Parents are beginning to turn their backs on private schooling so they can afford to support their children through university instead, analysts say.
University fees are rising so steeply that independent schools are struggling to attract families who are preferring to plan ahead and help fund their children’s degrees to avoid their offspring incurring a huge student debt.
Tuition fees in England are currently capped at £9,790 per year, but the rate is unfrozen, meaning they will rise each year with inflation and are on track to surpass £10,000 next autumn.
The debts young people accrue to pay for university – which can grow for many years due to high student loan interest rates – have been described as “shocking” by campaigners. Reports this week claimed there were more than 200,000 students with student debts of more than £100,000.
Neil Roskilly, who ran the Independent Schools Association from 2010 to 2021 and now advises schools, said the conversation around student loans has been “damaging” to the sector.
He said parents are expecting “steep increases” to university fees in order for institutions to stay afloat, meaning “more potential debt”.
“Parents planning ahead may be cutting back on independent education,” Roskilly told The i Paper, adding that fears of saddling their children with more than £60,000 debt “with pernicious interest rates” were also tipping families away from private schools.
Student loans ‘playing a part’
He said VAT on shcool fees has accelerated a shift that emerged nearly 30 years ago when tuition fees began, with parents no longer “wedded to private or state” and instead weighing up the options at every stage of their child’s education.
“It’s a bit of a pick and mix approach, based on a combination of three factors: affordability, quality and convenience,” he said, adding: “But the balance has shifted to affordability recently.”
A private school headteacher said they think the student loan debate is “playing a part” in the sector’s struggles to recruit, with parents increasingly aware the cost of supporting their children through education no longer stops at 18.
The number of families choosing to avoid the system entirely and self-fund university is not collected or published centrally.
But the latest Student Loans Company data shows the proportion of borrowers who take fee-only loans has increased to 7.3 per cent in 2024/25 – up from 6.7 per cent the year before. This is the highest rate since 2015/16.
However, a 2026 survey by Save the Student found that average parental contribution has fallen to £132 a month, down from £146 last year. This suggests that while wealthier families may be choosing to support their children more, the average student appears to be getting less financial help – despite prices rising.
Molly Haylett, a chartered financial adviser at Octopus Money, said that saving for university is a growing priority for parents – including those with young children from the age of four.
She said: “There’s been lots of talk around student loans in recent years. It certainly feels as though it’s increased. I think there used to be a lot of private school saving – and not saying that’s diminished – but it certainly feels as though university was less of a saving. It was like, well, they can deal with that when they get there.”
Now, she said “almost every parent” who can afford to save for university is considering it, with the subject coming up at least once a week among the 20 clients she advises.
“I think a lot of it is about wanting them to go into the future without a huge burden, which is really how student loans are viewed at the moment,” Haylett added.
Danger of US-style system
Tom Allingham, communication director at Save the Student – a financial advice website for students – said there’s a “danger” of the UK slipping into a US-style system where parents save years in advance to help their children shoulder university costs.
He said he has heard of parents who have sold second properties, taken lump sums out of their pensions and sold off investments to help their children avoid taking out student loans.
Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at the investment platform AJ Bell, said parents are increasingly tossing up how best to support their children.
Some are thinking “maybe university education is the one that they really want to focus on now, rather than private schools”, whereas others might prefer to save to help their child get onto the housing ladder, he said.
Help with fees v house deposit
Jonathan Simons, a former civil servant and now partner and head of education at the policy consultancy PF Global, said parents “more typically trade off paying for student support versus paying for a house deposit”.
However, he recognised that “concerns about debt are now at the margins driving student decisions in a way they weren’t even a few years ago”.
He said this has two impacts: that fewer young people will go to university, and that higher income parents are encouraging their children to go to university but offering to support them “in whole or in part” so they are not “encumbered with this student debt for the next 40 years”.
He urged ministers to address student loan burden, warning it is likely become “politically problematic” over the next decade as more voters, MPs and young people get riddled with debt.
He said the Plan 5 deal – for students in England from 2023 – is “even more disadvantageous to graduates” than its predecessor, with a lower salary repayment threshold and a longer 40-year period before the debt it written off.
Oliver Gardner, of pressure group Rethink Repayment, told The Telegraph that the numbers of young people owing at least £100,000 was “shocking”, adding it was a “stain on society”.
A government spokesperson said: “Student loans open doors for students to access university, covering the full costs of tuition and providing means-tested maintenance support.
“However, we have long acknowledged that the student loan system we inherited is broken and unfair, and we are taking action to improve it.”
‘I regret not helping my daughter pay for university’
Heidi Dann, a 56-year-old mother from Portishead, near Bristol, said she regrets not stepping in more to help pay for her 23-year-old daughter’s university tuition and maintenance.
Dann, who worked in finance before she retired, said: “Had we known that the [repayment] band would be frozen – and the level of interest that young adults would be paying – I think we would have tried to help more.”
She said the family could not have afforded to pay the entire cost of university, but she would have looked at personal loans with better rates to help fund her daughter’s living costs rather than “encouraging” her to take out a loan.
Heidi Dann, 56, said she was ’embarrassed’ that she encouraged her daughter to take out a student loan – despite working in finance before she retiredDann said the “understanding” was that the repayment threshold would increase each year with inflation, adding: “What we didn’t imagine was the goalposts would change.”
Rethink Repayment, an organisation campaigning for student loan reform, said many parents have been left feeling “angry” and “guilty” about their children’s student debt, with many waking up to “how bad the terms of student loans are”.
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