Does paying more buy a better outcome? What £30,000 and £50,000 a year actually get at 25 leading senior schools
We compared 25 leading UK senior schools on the two variables that matter to most fee-paying parents: how much a place costs, and how many of its leavers get to Oxbridge. Fees explain only about a third of the difference.
Higher fees are only weakly correlated with better Oxbridge outcomes. Across the 25 leading senior schools we compared, fees explain about a third of the difference in Oxbridge success rates; the most academically selective schools are also the best value per pound of fees, and one school delivers the same result as a £49k rival for £17,274 a year less.
Why we ran this analysis
Independent-school fees rose sharply once 20% VAT was applied to them in January 2025. For a Y7 pupil starting in 2026, seven years of senior schooling at a top London day school now costs comfortably more than the deposit on a house in most of the country. The obvious follow-up question — does paying more buy a better outcome? — is one of the most frequently asked in UK parenting forums, phrased as "is private school worth the money?" or "we would save our money for secondary."
The best public proxy for outcome at senior-school level is the proportion of a school's leavers who go on to Oxford or Cambridge. It is not a full measure of a school's value — but it is the number that most anxious fee-paying parents are actually looking at.
How we compared the 25 schools
We took the 25 senior schools that both charge day fees in the £30,000–£50,000 range for 2025/26 or 2026/27, and appear in the top of The Sunday Times Parent Power 2026 table. For each school we recorded: its published annual day fee (source column in the table below), its Oxbridge success rate from Parent Power 2026, and its rank in that same table.
We then divided Oxbridge success rate (as a percentage) by fee (in £10,000 units) to get a simple "value" figure — Oxbridge points per £10,000 of fees per year. Boarding-only schools, prep schools, and schools with fees outside our band were excluded so the comparison stays like-for-like. Details of inclusion/exclusion criteria are in the Methodology section.
Do higher fees actually predict better Oxbridge outcomes?
The correlation between fee and Oxbridge percentage across the 25 schools is real but modest — around 0.55, meaning about a third of the difference in Oxbridge outcomes is statistically explained by fee. The remaining two-thirds is explained by other factors: academic selectivity at intake, size of sixth form, teaching approach, and the ecology of the school itself.
In practical terms: the £14,000-a-year gap between a mid-range £30k school and a top-band £44k school buys, on average, an extra ~8 percentage points on Oxbridge success. That is a meaningful gain, but it is smaller than the fee gap suggests it should be.
Where does the value actually sit?
The schools with the highest "Oxbridge points per £10,000 of fees" cluster at the very top of the academic selectivity table. Highly-selective day schools — schools that admit far fewer children than they have applications for and set genuinely difficult 11+/13+ entrance tests — deliver more Oxbridge percentage per £ than either less-selective schools at the same price, or more expensive boarding schools.
The tightest match in the table below is between two well-known senior schools whose Oxbridge success rates land within a percentage point of each other but whose fees differ by £17,274 a year. Over seven years that is a difference of just over £120,000 for effectively the same result. This is the pattern we call the "£86,370 question" in the Key Findings section — it is the strongest single argument for looking past headline fee figures when comparing schools.
What the data table below actually shows
The 25 rows below give the raw comparison. "Oxbridge %" is the school's own or Sunday Times-published success rate. "Value" is our derived Oxbridge-percentage-per-£10k-of-fees figure. "Parent Power 2026 rank" is the school's position in the wider Sunday Times table. "Fee source" is the specific public URL or fee-schedule document each number was drawn from — so every row can be independently checked.
Key findings
1. A bigger bill only loosely predicts a better outcome
Across the 23 day schools, annual fee and Oxbridge rate correlate at r = 0.59. That is a real relationship — but it means fee differences line up with only about 34% of the differences in outcomes. A parent choosing on price alone would be wrong about the outcome nearly as often as right. The school's intake and academic culture matter far more than the £10,000–£20,000 separating most of these fees.
2. The best value sits at the very top of the league table
The three strongest value scores in the study belong to three of the most famous names in British education: St Paul's Girls' School (10.7 Oxbridge points per £10k), St Paul's School (9.7) and Westminster School (9.5). Selectivity concentrates strong candidates, and their fees — while high — are not proportionally higher than schools with a third of their Oxbridge rate. If your child can win a place, the most selective schools are also the most efficient use of fees in the country.
3. The £86,370 question: two schools, one outcome
City of London School for Girls charges £31,833 a year and sends 22% of leavers to Oxbridge. Charterhouse charges £49,107 for a day place — and also sends 22%. That is the same headline outcome for £17,274 a year less: roughly £86,370 across five senior years, before extras. Parents comparing schools across this fee band should ask precisely what the additional £17,000 a year is buying — grounds, boarding culture and co-curricular breadth are real, but the university outcome is not part of it.
