life but rather lived like the locals, which was more fun. The side effect was to have ended up with savings for education. That is how we did it.

As to seeker, insisting private school parents " do not want their kids to be educated alongside 93% of the population" implies you think we are snobs, which I think is a bit rich from someone who has, and tried to get her own children into a grammar school. So seeker, did you not want your kids educated along with the masses? I would not ever presume that was your motivation, yet why do you insist n calling private school parents some kind of snob who do not want to mix with the rest? I only know about 3 sets of parents who think like that, but most private school parents I know are not snobs, and their motivation is not about not mixing with the masses or anything ridiculous like that. It is about smaller classes and specialist SEN help for us.

Another one who s at the 'priorities' thing.

I do have priorities, and values, and at the moment state education supports those better than private education. Where we live, and IMO. But a lot of local parents would, of course, disagree (as they have different priorities and values).

dh and I were both privately educated, some bits more successful and happier than other bits, but what works now, where we are, and for our children, isn't just based on what worked and didn't work for us.

I heard someone on Question Time say, the other day, that she wished more of the parents who are struggling to pour energy, time and resources into paying for private schools, so that their kids could have a decent education, would pour some of said energy, time and resources into supporting and improving state education. I feel very lucky to live in an area where I hope to be able to continue to do just that, I know many don't.

Haven't mentioned snobbery. You may or may not be a snob- I have no idea. Some are, some aren't. In all sectors. I have my own snobberies- mostly around what you call the loo and how you hold your knife and what you say when somebody says "how do you do"

What I said was that i think it's a bit odd to decide that a child would be better off not born than receive the same education 93% of the population get.

Elibean totally agree with you (as have on other threads).
You don't even have to pour that energy, time and resources into the whole school if you don't want to, just pour a tiny fraction of it into your own child if you prefer. There's a thread going about the difference between reception in private and in state and the biggest 'advantage' talked about seems to be being read to every day by a teacher in a private school. Really it is so much easier (plus I enjoy) to do that myself than work the sort of hours I'd have to for three sets of fees. Ditto the much vaunted after-school activities...

we couldn't afford it for our 3 DC but I think good luck to those who can. The fees have become very expensive. My dad could afford to put both my brother and myself through private school in the 70's/80's but it has now become very expensive.

I now work in one myself and it is a lovely environment and I can see why people want to send their DC there.

Without completely outing myself I'll tell you how we do it (and we have one DS at one of the big (and expensive!) boarding schools.

1. Have children late in life
2. Both work in full time roles. You are unlikely to be able to afford if the woman doesnt work or works part time and likes to see her partner for his tea at 1800
3. No previous relationships where maintenance/support payments are involved unless you are very rich

4.You have to want to do it and believe it is definitely the right route to follow and that the state alternatives are unsuitable

1. Recognise it is not going to be easy. There will be times when you will need to sit down and think 'where are next years fees going to come from'
2. Choose to live in the SE/London. That is where you will get the benefits of house price increases which might well need to be used should you need to borrow
3. dont have expensive hobbies that you think MUST continue if you go down the private route

A number of people reading this wont want to do some of this. They dont want to work full time, they dont want to move house, they have children and support costs from other relationships. They dont want to gain further qualifications and get a better paid role, they dont want to leave elderly relatives. All of these are fine reasons but bear in mind you cannot have it all. There have been plenty of times where I have hated my job, I have missed something key at the school for work reasons but these are the prices I need to pay. Luckily I like living near London. Some dont! My DH and myself dont live near parents. Again another price to pay.

Eilibean - if you worked at a company where you weren't happy with the leadership or the direction the team/section/company was heading, would you find another job or would you stay and fight to make your current company into one which you would want to work in?

I suspect that, like most of us, you would want to find another job.

Similarly, over in Relationships the standard advice seems to be, not to seek counselling or try to talk things through but to dump the bastard.

But when it comes to education, one is expected to stay in the state system and fight to improve it for the sake of strangers who don't have the option to go private??? I fight my own battles. I don't expect others to fight mine and I don't expect them to ask me to fight theirs.

seeker - you got a DD at a GS and if your DS hadn't failed the 11+ he too would also be at the GS. So please resist the urge to go on about how parents like me don't care about other people's DC's education.

