Fee rises at leading independent schools will continue to outpace inflation for years to come to fund improvements aimed at attracting overseas pupils, headmasters said yesterday.
Top private schools will continue to push up fees but also put more money aside to fund means-tested places for children from lower-income families, they said.
More private schools are competing in a global market for pupils as day schools increasingly target expatriate families and children from overseas. Traditionally it has been boarding schools that recruited pupils from abroad.
Earlier this year the stockbroker Killik & Co published a report showing that private school fees had quadrupled since 1990, rising from an average of £2,985 to £12,700 a year: equivalent to a rise of 6.2 per cent a year,