Industry News
Parents struggle to pay private school fees
Posted on 25th February 2008
As the credit crunch tightens parents are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with fee payments at their children's private schools.
Last year the proportion of schools owed money rose by 35 per cent compared to 2006, the Birmingham Post reported.
A senior partner at Birmingham-based HW Chartered Accountants and one of the UK's leading experts in education finance discovered the fees deficit following a random survey of 20 independent schools.
Henry Briggs said that this reveals a trend "which is likely to get worse during the current year", according to the newspaper.
Mr Briggs noted that private school fees have risen by a staggering 40 per cent in the last five years, much of which goes towards covering increases in national insurance and pension contributions for teachers.
He said that so far parents had been willing to pay the extra charges because of dissatisfaction with the standard of education in the state sector, but meeting the rising costs is becoming increasingly difficult for many families.
They could, Mr Briggs suggested, take out insurance against unemployment or sickness to prevent a financial squeeze in either of those events.
Recent research from Engage Mutual Assurance found that over half of all parents are planning to cut child-related expenditure over the course of this year and 44 per cent of mums and dads feel that they are "struggling to make ends meet".