Grandparents across the country are helping to pay their grandchildren’s school fees, according to new research. The survey from wealth management firm Killik & Co found 18 per cent of parents with children attending a fee-paying school had received help from their parents, in order to pay for private education. Lucy Fisher* tells i about how relying on her parents for financial support has taken a nightmarish turn.
My husband and I have three daughters – they’re in Year 12, Year 9, and Year 7. They have all been at the same wonderful independent school in London since they were seven and are all really happy. The school has impressive resources for music, art, and sport, and it achieves really good academic results. The girls have loved the small, intimate feel of the school, and they seem to be thriving. The eldest got 8s and 9s in her GCSES.
But we don’t pay the school fees – my parents do. There’s no chance my husband and I would have even glanced at private schools otherwise, because we have a combined household income of £93k before tax, which is the same as the total cost of the girl’s school fees per year. The school costs £10k per term per child, which makes it £30k a term total, or £90k for the year. So, it would be totally impossible for us. We do the extras – the school trips, uniforms and that sort of thing – but they cover the fees. I am so incredibly grateful to my parents for what they’ve done for us.
When I had my first daughter, they told us they’d like to pay for her private education. I was thrilled. I went to a private school from the age of seven, and I enjoyed it, and made friends for life. My husband was more tentative, as he was nervous about whether that would grant his in-laws choice or say over the school we chose. Also, he went to a state school and comes from a lower-income household, so he was worried our child would become posh and entitled, asking for ponies and expecting five-star holidays because all her friends might be in Barbados for Easter holidays. I assured him it would all be OK, if we found the right school, and it has been.
In fact, my parents provided no comment at all on school choices, and none of our girls have turned out to be spoilt. They have a very privileged school existence, but they know that most children don’t get that, and are mindful of that.
When I had my second, and third, child, my parents said they had the funds to pay for their fees too, and we felt that if we could give all the girls the same, that would be amazing. I did question their offer, and talk it through with them properly, as I wanted to make sure they weren’t going to end up depriving themselves of anything. I also told them we were OK to have just one girl at private school, and the other in state school, if they couldn’t manage all three. After all, they might not have known we’d end up having three children.
They assured me it was what they wanted to do, and that they felt no obligation, only desire to help. My parents have a lot of money, and have been frugal with the sums they have. Their assets are down to a combination of a large inheritance, excellent and lucky investments in the 80s, a huge London house they bought in the 70s, which they’ve sold and made a big profit on, and my dad having had a high-paying finance job. Instead of passing it down to us after death, making it liable to inheritance tax, they decided to spend money on our children’s education, to see the benefits of it while they’re still alive (and only in their early seventies). They also have no other grandchildren and won’t have any, so they’ve focused their money on my three kids.
Here’s where it’s all become intensely stressful and difficult. Earlier this month, my dad dropped a bombshell and told me that essentially, he and my mum don’t have enough money to keep paying the fees for all three girls for the next academic year and beyond. There are complex reasons for this, but some of it relates to investments, and the fact they actually didn’t really portion enough out for care, and now my mum is in early stages of Alzheimer’s and my dad is panicking about future help he may need to pay for. It also turns out that £90k a year for several years has taken a bigger hit on their savings than they imagined, and in general my dad’s got very cold feet about carrying on. He was massively apologetic and upset, and I am starting to think he hadn’t really considered what older age could look like for him and my mum. He’d always been the, fit, energetic, skiing type as had mum. Now things are changing and they’re not feeling so invincible, perhaps.
Whatever’s going on, it’s been a massive shock to my husband and me, and I’ve barely been sleeping since he told us. We’ve kept it from the girls while we try to figure out what this means for them. I am both furious with my parents, and at the same time guilty for feeling like that, because they’ve been so generous and they mean so well.
I also feel stupid for having been so reliant on their finances, and perhaps not asked more pertinent questions about the future. I can’t see any other options but to take the girls out of school, but I am so worried about how this is going to massively disrupt the girls’ educations, exams, social lives, everything. My husband and I can’t manage these fees ourselves – maybe we could do the eldest’s as she’s only got a year left, but certainly we couldn’t manage any more than that.
We’re now frantically ringing up, and talking to local schools to see if they have spaces, and trying to work out how it could all work, whether they have the kinds of options for exams our girls are interested in doing, what sort of environment will be right for them. I am so worried about how they’ll adapt to a big, more anonymous school, where they’ll be far more left to their own devices and have less attention. I know there are lots of incredible state schools, I just feel that the transition might be really tough, especially with not much notice.
