Are private school fees really likely to increase by 7-10% a year?

[Ani57]

We are trying to put a financial plan in place and have been looking into the possibility of private schooling for secondary school. Our kids are only 4 and 2 right now but I read recently that you should expect a 7-10% increase a year. The fees are currently £21k a year for secondary which would mean £300k for both kids. However with a 7% increase per year, this would be £600k for 2 kids by the time my children go! Is there anyone with children finishing school that can confirm whether this is true or not?

@NeedAHoliday2021
I agree. Some smaller schools who teach average DC might struggle. The bigger names won’t. Name of school and destinations of DC matter. School is also about far more than exams. There isn’t much difference between leafy comps and lower end private schools except filtering out some DC at the latter. If you pay, pay for the best.

@Soma when I compare the experience I had of the world at my Indie, compared to what my chidren are getting at their local school, I feel that they are so much better prepared for reality. @frostrime I see what you mean about them mingling with people with huge wealth, but I think I prefer the thought my children are aware of what happens in 93% of the country's homes rather than 7% really. Although I had a real eye opener when I was at boarding school meeting some of my friends' parents - some very dodgy dads with fraud prison sentences and five ex wives, some very rich mums with awful anoerxia and cocaine addiction. So yes, it was useful in some ways, it certainly helped me spot that money does not equal happiness.

I guess I think the 'mixing with a range of people' thing is just slightly overplayed. IME of both sectors, the majority of families fall within a band, in which lifestyles are a variation of the same pattern - some richer, some poorer, but all perfectly easy to understand and imagine. I think we're sort of in the middle of that band - car is a newish but boring family car, house is a nice but unexciting 4 bed semi, holidays are a couple of weeks in Wales or France. For families 'below' us at primary, car might have been a bit smaller or a bit older, house might have been a smaller 3 bed with kids sharing a room, holidays might have been one week in a caravan. 'Above' us, both at state and at private, car might be a brand new Range Rover, house might be a gated 5 bed detached, holidays might be Maldives plus skiing. I don't think it takes much effort or experience for children to understand and accept different lifestyles within that band. Outside that band at the margins, there are the children living in squalor, or who have never had a holiday, or whose families struggle to pay for food and housing - or the families with yachts and staff. TBH I'm not sure that being in the same school as children in those circumstances is ever going to make your kids really understand what it's like to live that lifestyle. I think we probably 'see' those differences as parents much more than our kids do. I remember driving past the council house of one of DH's old school friends recently, and DH suddenly realised that his friend must have been on a bursary at school - it had never occurred to him at the time. Similarly, my kids roll their eyes (in a nice way) at some of their friends' exotic holidays and massive houses - they're perfectly aware that not everyone lives like that.

@frostrime. Spot on. “Leaning about” people in difficult circumstances (i e poor) sounds pretty patronising also.

@Frogusha hang on she said she liked the fact her children were learning about rich people. Isn’t that then equally patronising?! I think actually our joint point was that it is good for children to spend time outside their natural peer group.

I think my point is that it's not really 'learning about' anyone in a patronising way. But yes, there are some advantages of encountering wealth, and realising as a PP said that it doesn't make you any happier, or a better or worse person. My rather simplistic take out from having been through state and private schools with my kids, having been to a state school plus Oxbridge myself, and having worked in very deprived communities during my career, is that people are people. Stereotypes of 'little Lord Fauntleroys' are just as ridiculous as stereotypes of the feckless poor.

I wouldn't write it off completely. Have you calculated from Y9 entry? So 5 years per child.

Also, don't forget inflation will calm down and salaries will catch up eventually. So don't look at tomorrow's costs using today's income.

Please explain to me why you don't believe that using financial resources to purchase a place in an amazing state school by purchasing a home across the street from it is equivalent to using financial resources to purchase a place in a private school. On the face of it, they seem remarkably similar to me.

Yep
Not only have we saved money by not moving close to an excellent Secondary and opting for Private instead but we have left a place open for a child that wouldn’t be able to afford Private.
I should be getting thanked frankly

That's not the point I was making.

If you took the money you would have spent on private school fees and bought a house in the catchment of an amazing state school instead, it's highly unlikely you would also be able to afford lots of extra curricular activities and still have money left over for a decent house deposit as well.

