Thursday 13 February 2014

Are private school fees a waste of money?

For a nine-year-old, my daughter Matilda has very clear and precise ambitions. ‘When I grow up I’m going to marry a rich man,’ she declared last week. 'Then I’m going to have six children, two dogs and some ponies, and I’m going to live on a farm with a cottage for you in the garden.'

So writes Rachel Ragg in The Daily Mail today.

It appears that like so many people today Rachel Ragg and her husband are living close to the edge of their finances.  Yet while many people do so because they are genuinely short of money, this couple are struggling with the cost of sending their two children to fee-paying schools.  Their hope is that their son will one day be able to earn enough to allow him to support a non-working wife, and that their daughter will one day meet and be able to marry a man who will earn enough to support her as a non-working wife.

I will say nothing against women aspiring to be stay-at-home mothers, but I cannot help but wonder to what extent it makes sense for people to struggle with money.

Take the Kercher family for example.  They struggled to meet the cost of putting their four children through private schools, and yet one of those children is famous for drowning in her own blood in Perugia.

While it is unusual for ex-public school pupils to be murdered at a young age, it is far more common for people - including graduates - to struggle to find work.  It is also common for people who do find work - including graduates - to struggle with money - even if they do not put their children through expensive schools.

Let us consider some hard facts.  Your chances of earning a large salary are perhaps improved by going to an expensive school, but they are also dependant on the state of the job market when you graduate.

If you graduate when the economy is doing well, then you might well be able to find work, even if you do not have a particularly good degree, and then perhaps be in full employment for life.  By contrast, if you graduate during a recession, then you might struggle to find work, even if you have a good degree.

If you are lucky enough to find work, then you might struggle to afford somewhere to live, especially given that a lot of jobs tend to be in the overcrowded south east of England.  It is therefore unsurprising that very few women graduates nowadays end up as stay-at-home mums.  Far too many of them need to work because their husbands do not earn enough to pay all of the bills.

It is common for people to make money through entreprise, and almost anyone can achieve - or fail - in business.  Having a public school education and a good degree are unlikely to be of much use to you if you are running a restaurant or a shop or a property development company.

Instead of squandering money on school fees, Rachel Ragg and her husband could save up money so as to help their children to be able to start up in business when they leave school at the age of sixteen.  Their school fees appear to be £3000 per term, which for two children is presumably £18,000 per annum.  Over twelve years of schooling - reception through to year eleven - that's in the region of £200,000.  You could do a lot with that sort of money at the age of sixteen.

Also, Rachel Ragg and her husband could perhaps make a donation of maybe a few hundred pounds each year to a political party whose policies include running the economy so that everyone can have a job and so that every family with children can afford to buy a house with just one salary coming in.

I don't expect they will.

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