An ‘aspiration nation’ should see a boom in cut-price private schools.

LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – There are few areas of British life that have seen inflationary price rises quite so dramatic as private school fees. In the past 25 years, school fees have risen by well over 500 percent, with an average day school place now easily topping £20,000 a year. Remarkably, pupil numbers have gone up rather than down, with record numbers recorded in 2022. Many of these schools compete for international money, with the number of pupils from overseas doubling in recent years, but it’s well-off Brits that are keeping up with demand. 

These schools are overwhelmingly clustered in London and the South East, where bank bonuses and booming house prices are a likely reason for growing demand. The bank of Mum and Dad is probably chipping in too as ‘boomers’ release cash from homes that have soared in value. 

Despite the headlines, most private schools are not famous global brands like Eton, Westminster, or Winchester. Most plod along as charities with the aim of providing education. They also secretively redistribute cash from the very rich to the moderately well-off through a billion pounds of fee assistance paid out each year. 

This rarefied space is content to educate the top five percent along with the children of global millionaires added to the mix. There is little or no incentive to expand, with trustees rather than directors required to balance the books instead of going for growth. This is not the ‘aspiration nation’ Liz Truss was so keen to peddle over the summer. The number of fee-paying schools has stayed steady for decades, with very few opening and even fewer closing. It’s a sector that seldom contracts, but never expands leaving it in the hands of a privileged few.

We’ve been promised a new wave of free schools and touted a change to the law to let existing grammars expand with new ‘satellite’ campuses. In our fervour for reform we shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to encourage new low-cost private schools to enter the market, enabling new schools to set up with private, rather than public money. 

No frills, low-cost private schools could be the breakthrough the market needs to go beyond the top five percent, challenging existing schools to compete for pupils – harking back to the original, buccaneering ethos of the free school movement.  

In recent weeks the Labour Party has recommitted itself to stripping independent schools of their charitable status, almost willing them to shut up shop. A more progressive approach would be to expand the private sector beyond the top five percent of earners, opening them up to more parents who want a traditional type of education without the Olympic-sized swimming pool. 

Some pioneers have experimented with setting up low-cost private schools to show it can be done. One such school is the Independent Grammar School in Durham, where a place costs £3,300 per year, a fraction of the cost of the more famous Durham School with its £16,000 a year price tag. The Independent Grammar School in Durham was inspired by the work of Professor James Tooley, who established a model which would allow for fees as low as £3,000 per year by keeping costs rigorously low and focusing on a high standard of traditional education. He has taken a rare leap from the textbook into the real world to show it what should be done. There are other schools that have popped up, led by educational entrepreneurs and charging much less than nearby private schools.

The argument is often made that more private school places, opened up to more parents, is a secret plot to undermine the state sector. But we badly need disrupters challenging orthodoxy, allowing parents to judge what makes for a good education. It’s fundamentally a question of where power lies. Making life harder for private schools might make for a good stump speech, but isn’t the iconoclastic approach to education that which would disrupt and challenge established thinking? 

Much has been said about allowing Grammar schools to expand, lifting a New Labour era ban on new Grammar school places. But if we allow new Grammar schools to open up their doors and existing schools to expand their places, often with so-called ‘satellite’ campuses, why not go further and allow new challengers into the independent sector? 

Reform doesn’t just happen in a vacuum, much can be done by simply giving a nudge and removing bureaucracy. With new management at No.10 set to explore ways to increase the number of grammar school places and build new free schools, we should have the gumption to enable low-cost, fee-paying schools to set up too. If it is possible to open a low-cost private school in Durham in the shadow of former mining communities, it is possible to do this anywhere with a little will and political ambition.