The CBB :: View topic

#1: Fees Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:17 am

Whilst writing my drabble I was moved to wonder how much it would cost to go to somewhere like the Chalet School, so (whilst v bored at work) I looked on the websites of some British boarding schools in Switzerland ("ordinary" boarding schools, not finishing schools). The fees are c. 65,500 - 68,000 Swiss francs, approx. £29,000 - £30,000, per year, and that's before you start with uniforms, travel costs, extra stuff like music, etc. I don't know how much in real terms it would've changed since the 1950s, but I don't know how the people who weren't from mega-wealthy backgrounds managed, especially those who had 2 or 3 daughters at the school at once Rolling Eyes

. I know that most of them had "private means", but even so!

#2: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:25 am

There is this site that allows you to compare the relative values between different years. I know in School, Madge says how much she is going to charge, and it would be interesting to see just how much they did raise at the Sales!

#3: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:30 am

Will try that when I've got the books to hand - should be interesting! In know Madge and Dick both say in School At that the cost of living at the Tiernsee was very low, but it certainly won't've been in Switzerland. & very few people said they were staying at the U.K. branch because of the cost - I remember one of the Bride/Tom crowd did but can't remember who, but it didn't seem to bother most parents at all!

#4: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:55 am

I believe that the fees for my school were £300 per year when I left. My memory is that we could no longer afford them when they went up to £100 per term. This was 1962, and I know that it wasn't an expensive school. I would guess that the CS was a few leagues higher than mine.

#5: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:50 am

I think the school starts out as a fairly basic school that happens to be in a fairly exotic location, but by the end it really is a fairly posh foreign boarding school, even if the plot and the demographics of the students haven't kept up.

Madge says she will charge about GBP 120/year, or about GBP 5300 in current prices and - at that time the school had a teaching staff of three, a domestic staff of two and only three forms, with an option for music lessons and a fairly basic set of classes (no science, no PT mistress, no Art). She says that's about what a decent school in England would cost and presumably she's taking full advantage of the cheaper cost of living and domestic help in Austria.

By the time they're in Switzerland they would have lost the advantage of the cheaper cost of living, domestic help would be more expensive, and by this point they're a fairly upscale school with:

- Specialities in Languages - English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Latin and Medaeval French being offered, with full trilingualism guarenteed after a year or two at school.

- Art, Singing, Domestic Economy and Gardening as standard courses

- Skiing, boating, lacrosse, hockey, cricket, tennis, swimming (with plans for their own pool) and country dancing

- Options for extra art, private music lessons, ballet lessons, several resident music mistresses

- Accomodation for students who wish to specialise, with particular attention for languages and music.

- Significant half-term trips to fairly expensive Swiss cities, plus at least one shorter expedition a term.

- A speciality in dealing with delicate girls, or girls with poor health histories and accomodations for that.

- Their own finishing branch

Listed out, it's a long way from the little family school of the first few years in the Tyrol.

#6: Re: Fees Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:48 am

Alison H wrote:

I looked on the websites of some British boarding schools in Switzerland ("ordinary" boarding schools, not finishing schools). The fees are c. 65,500 - 68,000 Swiss francs, approx. £29,000 - £30,000, per year, and that's before you start with uniforms, travel costs, extra stuff like music, etc.

Good grief. Eton and Rodean are cheaper than that. Eton is around £23,500 basic fees per year IIRC.

#7: Author: Róisín, Location: Gaillimh, Eire

Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:57 pm

Gosh, I didn't pay anything to go to school - there is some kind of free education here that extends beyond third level to second level, although I couldn't tell you the ins and outs of it Confused

#8: Author: Caty, Location: New Zealand

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:49 am

Were boarding schools comparatively (to the cost of living) cheaper in 1950s? I know lots of boarding schools in Ireland closed from 1970s onwards or switched to day pupils only.

#9: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:09 pm

Caty wrote:

Were boarding schools comparatively (to the cost of living) cheaper in 1950s? I know lots of boarding schools in Ireland closed from 1970s onwards or switched to day pupils only.

I think they must have been. I imagine that once wartime restrictions ended and parents started wanting their little dears to have such luxuries as sprung mattresses and heated bedrooms, to say nothing of edible food, costs started rising. Plus help was more difficult to get, and there's a limit to how much of the necessary domestic chores the pupils could be asked to do.

Also, many of the schools were what was called "grant-maintained"; I forget exactly how this worked, but I have a feeling that parents may only have paid the boarding-fees. This ended in the 1970s, and many schools went fully fee-paying, with predictable results for the fees.

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