We will tell the girls what’s happening very soon, but I’m putting it off. I’ll have to talk to them after Christmas and explain the situation. I feel heart-broken about it, and also about the resentment I feel towards my parents, who I know don’t deserve it. Perhaps we should have sent them to a normal school all along, and stayed within the limits of our own finances. I’m saying all this because I know lots of people whose parents or in-laws pay the school fees, and while grandparents’ generosity is amazing, it can also go wrong.
Private schools in the UK are such an elitist scam
Behold the field
in which I grow my fucks.
Lay thine eyes upon it
and thou shalt see
that it is barren.
Am I supposed to feel bad for these people? I get that she was self aware by the end but it’s difficult to relate when in different tax brackets.
“_Kim, there’s people that are dying_”
We’re a few years away from being grandparents, but we’ll be paying precisely fuck all towards their schooling, because that’s their parent responsibility.
>Grandparents across the country are helping to pay their grandchildren’s school fees, according to new research.
And?
>Lucy Fisher* tells i about how relying on her parents for financial support has taken a nightmarish turn.
Lucy Fisher tells i about how she raided her grandparents savings so she could send her kids to a private school like she went too and never even bothered to consider what she would do if they didn’t want to drop 90K a year on her kids.
If only there was some kind of publicly funded alternative for paying 90K a year for lil Sebastian, Theodore and Beatrice to get educated.
>now my mum is in early stages of Alzheimer’s
…
>I am starting to think he hadn’t really considered what older age could look like for him and my mum
What a silly man, not financially planning for his wife to have Alzheimer’s. Why didn’t he plan for that AND giving me 90K for free a year?
>I am both furious with my parents, and at the same time guilty for feeling like that, because they’ve been so generous and they mean so well.
You’re furious with your parents because THEY’RE NOT GIVING YOU 90K FOR FREE. BECAUSE ONE OF THEM HAS A DEGENERATIVE BRAIN DISEASE AND NEEDS CARE?
Fucking hell. Talk about priorities in the wrong fucking place.
>I’ve barely been sleeping since he told us.
If you’re barely sleeping over anything, it should be your mothers health.
>I also feel stupid for having been so reliant on their finances, and perhaps not asked more pertinent questions about the future.
You should.
> I am so worried about how they’ll adapt to a big, more anonymous school, where they’ll be far more left to their own devices and have less attention.
Imagine if they had some sort of… Parental figure to support them through this change.
>We’re now frantically ringing up, and talking to local schools to see if they have spaces, and trying to work out how it could all work, whether they have the kinds of options for exams our girls are interested in doing
The… Kind of options for exams? What?
These people live on another fucking planet.
>Perhaps we should have sent them to a normal school all along, and stayed within the limits of our own finances
The only sense spoken in the entire article.
>It also turns out that £90k a year for several years has taken a bigger hit on their savings than they imagined,
Well fuck me, I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
Let me get my tiny violin out for these people.
I don’t really get the point of this article – other than generate clicks, envy, rage or give everyone a chance to laugh at the parents I don’t really see what the message is.
If only there were free schools they could be sent to.
Rich people trying to gain sympathy for bollocks like this will never not be funny
They come off horrendously in this article. Literally fleeced their Parents so they can send their kids to a posh private school. They seem more annoyed about them not giving the money anymore than them getting Alzheimer’s…
>My parents have a lot of money, and have been frugal with the sums they have. Their assets are down to a combination of a large inheritance, excellent and lucky investments in the 80s, a huge London house they bought in the 70s, which they’ve sold and made a big profit on, and my dad having had a high-paying finance job.
Lol was this written as bait for this sub!?!
You’ve got to wonder if the writer’s parents have realised private schools are not the best use of their money, given that they presumably their daughter to one only for her to turn around and ask them to pay the next generation’s fees while she and her partner are earning rather meager salaries for educated professionals in London.
Can I not be downvoted for this post and comment with the article? I don’t support these people, just thought it was funny.
I enjoy rage-porn articles. Presumably this mother wrote this specifically to piss people off and get clicks.
I didn’t go to private school, but it obviously sucks massively when a kid has to change school and change all their friends. I had to do that and it was rubbish. So I do feel sorry for the kids, even though they had an absurdly privileged upbringing.