4. The hidden gem: North London Collegiate School
At £31,095 a year, North London Collegiate is the least expensive school in the elite tier of this study — and sends 25% of leavers to Oxbridge, a higher rate than several schools charging £15,000 a year more. Its value score of 8.0 is fourth in the country, behind only the two St Paul's schools and Westminster. For families in north London weighing it against pricier central-London options, the data is unambiguous.
5. A £47,000 fee does not buy an elite outcome on its own
St Mary's Ascot charges £46,800 a year for a day place and sends 18% of leavers to Oxbridge — the same rate as City of London School at £29,545. Harrow, at £63,735 for boarding, also records 18%. At the top of the fee range, price and outcome disconnect almost completely: above roughly £45,000 a year, families are paying for boarding, grounds, name and network — not for a higher chance of Oxford or Cambridge.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't Oxbridge success rate a narrow measure of what a school is for?
Yes. It is one measure, not the measure. It ignores destinations to other top universities, non-university paths, wellbeing, arts, sport and pastoral fit. We use it because it is the most consistently published outcome number at this fee band — but no single family should choose a school on Oxbridge percentage alone.
Do these schools cream off already-Oxbridge-bound children? Isn't the outcome just intake, not teaching?
Some of it is. Highly-selective schools do admit children who would probably reach top universities from many settings. But the value comparison in this piece is not "does school teaching alone produce Oxbridge" — it is "for the parent choosing between senior schools at this fee band, which one has the highest realised Oxbridge rate per pound." That question is still meaningful for the fee-paying decision itself.
How does VAT on fees change the calculation?
VAT lifted headline fees by 20% from January 2025 (see gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-private-school-fees and Commons Library briefings). It changes every fee number in the table proportionally, but it does not change the ranking — a school that was the best value before VAT is still the best value after. What it does change is whether the fee is affordable at all for a given household.
Where does state school fit in?
The strongest state grammar and comprehensive sixth forms achieve Oxbridge percentages comparable to mid-band independent schools at zero fees, which is by definition the best value in the country. This piece deliberately compares only fee-paying schools like-for-like — the state / private comparison is a separate question we cover elsewhere.
Which schools weren't included?
Boarding-only schools, prep schools that don't take pupils to 18, single-sex schools whose fees fall outside the £30-50k band, and any school whose published Oxbridge success rate we could not independently verify against a named public source. See Methodology for the full exclusion list.
This analysis compares 25 schools on two numbers. It cannot tell you whether a specific school will work for your specific child — that depends on their academic profile, temperament, entry point and everything the fee doesn't cover. Deep Teaching's assessment tools are built for exactly that next step.
Evidence level
Original Deep Teaching analysis of published school fee schedules and Oxbridge success rates from The Sunday Times Parent Power 2026. All 25 rows in the data table below trace to a named public source.
Methodology
Inclusion criteria
- Senior schools in the Airteacher database with a published, school- or Times-verified Oxbridge destination percentage.
- A published 2025/26 or 2026/27 fee schedule on the school's own website (source URL recorded per school).
Exclusion criteria
- Prep-only schools (e.g. Westminster Under School).
- Schools missing either the outcome metric or a verifiable fee schedule — excluded and disclosed rather than estimated.
- Eton College and Harrow School are boarding-only: their fees include accommodation and are not comparable with day fees, so they are excluded from the correlation and the value ranking but shown in the data table for context.
Variables
- Annual day fee: 3 × published termly day fee for the senior stage (stage priority: Year 11 / Senior School / 13+ entry). Godolphin & Latymer publishes unequal terms, so its annual fee is the sum of its three published terms.
- Oxbridge %: percentage of leavers taking up Oxford or Cambridge places, from The Times Parent Power 2026 school profiles.
- Value metric: Oxbridge % ÷ (annual fee / £10,000) — 'Oxbridge points per £10k of fees'.
- Association: Pearson correlation between annual fee and Oxbridge % across the 23 day schools.
Weighting
- None. The value metric is a plain ratio; no composite index or subjective weights are applied.
Assumptions
- Three equal terms per year unless the school publishes otherwise.
- The day fee is the comparable price of attendance; lunch, registration, trips and other extras are excluded.
- The latest fee year published by each school is used (a mix of 2025/26 and 2026/27, disclosed per school in the data table).
Limitations
- Selection effect: selective schools admit academically strong children, so outcomes reflect intake at least as much as teaching. This study measures value for money, not school quality or 'value added'.
- Single outcome metric: Oxbridge % ignores other excellent destinations (US universities, medicine at non-Oxbridge schools, conservatoires).
- Oxbridge % is a single leavers' cohort and fluctuates year to year.
- Fee years are mixed (2025/26 vs 2026/27), which shifts individual values by roughly the size of one year's fee increase.
- Day and boarding fees are not comparable; the two boarding-only schools are shown for context only.
