Price of private education soars
Updated on 31 March 2008
Private school fees have risen by nearly three times the rate of inflation during the past 10 years, research shows.
The average fees for a border at a private school soared by 86% between 1997 and 2007 to £20,970 a year, while the retail price index rose by just 31% during the same period.
Annual fees for a boarding pupil are now the equivalent of 73% of average annual earnings, up from being the equivalent of 55% of earnings in 1997, according to Halifax Financial Services.
It said the fees now accounted for less than 25% of average earnings for just one occupation group, namely directors and chief executives of major organisations, compared with seven in 1997, including doctors and pilots.
Parents who want to send their child to a private school in London will be hit with the highest fees, with a boarding place in the capital costing an average of £23,250 a year, while schools in Wales have the lowest fees at around £18,540.
But it is parents who have put their children into private boarding schools in the West Midlands who have seen the biggest jump in fees, with the cost nearly doubling during the past 10 years, rising from £11,490 in 1997 to £22,542 last year.
Even in the East Midlands, where fee increases have been smallest during the period, the cost of a private education for a boarder has soared by 70%.
The group said schools had sought to ease the increasing affordability problems faced by parents by making more bursaries available, with 31% of pupils at schools that are part of the Independent Schools Council now receiving support totalling more than £300 million, compared with just 20% in 2000.
But despite this there has still been a 14% fall in the number of pupils at these schools who are boarders, with boarding fees more than double fees for day pupils, which average £9,627 a year.
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