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Grandparents called on to support rising education costs

27th August 2014 Print

The average amount for educating two children at private day schools is currently running at £526,000. With school fees having quadrupled since 1990, many parents who are hoping to educate their children privately will need to plan early, or look at alternatives such as home tuition supplementing state schooling.

Andy James, Head of Retirement Planning at Towry, the wealth adviser, discusses the potential costs of private education, how much you will need to save and what the potential alternatives are:

Independent school fees are on the up – the overall average fee for 2014 is £4,998 per term (£14,994 per year), a rise of 3.9% compared to 2013. A family with three children all of school age could therefore be looking at a current annual outlay of around £50,000 when adding in costs such as school trips, uniform and equipment.

If sending your child to an independent school is one of your goals, you should plan early – perhaps even from the birth of your children. Over an 18 year period the £263,000 needed for educating one child at a private day school would likely require you to put away around £1,200 each month into an investment scheme (even allowing for returns). One word of caution - beware of options such as Junior ISAs and Child Trust Funds, as these do not allow access to the finances until the child is 18, so are not useful for this particular purpose.

For those who realise they cannot afford to send their children through private education; or indeed for many families who want to supplement their children’s state education, a few hours of home tuition could prove helpful. Tuition support fees are averaging a minimum of £16 per hour for Key Stage Two children up to a maximum of around £30 per hour for those at college.

For example, if you were to fund your child to receive extra private tuition in two different subjects, for one hour a week per subject for the 39 weeks of the school year at an average cost of £20 an hour; this would come to £1,560 annually. You would of course also benefit from the flexibility of choosing subjects that you particularly wish your children to get extra support in, or indeed the times during their education you may feel they most require additional support.

If you are hoping your children will be privately educated or even benefitting from a couple of hours tuition each week, you may find the grandparents will be keen to help. A recent Towry survey has shown that 8 per cent of grandparents said they contributed towards their grandchildren’s school fees and 10 per cent towards their university fees. Some 42 per cent of grandparents said they contributed towards their grandchildren’s savings in general.