Farewell - by your logic I should get up and serve myself if the waiter is too slow instead of going to a restaurant where its a bit more expensive but has a higher staff to customer ratio.

No, it's more like the difference between a free self-service restaurant and an expensive waitered restaurant which served food of a similar quality. You might think the service was worth paying for, I might prefer to get the food myself and save the money plus I might actively like the act of serving myself.
That's if you want to use your restaurant analogy, which I think might now be stretched to breaking point...

Goodness, by the logic of many people on here, I think we shouldn't exist. Or maybe we are a figment of our own imagination. But I don't think our experience is that unusual:

a. No, we couldn't afford private, not even if we stopped buying organic veg and cut back on camping holidays.
b. All our DC went to nice but roughish primary schools in inner London (def not the kinds of schools people sell a kidney/their grandmother/move house to get into).
c. Older two are at roughish secondary schools ditto, c. 55-60% A-Cs at GCSE, Ofsteds good but not outstanding.
d. DC1 got 11A* at GCSE and has been offered a place at Oxbridge; DC2 looking likely to be not quite as stellar an overachiever, but still getting plenty of level 7 and level 8s in Y9, and set to get a healthy proportion of good grades at GCSE; DC3 is still at primary and utterly bonkers, so who knows? But likely to get all L5s in Y6 and follow in the path of the other two.
e. All are happy, confident, well-adjusted and have lots of outside interests that don't involve getting criminal records. This will not be true of all the dc they have shared classrooms with over the years, but I don't think it does kids a favour to assume they are delicate little snowflakes who can't weigh up the options and make choices about how they behave and who they choose to copy.

So no, je ne regrette rien. Seems fine to me. Kids happy, good results, not totally skint and had the number of DC we wanted. Can it really be that simple?

The difference is that I don't care whether you eat at the self service or at the waiter service restaurant but you seem to be rolling your eyes at people who would rather spend extra to get the service they want.

Dropping the analogy, when was the last time you saw a thread that ask why people go to state schools? The whole thing is a one sided affair. I mean, I don't care where people send your DCs but a lot of people obviously care where I send mine, enough to regularly start threads about it.

Sorry, Gregor, I don't believe you. That can't possibly happen! Your children were obviously "eaten alive" when you "threw them to the wolves" in year 7 and you are suffering from PTSD.

I went to private school and met people whose parents funded it through a very wide range of options. Some had grandparents helping, some had a lodger(s), some were teachers at school and got reduced fees, some were on scholarships and assisted places, some were paying with income, some were paying with an inheritance, some were paying through their own savings (often acquired from downsizing house or moving to cheaper area).

DH and I hope to have a good stab at paying definitely for one and poss two sets of fees. We bring home about 65k between us after tax and have proportionately tiny mortgage outgoings as we bought a wreck of a house at the bottom of the 09 crash and although we have spent a fortune on it it means we're not servicing much debt. We were also incredibly lucky to be able to pay off 100k of it last year thanks to an inheritance. If we weren't in that position we'd use our advantage of currently living in London and move out to somewhere v cheap and use lump sum saved to pay for fees. We've also considered having only one child so that we can stay comfortable without having to work ourselves into the ground. There are lots of options (oviously not for everyone, but quite a few people.)

TOTALLYBS - Maybe we should start one! We could even put it in AIBU, but what wording? Something like ' AIBU to think that parents that choose to live where there are good state schools are completely mucking up the demographics of this country? If you can't afford private, surely you should take the Ofsted Special Measures school & be grateful! '
But we don't say things like that because it might offend people - yet those that choose private education are sitting ducks!

I wouldn't mind a thread asking why I sent to state schools, or why they're better, or how people manage it, etc! Not sure anyone's that interested though: after all, it's what almost everyone does do, so doesn't attract the kind of interest that the education of the minority does I suppose.

When someone (on a totally different planet, financially) was advising me and DW on schools (not knowing that we decided on the local secondary ages ago for DD), they said the following immortal words to me:

"Don't pay the fees out of income."

DW and I don't usually move in circles where people have disposable cash other than "income".

Er, I think that's known as 'savings'.