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Where independent schools are leading the way, universities are following. There was an ongoing political debate on some of the news sites before everything go

Where independent schools are leading the way, universities are following. There was an ongoing political debate on some of the news sites before everything got taken over by coronavirus: independent schools have charity status (which includes exemption from business rates tax that goes back to the local area) because historically they were indeed typical examples of charities. For example: > "Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to provide free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to King's College, Cambridge, founded by the same King in 1441." (Wikipedia) The debate was whether a school that mainly serves and lives off rich foreigners should still enjoy the benefits of charity status - public opinion seemed to be moving in the direction of "tax it like any other business". And people were, very cautiously, starting to ask the same of universities. Meanwhile in faculty meetings, I've heard this from many different places, it's an unspoken rule that you don't refer to home students as "second class students" or anything like that but management is finding increasingly creative ways to paraphrase that. Things like "pivot to high-margin students".

foldr 7y ago
HPSquared was talking about international students (effectively) subsidising scholarships for UK students in private schools. As far as I know, there is little evidence of any such "trickle down" effect at present, or reason to think that there will be one in the future. That is, it is unlikely that a typical British student at a private school will be paying lower fees owing to the contributions of their international classmates. I think you are going off on a tangent.
- red_admiral 7y ago
  It's a tangent, yes. My point here (which I didn't articulate earlier) is that one of the arguments against independent schools having to pay business rates is they're indirectly helping the local community through this trickle down effect - sure they're taking in huge sums from overseas students, the argument goes, but that means home students get cheaper education than otherwise. As you say, there's very little evidence for this in practice.

foldr 7y ago

HPSquared was talking about international students (effectively) subsidising scholarships for UK students in private schools. As far as I know, there is little evidence of any such "trickle down" effect at present, or reason to think that there will be one in the future. That is, it is unlikely that a typical British student at a private school will be paying lower fees owing to the contributions of their international classmates. I think you are going off on a tangent.

red_admiral 7y ago
It's a tangent, yes. My point here (which I didn't articulate earlier) is that one of the arguments against independent schools having to pay business rates is they're indirectly helping the local community through this trickle down effect - sure they're taking in huge sums from overseas students, the argument goes, but that means home students get cheaper education than otherwise. As you say, there's very little evidence for this in practice.