Agree.
Our chums in N London have a nice house (over £1million). V small catchment area. No social housing. Families mostly working in finance etc. Go on ski holidays etc. The additional cost of their house over ours is the same we will spend on school fees in 10 years..

@Fudgeball123 But they will retain their money for another day, you will have spent yours.

avocadoma I'm not sure they will have... They spend £12k a year on extra curricular activities and have a mahoosive mortgage.

@Fudgeball123 Still, they will have a house to sell even with a big mortgage (which they are paying off.) They seem pretty sensible in their choices as you never see school fees back again, once its spent its spent!

@Going back to your very first comment, no 7-10% fee increases are not the average in the independent sector. Of course individual schools vary but 7-10% pa has neither been the historical average in the U.K. nor the average this year.

In the first 20 years of this century fee increases on average were circa 4% pa, whilst inflation was more like 2% pa. Then came covid and in most cases fees were frozen or only had a 1-2% increase applied in 2020 and 2021. Most schools also gave discounts (20% and 25% in my kids case) for the lockdown terms when the sites were closed.

In 2022 we experienced the double whammy of high inflation and the drag effect schools felt of the lower fees charged in 2020 and 2021. This resulted in fees increasing by more (4.5% and 7% in my case). 7% is the highest increase % applied at any of the big name senior schools that I have seen in 2022. If inflation continues at high rates then I guess fees will have to keep pace with inflation (at whatever level), but you might assume that your salaries would increase also.

One thought from me is maybe send your children to a state school for key stage 1, thereby saving some fees and then only move them to prep for key stage 2 at age 7 or 8. In my opinion the difference between state and independent provision becomes more and more noticeable the older your kids get.

I am more inclined to say we save some of the money to help our kids through Uni and with buying a house and then use the rest to enjoy life as a family - great holidays and days out etc!

do that^^

5% per year is the average. Some years it is more, some less. But the average is correct.

with current inflation, they’re going to rocket. We moved house in part to avoid having to pay for private, and it’s far cheaper to take on the mortgage in a better school area (and you get an asset at the end).

i still keep an eye on the fees at the old school, and we’d have been paying an extra 12% on child 1 this coming year.

oh, and if Labour get in with a majority I do think that you can add 20% VAT to the school fees too, pretty much immediately. You’ll have a vested interest in voting Tory forever.

@KleineDracheKokosnuss well thank goodness only approx 3.5% of families will have this reason to keep voting in conservative governments that have failed so much of the country over such a long stint in power 😂

A small number matters if a large proportion of the rest don’t bother to vote. i Never discount any group with vested interests (and neither does the Tory party).

If it makes you feel any better, I for one would never vote Tory, regardless of whether Labour put 20% on my school fees.

Amen.

Unless the school goes downhill. For example Tetherdown in Muswell hill, one of the schools where house prices in the local streets are £££ was rightly downgraded from ofsted outstanding to good, on the basis that they don't push the bright kids because they are all being tutored for the 11+. That will have reduced house prices in the streets around the school.

@passport123 they will still have an asset to sell though? You can’t sell spent school fees!

But if you have paid a premium for a house in a catchment street, compared to a non catchment street, and your house price falls when no buyers want to now pay a premium, you’ve lost that money forever

it happened around me… houses within the 250m catchment for the v desirable school went for £100k+ more than ones 2 streets away which weren’t in catchment- identical Victorian terraces with no other discernible difference

The council then changed the entry criteria, moving out-of-catchment siblings below in-catchment new pupils, and the catchment widened to around 1km

There are people who have a house which is now less £100k more than they paid for it, which by any measure, is a lot of money to lose, especially if you had mainly bought the house to be in for the relatively short period of primary education

@tenbob still less than paying school fees!

dipdips is it?
They have a nice house, woman gave up job to run around doing the after school clubs (loss of earnings circa £120k per year) and they have a big mortgage and £12k per year extra curricular bill.
We have a bigger house, garden larger than a postage stamp, no mortgage, I can work full time as the school day is longer and there is less ferrying to be done..
I'm not sure its a financial slam dunk?