Also weird that she said to her parents that it would be ok if they would send one of their daughters to private school, and not the others. That doesn’t sound ok to me at all!
I know a guy actually who is very disabled. Cerebral palsy and it’s difficult to understand him, although his brain is not disabled at all. His siblings were educated at the 30k a year level of poshness, and he didn’t go to private school at all, just cause he was too disabled to make use of it, I guess. I thought that was horrible.
So Fucking What.
There are human beings who dont know where there next meal is coming from. Not sure what doorway to sleep in. There are millions of Families living below the poverty line.
Go and Get F#cked.
Grandparents paying for grandchildrens private schools is actually very common advice from financial advisors where the Grandparents have a reasonable sum to be left to their kids/grandkids because, by paying the fees, you get to essentially pass on the money, as they would have post-death, but without being caught by inheritance tax rules if they left it to be inherited or gift it pre-death and then pass away within a certain amount of time. All in all, if the Grandparents have the money and were long-term planning to leave it to their kids/grandkids, paying the school fees instead makes sense.
I’ll never get this. Just let them go to a normal school and be a more well rounded person and just give them 90k a year or invest it for their future. It is pissing money up a wall, in the vague hope it will increase their earnings in future.
Sounds like the grandparents have been a bit too reckless with their retirement savings, trying to buy their grandkids and inherently unfair advantage.
Ban private education.
Having 90K a year in liquid cash to spend on education is just such a different world to what I live in, I don’t even know where to start.
Proof that you can be privately educated and still thick as mince.
Rich people problems… soon it’ll be “please donate £5 per month so our kids dont have to go to public school”
What a bizarre article to publish. I do wonder if its actually made up and if this mother of 3 really exists.
I guess it’s possible people this delusional exist but then what’s the purpose of the story from the journalist who wrote it and the editor who presumably signed off on publishing it? Of course the purpose is to illicit a particular response from some people but the story is so ridiculously unsubtle as a manipulation piece.
Good lord, if this person popped up in minhunter, I wouldn’t be surprised. No empathy at all, me, me,me,me.
Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Stopping my child associating with the proles $90,000
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
24 comments
Grandparents across the country are helping to pay their grandchildren’s school fees, according to new research. The survey from wealth management firm Killik & Co found 18 per cent of parents with children attending a fee-paying school had received help from their parents, in order to pay for private education. Lucy Fisher* tells i about how relying on her parents for financial support has taken a nightmarish turn.
My husband and I have three daughters – they’re in Year 12, Year 9, and Year 7. They have all been at the same wonderful independent school in London since they were seven and are all really happy. The school has impressive resources for music, art, and sport, and it achieves really good academic results. The girls have loved the small, intimate feel of the school, and they seem to be thriving. The eldest got 8s and 9s in her GCSES.
But we don’t pay the school fees – my parents do. There’s no chance my husband and I would have even glanced at private schools otherwise, because we have a combined household income of £93k before tax, which is the same as the total cost of the girl’s school fees per year. The school costs £10k per term per child, which makes it £30k a term total, or £90k for the year. So, it would be totally impossible for us. We do the extras – the school trips, uniforms and that sort of thing – but they cover the fees. I am so incredibly grateful to my parents for what they’ve done for us.
When I had my first daughter, they told us they’d like to pay for her private education. I was thrilled. I went to a private school from the age of seven, and I enjoyed it, and made friends for life. My husband was more tentative, as he was nervous about whether that would grant his in-laws choice or say over the school we chose. Also, he went to a state school and comes from a lower-income household, so he was worried our child would become posh and entitled, asking for ponies and expecting five-star holidays because all her friends might be in Barbados for Easter holidays. I assured him it would all be OK, if we found the right school, and it has been.
In fact, my parents provided no comment at all on school choices, and none of our girls have turned out to be spoilt. They have a very privileged school existence, but they know that most children don’t get that, and are mindful of that.
When I had my second, and third, child, my parents said they had the funds to pay for their fees too, and we felt that if we could give all the girls the same, that would be amazing. I did question their offer, and talk it through with them properly, as I wanted to make sure they weren’t going to end up depriving themselves of anything. I also told them we were OK to have just one girl at private school, and the other in state school, if they couldn’t manage all three. After all, they might not have known we’d end up having three children.