Data table (25 rows)
| School | Gender | Fee type | Annual fee £ | Fee year | Oxbridge % | Value (Oxbridge pts per £10k) | Parent Power 2026 rank | Fee source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Paul's Girls' School | girls | day | 37,242 | 2025/26 | 40.0 | 10.74 | 6 | spgs.org fees 2025/26 |
| St Paul's School | boys | day | 37,998 | 2026/27 | 37.0 | 9.74 | 1 | stpaulsschool.org.uk fees 2026/27 |
| Westminster School | boys+co-ed sixth | day | 49,368 | 2026/27 | 47.0 | 9.52 | 8 | westminster.org.uk/admissions/fees 2026/27 |
| North London Collegiate | girls | day | 31,095 | 2026/27 | 25.0 | 8.04 | 3 | nlcs.org.uk fees 2026/27 |
| King's College School Wimbledon | boys+co-ed sixth | day | 35,820 | 2026/27 | 27.0 | 7.54 | 7 | kcs.org.uk fees from Sept 2026 |
| Godolphin and Latymer | girls | day | 36,380 | 2026/27 | 27.0 | 7.42 | 4 | godolphinandlatymer.com fees 2026/27 — school publishes different termly amounts, not averaged |
| City of London School for Girls | girls | day | 31,833 | 2026/27 | 22.0 | 6.91 | 9 | clsg.org.uk fees 2026/27 (excl lunch) |
| Wycombe Abbey | girls | day | 49,200 | 2026/27 | 30.0 | 6.1 | 18 | wycombeabbey.com fees from Sept 2026 |
| City of London School | boys | day | 29,545 | 2026/27 | 18.0 | 6.09 | 17 | cityoflondonschool.org.uk fees 2026/27 |
| South Hampstead High | girls | day | 30,060 | 2026/27 | 18.0 | 5.99 | 16 | shhs.gdst.net fees 2026/27 |
| Lady Eleanor Holles | girls | day | 31,953 | 2026/27 | 18.0 | 5.63 | 12 | lehs.org.uk fees 2026/27 |
| Eton College | boys | boarding | 65,673 | 2026/27 | 33.0 | 5.02 | 14 | etoncollege.com fees 2026/27 — fee is per "half" (school year has 3 halves = terms) |
| JAGS | girls | day | 30,438 | 2026/27 | 15.0 | 4.93 | 33 | jags.org.uk fees from Sept 2026 |
| Latymer Upper School | co-ed | day | 32,025 | 2026/27 | 15.0 | 4.68 | 10 | latymer-upper.org fees from Sept 2026 |
| Brighton College | co-ed | day | 38,718 | 2026/27 | 18.0 | 4.65 | 2 | brightoncollege.org.uk summary of fees 2026/27 (incl VAT); weekly boarding also offered (weekly £18,687) |
| UCS | boys+co-ed sixth | day | 32,913 | 2025/26 | 15.0 | 4.56 | 25 | ucs.org.uk fees 2025/26 |
| Charterhouse School | co-ed | day | 49,107 | 2026/27 | 22.0 | 4.48 | charterhouse.org.uk/admissions/fees 2026/27 | |
| Alleyn's School | co-ed | day | 27,075 | 2026/27 | 11.0 | 4.06 | 13 | alleyns.org.uk fees 2026/27 — quoted EXCL VAT (annual incl VAT £32,490) |
| Dulwich College | boys | day | 32,118 | 2026/27 | 13.0 | 4.05 | 46 | dulwich.org.uk fees 2026/27 — full boarding; weekly boarding £21,001 |
| Putney High | girls | day | 30,456 | 2026/27 | 12.0 | 3.94 | 24 | putneyhigh.gdst.net fees 2026/27 |
| St Mary's Ascot | girls | day | 46,800 | 2025/26 | 18.0 | 3.85 | 61 | st-marys-ascot.co.uk fees 2025/26 (day = day boarding) |
| Highgate School | co-ed | day | 32,787 | 2026/27 | 12.0 | 3.66 | 19 | highgateschool.org.uk fees 2026/27 |
| Francis Holland Regent's Park (senior) | girls | day | 32,535 | 2026/27 | 11.0 | 3.38 | 59 | francisholland.org fees from Sept 2026 (lunch incl) |
| Francis Holland Sloane Square (senior) | girls | day | 33,174 | 2026/27 | 10.0 | 3.01 | 81 | francisholland.org fees from Sept 2026 (lunch incl) |
| Harrow School | boys | boarding | 63,735 | 2025/26 | 18.0 | 2.82 | 63 | harrowschool.org.uk 2025/26 |
Sorted by value. Annual fee = 3 × published termly day fee (boarding for Eton/Harrow, shown for context and excluded from correlation/value ranking analysis).
References
- The Times. (2025). Parent Power 2026 school profiles (Oxbridge destination percentages). The Times Parent Power 2026
- Individual schools. (2025–2026). Published fee schedules of the 25 schools (exact page and fee year recorded per school in the data table's Fee source column). School websites
- Airteacher. (2026). Airteacher senior-school database (fee stages and destination records; all computations reproducible). Internal dataset
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