Parents turn their backs on private schools to pay university fees instead

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Parents are beginning to turn their backs on private schooling so they can afford to support their children through university instead, analysts say. University fees are rising so…

Parents are beginning to turn their backs on private schooling so they can afford to support their children through university instead, analysts say.

University fees are rising so steeply that independent schools are struggling to attract families who are preferring to plan ahead and help fund their children’s degrees to avoid their offspring incurring a huge student debt.

Tuition fees in England are currently capped at £9,790 per year, but the rate is unfrozen, meaning they will rise each year with inflation and are on track to surpass £10,000 next autumn.

The debts young people accrue to pay for university – which can grow for many years due to high student loan interest rates – have been described as “shocking” by campaigners. Reports this week claimed there were more than 200,000 students with student debts of more than £100,000.

Neil Roskilly, who ran the Independent Schools Association from 2010 to 2021 and now advises schools, said the conversation around student loans has been “damaging” to the sector.

He said parents are expecting “steep increases” to university fees in order for institutions to stay afloat, meaning “more potential debt”.

“Parents planning ahead may be cutting back on independent education,” Roskilly told The i Paper, adding that fears of saddling their children with more than £60,000 debt “with pernicious interest rates” were also tipping families away from private schools.

He said VAT on school fees has accelerated a shift that emerged nearly 30 years ago when tuition fees began, with parents no longer “wedded to private or state” and instead weighing up the options at every stage of their child’s education.

“It’s a bit of a pick and mix approach, based on a combination of three factors: affordability, quality and convenience,” he said, adding: “But the balance has shifted to affordability recently.”

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