They assured me it was what they wanted to do, and that they felt no obligation, only desire to help. My parents have a lot of money, and have been frugal with the sums they have. Their assets are down to a combination of a large inheritance, excellent and lucky investments in the 80s, a huge London house they bought in the 70s, which they’ve sold and made a big profit on, and my dad having had a high-paying finance job. Instead of passing it down to us after death, making it liable to inheritance tax, they decided to spend money on our children’s education, to see the benefits of it while they’re still alive (and only in their early seventies). They also have no other grandchildren and won’t have any, so they’ve focused their money on my three kids.
Here’s where it’s all become intensely stressful and difficult. Earlier this month, my dad dropped a bombshell and told me that essentially, he and my mum don’t have enough money to keep paying the fees for all three girls for the next academic year and beyond. There are complex reasons for this, but some of it relates to investments, and the fact they actually didn’t really portion enough out for care, and now my mum is in early stages of Alzheimer’s and my dad is panicking about future help he may need to pay for. It also turns out that £90k a year for several years has taken a bigger hit on their savings than they imagined, and in general my dad’s got very cold feet about carrying on. He was massively apologetic and upset, and I am starting to think he hadn’t really considered what older age could look like for him and my mum. He’d always been the, fit, energetic, skiing type as had mum. Now things are changing and they’re not feeling so invincible, perhaps.
Whatever’s going on, it’s been a massive shock to my husband and me, and I’ve barely been sleeping since he told us. We’ve kept it from the girls while we try to figure out what this means for them. I am both furious with my parents, and at the same time guilty for feeling like that, because they’ve been so generous and they mean so well.
I also feel stupid for having been so reliant on their finances, and perhaps not asked more pertinent questions about the future. I can’t see any other options but to take the girls out of school, but I am so worried about how this is going to massively disrupt the girls’ educations, exams, social lives, everything. My husband and I can’t manage these fees ourselves – maybe we could do the eldest’s as she’s only got a year left, but certainly we couldn’t manage any more than that.
We’re now frantically ringing up, and talking to local schools to see if they have spaces, and trying to work out how it could all work, whether they have the kinds of options for exams our girls are interested in doing, what sort of environment will be right for them. I am so worried about how they’ll adapt to a big, more anonymous school, where they’ll be far more left to their own devices and have less attention. I know there are lots of incredible state schools, I just feel that the transition might be really tough, especially with not much notice.
We will tell the girls what’s happening very soon, but I’m putting it off. I’ll have to talk to them after Christmas and explain the situation. I feel heart-broken about it, and also about the resentment I feel towards my parents, who I know don’t deserve it. Perhaps we should have sent them to a normal school all along, and stayed within the limits of our own finances. I’m saying all this because I know lots of people whose parents or in-laws pay the school fees, and while grandparents’ generosity is amazing, it can also go wrong.
Private schools in the UK are such an elitist scam
Behold the field
in which I grow my fucks.
Lay thine eyes upon it
and thou shalt see
that it is barren.
Am I supposed to feel bad for these people? I get that she was self aware by the end but it’s difficult to relate when in different tax brackets.
“_Kim, there’s people that are dying_”
We’re a few years away from being grandparents, but we’ll be paying precisely fuck all towards their schooling, because that’s their parent responsibility.
>Grandparents across the country are helping to pay their grandchildren’s school fees, according to new research.
And?
>Lucy Fisher* tells i about how relying on her parents for financial support has taken a nightmarish turn.
Lucy Fisher tells i about how she raided her grandparents savings so she could send her kids to a private school like she went too and never even bothered to consider what she would do if they didn’t want to drop 90K a year on her kids.
If only there was some kind of publicly funded alternative for paying 90K a year for lil Sebastian, Theodore and Beatrice to get educated.
>now my mum is in early stages of Alzheimer’s
…
>I am starting to think he hadn’t really considered what older age could look like for him and my mum
What a silly man, not financially planning for his wife to have Alzheimer’s. Why didn’t he plan for that AND giving me 90K for free a year?
>I am both furious with my parents, and at the same time guilty for feeling like that, because they’ve been so generous and they mean so well.
You’re furious with your parents because THEY’RE NOT GIVING YOU 90K FOR FREE. BECAUSE ONE OF THEM HAS A DEGENERATIVE BRAIN DISEASE AND NEEDS CARE?
Fucking hell. Talk about priorities in the wrong fucking place.
