[shock], how do you afford Eton's fees?!?!

[Pawslikepaddington]

I was struggling working out how one would manage £4k a term for a great public school, but £30k a year , I have been living in a cheapo fee bubble!

School fees have increased faster than average earnings because:-

There are significant barriers to entry (difficult to open a new school)

The rise of a new "super rich" particularly in London and the SE fuelled by the cheap credit of the last decade meant the the market would bear the increase.

But a cold rain is falling.

There was an advert on my 'Threads I'm on' last night for 12 independent schools in London (inc HAs and Alleyn's) offering full and partial fee scholarships to children passing the entrance exmainations.
Haven't seen it today though.

I researched with my professional hat on and I think we can expect to see a massive number of independent schools die off over the next decade. Eton should be alright because of its ancient foundation, but there will end up being whole swathes of the country without independent schooling. Schools have been borrowing and building like mad to have unnecessarily fancy facilities, and a lot of chickens will suddenly come home to roost.

do the Eton burseries cover the whole fee?

There are still a lot of really really rich people out there. I get a bit irritated by all those 'we are all having to tighten our belts' type articles/adverts etc. Clearly some of us don't have to.

100 k a year is waaay too much for a bursary, even at Eton. They award them on income, regardless of outgoings. One school told us we should take out a second mortgage... so glad we didn't (and we btw do NOT earn 100k). Generally, any income over about 45 k a year, and if you also 'own' your house, you have no hope. It's a classic poverty trap. All the schools are looking for someone derving from an estate so they can keep their charitaboe status.

Scholars at Eton and elsewhere don't necessarily get bursaries, and the value of them is usually paltry, like 300 quid a year.

Had lucnh today with a woman (friend of a friend) who has five, FIVE sons at Westminster. She is a SAHM... There are still rich people out there, so yes, some will go to the wall but the old established ones will stay in business - they will simply recruit higher numbers form overeas. Roedean is having to limit the numbers of Chinese girls because the ethnic mix is getting heavily skewed that way.

we looked at a private school and failed to get a bursery on £20 k a year. When I questioned the decision given the majority of pupils were from the posh part of town I was told that they have expensive lifestyles like nannies etc
ds1 had passed the entrance exam too.

The son of someone I know got a full scholarship to Eton from a local state primary. They paid for everything, including the prep school in between leaving primary and starting at Eton.

From the research I've done some schools have a set list of deductions from income they consider and some consider gross income plus house equity. Some also have 'foundation' scholarships which you apply for age 11 intake and prep school like Eton. They tend to be the very old established public schools. Some also take into consideration family circumstances, eg single parent family etc or work location - eg I read of one where you were eligible to apply if you had worked for at least 5 years for a firm in the City of London!

Eton actually have more fully funded places for non toffs than most independent schools. My sons' fees are just over £4,200 per term (exccluding lunch and transport) but DS1 now receives a 20% academic scholarship for the sixth form.

ANYONE KNOW A GOOD TUTOR FOR ETON TO HELP MY FRIENDS SON PASS HIS SCHOLARSHIP EXAM?? Thanks

well I don't (obviously)

(am guessing that title wasn't a "you" singular addressed sepcifically at me)

12k per year That's more than I earn Looks like my private school dream will have to stay that way [snivel snivel]

thelifechef - if he is going for a scholarship he shouldn't need a tutor. They'll see through tutored scholarship candidates both in the exam and at interview.

You afford it by being rich. With the average salary being about £24k, most people in the country can't afford any school fees!

I don't necessarily agree that simply "being wealthy" is the sole reason parents decide to send their kids to boarding/day school.

Many girls at my school came from very ordinary middle-class backgrounds. The difference was that society was completely different then. Very few of us had foreign holidays - OK some girls came from wealthier families that did vacation in France or Italy but most of us still had our family holidays in the UK. Our parents didn't own vast amounts of consumer durables and weren't being pressured to buy ever more. We weren't demanding state-of-the art cell phones, designer clothes, MP3 players, our own televisions, and hugely expensive 'teen' parties when we reached the magic age of 16. In fact in several cases parents scrimped in order to send their daughters to a good private school.

Perhaps therein lies the kernel of truth - my parents' generation realised that not everyone can "have everything" so they decided which things were important and which were superfluous. They came to the realisation that a good education ranked amongst one of the best things they could give their children.

Blimey that's a lot of money (more than our annual income )

My sister went to private school on a 75% scholarship, she was bullied for being a scholarship girl . It was only some girls though, most of them didn't treat her any differently and the good thing there was that there was a strong work ethos-at my (comprehensive) school it was cool to be lazy and do as little work as possible and you were bullied if you did try hard.

Lucia, I find the assumption that people can afford private school fees simply by foregoing foreign holidays and MP3 players a bit naive. Most people couldn't afford these kind of fees no matter how frugally they lived.

Eton is a boarding school ( as others have pointed out) so way more expensive than day.

Boys who get in on bursaries scholarship arn't regarded as different at DS1's school and I don't believe it would be any different there - the boys tend to admire the scholarship boys. Academic ability is regarded as impressive amongst DS1's peers - not as something poncy.

DS1 plays rugby against Eton and has always really liked the boys he meets there and has confessed if he wouldn't miss his siblings so much he would LOVE to go.
If he really really wanted to we would have sent him although I personally didn't want him to board.
I also think going to Eton has too much of a stigma ( as illustrated on many of these threads)
I think the school looks fab and the teas are great .

MrsGuyofGisbourne,

What on earth do you know about state school teachers and their attitude?

At my schol all staff and pupils are on the same e-mail system and all can be accessed from home.

All staff receive and reply to all e-mail requests for advice and help.

We do constant residentials in our holiday time - for no pay. We give up holiday days for revision and tutorials- for no pay. All because we want the best for the pupils we teach.

Your comments are pompous and unwelcome.

The education system in this country is a joke. I took my daughter out of our local state school, because the standard of education was poor and behaviour from students was shocking. The teachers I spoke to, had the attitude of they could not care less, about my daughters future. We found a fantastic school (private) and decided like a lot of parents, that giving up summer holidays, treats and making other cut backs, it would be worth it, for her to thrive & have a decent education. I currently work full time as a dental nurse and my husband's business is falling fast. We are unable to meet the school fees and now it looks like our daughter will have to go back into the state system that failed her in the first place. Its so unfair, why can't you have the local education budget that is attatched to your child in a mainsteam school to fund a placement that suits your childs needs. The £2500.00 a year that is allocated from the government for my daughters education is sat in a school that she does not use. This money would hit a huge hole in the private school fees, yet we are unable to access it.

I have just looked at the Eton website and it absolutely made my skin crawl.The kids who have got a scholarship all lumped in one house together.The ridiculous and stuffy terms they use .

Katiestar, although I don't have experience of Eton I do of another major public school. Scholarships are not bursaries. It is an honour to be awarded one and the boys are proud to be in the house which is for scholars only. Other boys look up to the intellectual ability of these scholars. As for any boy on a bursary, unless they were awarded a scholarship as well, they are scattered round the school in different houses and the others are totally unaware and indifferent to who they are.

I would imagine most of the parents not paying fees out of income (so capital) at Eton, although I am sure most could afford to!

I think they have some kind of finacial aid for parents who earn less than (approx) £85K/yr. They also offer full scholorships for extremely bright/gifted pupils.

I have heard several people refer to private schools in class terms. Eton being a first class private school. The private school in my home town is referred to as a 'third class' private school and the fees are much lower accordingly. One of our friends (DC went to a 'second class' private school) is really quite snobbish about it all. He certainly holds the local comp is higher regard than the local private school!