>I’ve barely been sleeping since he told us.
If you’re barely sleeping over anything, it should be your mothers health.
>I also feel stupid for having been so reliant on their finances, and perhaps not asked more pertinent questions about the future.
You should.
> I am so worried about how they’ll adapt to a big, more anonymous school, where they’ll be far more left to their own devices and have less attention.
Imagine if they had some sort of… Parental figure to support them through this change.
>We’re now frantically ringing up, and talking to local schools to see if they have spaces, and trying to work out how it could all work, whether they have the kinds of options for exams our girls are interested in doing
The… Kind of options for exams? What?
These people live on another fucking planet.
>Perhaps we should have sent them to a normal school all along, and stayed within the limits of our own finances
The only sense spoken in the entire article.
>It also turns out that £90k a year for several years has taken a bigger hit on their savings than they imagined,
Well fuck me, I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
Let me get my tiny violin out for these people.
I don’t really get the point of this article – other than generate clicks, envy, rage or give everyone a chance to laugh at the parents I don’t really see what the message is.
If only there were free schools they could be sent to.
Rich people trying to gain sympathy for bollocks like this will never not be funny
They come off horrendously in this article. Literally fleeced their Parents so they can send their kids to a posh private school. They seem more annoyed about them not giving the money anymore than them getting Alzheimer’s…
>My parents have a lot of money, and have been frugal with the sums they have. Their assets are down to a combination of a large inheritance, excellent and lucky investments in the 80s, a huge London house they bought in the 70s, which they’ve sold and made a big profit on, and my dad having had a high-paying finance job.
Lol was this written as bait for this sub!?!
You’ve got to wonder if the writer’s parents have realised private schools are not the best use of their money, given that they presumably their daughter to one only for her to turn around and ask them to pay the next generation’s fees while she and her partner are earning rather meager salaries for educated professionals in London.
Can I not be downvoted for this post and comment with the article? I don’t support these people, just thought it was funny.
I enjoy rage-porn articles. Presumably this mother wrote this specifically to piss people off and get clicks.
I didn’t go to private school, but it obviously sucks massively when a kid has to change school and change all their friends. I had to do that and it was rubbish. So I do feel sorry for the kids, even though they had an absurdly privileged upbringing.
Also weird that she said to her parents that it would be ok if they would send one of their daughters to private school, and not the others. That doesn’t sound ok to me at all!
I know a guy actually who is very disabled. Cerebral palsy and it’s difficult to understand him, although his brain is not disabled at all. His siblings were educated at the 30k a year level of poshness, and he didn’t go to private school at all, just cause he was too disabled to make use of it, I guess. I thought that was horrible.
So Fucking What.
There are human beings who dont know where there next meal is coming from. Not sure what doorway to sleep in. There are millions of Families living below the poverty line.
Go and Get F#cked.
Grandparents paying for grandchildrens private schools is actually very common advice from financial advisors where the Grandparents have a reasonable sum to be left to their kids/grandkids because, by paying the fees, you get to essentially pass on the money, as they would have post-death, but without being caught by inheritance tax rules if they left it to be inherited or gift it pre-death and then pass away within a certain amount of time. All in all, if the Grandparents have the money and were long-term planning to leave it to their kids/grandkids, paying the school fees instead makes sense.
I’ll never get this. Just let them go to a normal school and be a more well rounded person and just give them 90k a year or invest it for their future. It is pissing money up a wall, in the vague hope it will increase their earnings in future.
Sounds like the grandparents have been a bit too reckless with their retirement savings, trying to buy their grandkids and inherently unfair advantage.
Ban private education.
Having 90K a year in liquid cash to spend on education is just such a different world to what I live in, I don’t even know where to start.
Proof that you can be privately educated and still thick as mince.
Rich people problems… soon it’ll be “please donate £5 per month so our kids dont have to go to public school”
What a bizarre article to publish. I do wonder if its actually made up and if this mother of 3 really exists.
I guess it’s possible people this delusional exist but then what’s the purpose of the story from the journalist who wrote it and the editor who presumably signed off on publishing it? Of course the purpose is to illicit a particular response from some people but the story is so ridiculously unsubtle as a manipulation piece.
Good lord, if this person popped up in minhunter, I wouldn’t be surprised. No empathy at all, me, me,me,me.
Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Stopping my child associating with the proles $90,000
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying