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Money matters: Private School + University =
Better Pay for your Kids
Graham Macdonald
MBMG International Ltd.
Further to the recent flurry of recent articles
eulogising the benefits of a private education and how to fund it, I
came across a recent article that showed that there are quantifiable
financial benefits later for those who attend a private school and a top
university, whose graduates can earn over three times as much as their
contemporaries. To put it another way, an independent school education
then followed by a degree from a top college can add more than USD
100,000 per year to a person’s earnings.
The research was carried out on behalf of the UK government which paid
the Economic and Social Research Council to do the study. Hundreds of
children who started their secondary education in the 1980s were closely
monitored. The Council came back with some astounding results:
Those who went through the privileged education system as mentioned
above were FOUR times more likely to earn more than £90,000 a year in
their thirties than those who attended ‘new’ universities
(ex-polytechnics); most of whom were paid less than £30,000 per annum.
From those who were classified as the top earners over 85% had gone to
private schools, whilst 61% of those being paid less than £30,000 had
gone to state schools.
The paper will be published later this year by London University. The
students came from a variety of backgrounds. Most of them are doing well
but the highest achievers were those who had gone through the British
public school (private education) system and then followed this by going
to a leading, established university.
The study showed that 41% of those that went to top, elite universities
were in the highest social and occupational class. This compared to 28%
of them who went to ‘old’ universities and only 8% who went to the ‘new’
universities. Researchers found that there was also a strong
relationship between earning levels and the status of the university.
The study goes on to say that, “Meritocratic arguments could be used to
explain the connection between schooling and earnings, as privately
schooled respondents obtained higher A-Levels and more went to Oxbridge.
However, the legacy of private education is also evident in the relative
success of a small group who did not go to university, which suggests
that an elite private education confers advantages other than high
levels of academic attainment.”
Different research by the London School of Economics, conducted over a
fifteen year period from the early eighties to the late nineties, found
that the proportion of children from the richest families who had
completed a degree by the age of 23 went up from 20% to almost fifty
percent. In the same time period, the number of graduates from the
poorest families only managed to increase from 6% to nine percent.
That’s the good news. The bad news that if you want your children to
attain these heights then you are going to have to pay for it. The
phrase, “Ready, Willing and Able” comes to mind.
Ready – Without doubt, “Knowledge is Power” and higher education is
almost becoming a pre-requisite to acquiring a good job. It is the key
to open the door to a professional career. Many parents will consider
the cost of private education as a lifetime investment in their
children’s future.
Willing – If you are living overseas then a private education may well
be a requirement much earlier than may have been the case had you stayed
at home in your own country. Whilst education is an investment for your
children it does not come cheap and unless you planned for it could
mean:
- Re-mortgaging the family home to pay the fees or borrowing from a
bank.
- Depleting present savings and retirement accounts that should be for
you in your dotage.
Able – Assuming that you start to save as soon as your first child is
born (or, even better still, before), we estimate that educating each of
your children will cost in the region of USD 300,000. This figure
assumes that each child will commence nursery school at the age of two
and will continue through to a university degree and education fees rise
by an average of 6% per annum.
This is for private education here in Thailand and then foreign tertiary
education.
The news is far worse if you want your child educated privately in
somewhere like the UK. Most schools now cost about GBP 20,000 (USD
35,000) per annum and do not forget that these schools increase their
fees each and every year. For example, in 2001 the fees for Eton were
GBP 15,660 (USD 27,300) and they are now GBP 23,688 (USD 41,454). That
is an increase of 51% in five years!
The earlier you start saving for all this then the less you will have to
pay on a regular basis and any investment, however small, is better than
none.
Think about the amount of time your children could spend in full time
education. If you start them off at two years old and they want to be a
doctor or lawyer then they will not be qualified until they are 24 years
old. You may have to pay for a gap year as well so that is funding them
for 23 years. As more and more couples choose to become parents later in
life, that does raise the spectre of having to defer retirement until
your youngest child completes his or her education so that you have the
financial wherewithal to support them through this. We have clients
whose youngest child was born while their father was in his 40s or 50s –
add 23 years more of having to go to work isn’t always the retirement
planning that they had in mind!
Also, it is not just a matter of having to pay the schooling; you will
have to fund music lessons, field trips, school clothes and sports
equipment, etc. All of this will be even more if your child becomes a
full time boarder.
Despite all this, few would argue that a good education is the most
valuable gift you can give your child. Even though the increase in the
costs of private education has consistently outpaced inflation, its
popularity has remained as strong as ever. However, children’s education
is rarely seen high on the list of financial planning priorities. In
fact, over 70% of parents suffer personally as they try to finance
school fees from current earnings or short term savings. A child
starting at school can coincide with the return to work of the parent
who has stayed at home to look after them. Alternatively, you may find
that a return to work is necessary to fund the school fees. This strain
on your day to day finances or change to your pattern of living could be
avoided by thoughtful planning.
With foresight, you can use an investment plan that will provide you
with the growth potential to give you part or even all of the money you
need to ensure that you have the ability to choose the best education
for your children.
One of the most important things that you need when taking out an
Educational Fee Plan is security. In other words, the knowledge that,
irrespective of global or local economic conditions, your child’s
financial needs will be met. These plans should be safe, not
speculative. They should be based on guaranteed returns from
substantial, reputable companies based in safe and secure jurisdictions.
These products should also offer the security that, if anything happens
to you such as death, critical illness or long term unemployment then
your child’s education remains provided for. For this reason, many
educational fee programmes are actually a combination of investment and
insurance.
Thus, it can be seen that your children will benefit greatly if you can
afford to send them through the private education system. Go on, give
your child a chance and do something now. In fact, if they do well by
you they may even be able to pay for you in your dotage – now that is a
good investment!
Carpe diem as they say!
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The above data and research was compiled from sources believed to be
reliable. However, neither MBMG International Ltd nor its officers can accept
any liability for any errors or omissions in the above article nor bear any
responsibility for any losses achieved as a result of any actions taken or not
taken as a consequence of reading the above article. For more information please
contact Graham Macdonald on [email protected]
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Snap Shots: Look before you leap
by Harry Flashman
A few weeks ago, I wrote, “How many times when you are taking a
photograph do you look at the background? If you are honest, then the
vast majority of you will reply, “Never.” Unfortunately, the wrong
background, fussy, cluttered or “jarring” is a sure-fire way to spoil
what could have been a great picture. In your haste and eagerness to
make the subject the “hero” you forget to look at the background, being
so engrossed in making the foreground subject look good.”
 This
article spurred on Gordon, another of the local camera enthusiasts who
came with the photo he took of his pride and joy Mercedes when it was
new. I have published Gordon’s photo with the column this week. Take a
good look. There was the car, sparkling and pristine, parked in front of
a rubbish bin! Gordon even admitted that about 50 meters down the road
there was a beautiful park he could have used as the backdrop! However,
in the excitement of the moment, all he could see was the “hero” and did
not see the background.
While we have Gordon’s Mercedes in front of us, a few pointers on car
photography is in order. Photographing cars is a very specialized field,
and there are professional photographers all over the world who just
make their living snapping cars. I met one from Japan who used to shoot
the car in his studio in Tokyo, then travel to different locations and
shoot the background, finally putting the two elements together back in
his Japanese studio. This was actually much more difficult than you
would imagine, as he had to get the lighting on the car to match the
lighting direction on the background location. The height of the camera
from the floor in the studio had also to be same as the height of the
location camera from the ground. He also used a very large plate camera
to get his shots.
However, back to you and me with our new Yaris or whatever. If you stand
and take the shot, you will make the car look small and insignificant.
This is not what you want to portray. If nothing else, a motor car is a
significant investment (or hole in the bank account).
For most cars, use a wide angle lens (around 24 mm is good, but 28 mm is
fine), get down on your knees and shoot from the three quarter front
position. Turn the steering wheel so that you can see some of the tread
on the tyre and even turn on the headlights and flashers as well. This
will make a dramatic shot.
Regarding exposures. If the car is a dark colour, underexpose by one f
stop to get that rich depth in the paint. If the car is white, however,
overexpose by one or even two f stops to make the white really white and
not the 18 percent gray the meter wants to give you!
By the way, it seems that I am not the only one ringing the bell for
film as the photographic medium, as I received this letter the other day
from an enthusiast in Yasothon:
Dear Harry Flashman and Fans,
Analog Science Fict and Fact May 2006 ran a short story by Jerry Oltion,
“Slide Show” (pages 88-94) about the demise of both slide film and bulbs
for slide projectors. This generated quite o bit of talk at URL
http://www.analogsf.com/discus/ Analog Discussion Board, General
Discussion: in the May 2006 Issue!
With regard to “Slide Show,” they discuss various kluges, contraptions,
methods and lessons learned in using a digital camera to capture images
from slides. The discussion also includes the comment that black and
white is the only archival-quality photographic media.
Frank Lee in Yasothon
Further to this topic, I have just picked up a Nikon D50, courtesy of my
photographic friend Ernie Kuehnelt, to test against my Nikon FM2n. I
will report further on these two cameras in the next couple of weeks.
Modern Medicine: Giving up cigarettes –
a personal experience
by Dr. Iain Corness, Consultant
I used to smoke 45 cigarettes a day. I gave up 24 years, 10
months ago at 10 o’clock in the morning, not that I’m counting or anything!
It was probably one of the most momentous decisions I have ever made, and
definitely one of the best decisions I ever made about my health.
It was 1981 and I had started smoking as a medical student around 20 years
previously. It was just the done thing at the time. We all smoked, it made
us feel older and more mature. After all our fathers all smoked, so it was
almost a ‘badge’ of adulthood. A rite of passage, perhaps.
As the evidence began to mount up against cigarette smoking at the end of
the ‘70’s and the early ‘80’s, I found myself in the ridiculous position of
advising people to give up smoking, while I hid my ashtray in the bottom
drawer of my desk, and waved my hand around a lot before the next patient
came in!
Like all smokers, I was able to rationalise my stand. I was advising
patients whose lung function tests were down, but mine were perfect. If mine
fell, then I certainly would give up smoking immediately. Yes, you are way
in front of me, aren’t you! I had to test my lung function machine one day –
and there was the proof – my respiratory function was 15 percent below the
“average” for my age and height. It was ‘bite the bullet’ time! The biter
was bit, hoist by my own petard and other aphorisms.
So I just gave up smoking. It was going to be easy, because I still
considered myself to be a “social” smoker. I could give up when I felt like
it. I expected that there would be a couple of ‘difficult’ days, but then
the cravings would abate and I would be smoke free again. Two days was an
understatement. For two weeks I would follow other smokers down the road,
nostrils flared and twitching as I desperately tried to get a whiff of their
second hand nicotine. I would look at ashtrays, wondering if I could take a
quick lick before anyone would notice my bizarre behaviour. Really, it was a
very stressful time of my life.
But after two weeks, the cravings became less, I was able to have a beer
without looking for a cigarette at the same time and I had schooled myself
into saying, “Thanks, but I don’t smoke,” when offered a cigarette. But it
was still very difficult.
In fact, it still is very difficult. I am sure that if I smoked a cigarette
today I would be smoking 20 tomorrow and 45 the day after. But I don’t,
because I made a conscious decision, based on medical knowledge, all those
years ago!
Today, the medical evidence is not just suggestive, it is totally
compelling. Cigarette smoking increases your chances of getting just about
everything you don’t want, from crow’s feet to cataracts to cancers (all of
them, not just lung cancer). So why do we still smoke, any rational member
of society would ask? The simple answer is that we, as a society, have been
manipulated by big business into taking an extremely addictive drug called
nicotine.
Like all addicts we do not wish to admit to addiction, saying, “I can kick
the habit any time I want. I just don’t want to right now.” It isn’t your
‘fault’ that you are continuing to smoke. It isn’t your fault that you have
returned to smoking after some time of being a non-smoker. It is a drug of
addiction and next week I’ll tell you how to stop – permanently!
 Heart to Heart with Hillary
Dearest Hillary,
I just moved here to the land of smiles after my wife Sally Sue passed after
being stabbed 25 times. I’ve come to Pattaya because I’ve been told that the
women are very attractive, but on my first nite, I found a lovely girl and
we were about to do the deed when Joob the girl I met, turned out to be a
man. I was very shocked and called the police. Please give me some help, I
feel partially homosexual, and I’m contemplating suicide because I miss my
wife and want to join her next to God in heaven. Please reply soon. By the
way, I love your work and the way you can endlessly help people. I want to
be like you in my next life.
Cheers from Alabama!
Billy Joe
Dear Billy Joe,
There is so much in your letter, I am unsure where to start. Now, taking
Sally Sue first and the “passed after being stabbed 25 times.” Was that all
at the same time, or are we looking at separate incidents? Hopefully this
was all at once, not that I would wish that on anyone (not even
Mistersingha), but if you’re going to go, get it over quickly would be my
idea. And did they catch the perpetrator(s)? Or was it you? I also wonder
about “passed”. Did you mean to write “passed away”, or was it just that she
“passed” on coming with you to the Land of Smiles? Such a shame, if this was
the case, as your friend Joob could have helped her. However, it is very
important to get ‘closure’ on traumatic events such as this, so I hope that
writing about it has helped, my Petal. Or helped Sally Sue.
Now, about feeling “partially homosexual”, I need to know more details here.
Which part of you feels this way? Have you thought that perhaps you are
bisexual? This is nothing to do with riding bicycles in Alabama, by the way.
Your friend from the first night, Joob, could have helped you with this
conundrum as well, if you hadn’t called for the coppers.
You also worry me with your implied threats of suicide so that you can meet
Sally Sue, who is apparently next to God in heaven. I’m not sure that any of
the usual gods are that enthusiastic about having young ladies with 25 stab
wounds lying next to them anywhere, let alone in heaven where they can be
seen by cherubic children with harps, if any of the classical paintings of
life in heaven are anything to go by. (Anyway, I hate harp music, and I
believe it also gives you ‘harpes’ which can last a lifetime.)
You have also answered your own question about the contemplation of suicide.
It is not going to get you nearer to Sally Sue, because you believe that you
are coming again in a next life as an Agony Aunt like me, while Sally Sue
continues to leak away in heaven. Life as an Agony Aunt isn’t all champers
and chocolates, or even beer and skittles, let me assure you. Stay where you
are, would be my advice.
No, Billy Joe from Alabama, it is better that you get on with life down here
and wait for the second or third week before you “do the deed” as you so
quaintly put it. A little grope for the grapes will soon sort out the men
from the boys (sorry, girls) if you must resort to this type of behavior in
your efforts to forget Sally Sue. Enjoy your time in the Land of Smiles!
Dear Hillary,
I am an American and I want to buy a house here in Thailand, but I believe
it is not possible for me to do this. Is this right? If so, is there a way
around this problem because I really would like to do this.
Joe
Dear Joe,
I don’t know who told you this, my Petal, but they are wrong. Buying a house
is very easy for foreigners here, it’s just ‘owning’ it that is a little
more difficult. Let me explain, even though any reputable real estate person
could give you this advice better than I can. ‘Buying’ means giving somebody
(known as the seller) a pile of money, for which they will give you a pile
of bricks sitting on a lump of dirt. To do this very quickly, I suggest you
go to the nearest beer bar and ask to see one of the real estate consultants
there who can be recognized by the fact they will invite you to “sit down
please, sexy man”. This young lady will help you through the paperwork and
Thai laws and statutes, and at the end of the time you will have managed to
complete your dream of buying a house here in Thailand. The only catch is
that the title deeds will be in her name, not yours, but up till the time of
the title deeds being issued, you will also have a very faithful companion.
After the issuance of said title deeds, things generally change somewhat.
That gets us back to the differences between ‘buying’ and ‘owning’. Please
go and ask for a reputable real estate agent, and not in the beer bars. By
the way, you’re not from Alabama, are you?
A Female Perspective: Men on Marriage
with Sharona Watson
There are two sides to every story –
usually. Certainly, I think that you have to be ready to listen to another
point of view, even if you might violently disagree with it. I don’t mean
that you shouldn’t react in a way that you think is appropriate – you don’t
have to ‘tolerate’ someone else’s view – but you can let them finish,
whoever they are. It seems to me that a lot of problems are caused by not
being willing to listen, not only in marriage but in the world as a whole.
 Marriage
– a cynic’s view?
In fact, the very meaning of the word ‘listen’ often seems to be
misunderstood. To me, real listening means putting yourself in the other
person’s shoes. Being them for a short time. Considering the unconsiderable
for just a moment – that you might be wrong and the other person might be
right. As for me, I hate being interrupted and men, I’m afraid, seem to be
very bad at this. If you don’t believe me, listen to a conversation
involving men and women. (Although I am ashamed to say that I have sometimes
been accused of interrupting others myself). I find interruptions so
disrespectful because it means that one person basically considers that what
they have to say is more important or more correct. And if they won’t even
let you finish saying what you want to say, how can they tell?
Anyway, in the spirit of giving the other half of the conversation a chance
to be heard, this week I thought it would only be fair to investigate what
men thought about the institution of marriage, not from my point of view but
from theirs. Give them a chance to speak their mind. I recently asked some
men about parenthood and some of what they said seemed to make sense.
Although, not all of it, of course. In fact in general, I’d say that I’ve
found men far less forthcoming than the women I have spoken to; nonetheless,
I don’t want to be accused of neglecting men. In fact, I hope I can learn
something from talking to them
The first man I questioned was fellow journalist Caspian Pike, who writes
extensively for national and international newspapers and magazines. He’s
been married for almost fifteen years to a medical doctor, who I suppose,
due to their professional lives, he hardly ever sees? “Well maybe (laughing)
that’s why we’ve been together for fifteen years!” Caspian quipped.
What was it, I wondered, that he was looking for, when he decided he wanted
to get married? “Actually,” Caspian began, “I wouldn’t have minded not
getting married. I don’t mean I don’t appreciate being married; it’s just
that I regard the ‘institution of marriage’ as you call it, a little out of
date. I don’t think you need to be married to be in a long-lasting, loyal
relationship, enjoying all those things that marriage is supposed to bring.”
This was very ‘new man’, I suggested. “Look, in a way you’re right. I don’t
often see Enya (his Irish wife). We can joke about it, but you need to keep
a marriage fresh. We work in very different fields pretty indeterminate
hours, we don’t have children, so we have retained our independence. What
that does mean is that we have to be very sure of our commitment to each
other, deep down inside. That is what I was looking for in a relationship. I
think I’m very lucky to have found it. In that sense, I suppose that
marriage was just the icing on the cake.”
Having decided to ‘take the plunge’ did he consider then (and now) that
there might be qualities in his chosen partner which would be able to stand
the test of time, that he would be able to savour the rest of his life?
Caspian continued, “Yes, definitely. I certainly tried to look beyond my
wife’s beauty, if you know what I mean? I think she’s pretty, very pretty.
Maybe when I first met her I was thinking about her prettiness a lot. Sex
and everything. But when you make that commitment to a person, when one day
you wake up and think, ‘Yep, this is the person I could grow old with’ I
think it means you have recognised qualities which are more timeless than
physical passion. Oops, I don’t want it to sound like I don’t still have
physical passion (looks concerned) – it’s just that, well, you look at the
caring side, the compatibility in all parts of your life. You start asking
yourself questions like; Do you fit well together? Is she likely to be an
equal partner? Is her mother a nightmare? (laughs) Worse, will she end up
looking like her mother?” (We both laugh)
I appreciated the points Caspian was making. I’ve often wondered whether my
own life would have been different if Andy and I had never got married and
we’d just stayed together as ‘partners’. What difference does it make, being
married? Caspian kind of provided an answer; “The thing about marriage, the
ring, the ceremony, the whole legality of it all, is that it confirms you in
your beliefs. In a way it’s reassuring to know that society recognises and
values the fact that you love someone and will create some kind of security
for you both in law. On the other hand, I also think that sometimes, this
sense of security can lead to people taking each other for granted. That
hasn’t happened with Enya and me, partly because we have to really find the
time to be together. So when we do see each other, we are genuinely pleased
and it’s great. Actually I miss her.”
So you believe in monogamy, then? “I wondered if you were going to ask me
that! Yeah, sure. I think I believe in trust first and monogamy follows from
that. Obviously there are times when you think about that – it’s not really
fashionable to be faithful, is it? Enya and me though, we set our own
standards and we’re pretty happy with each other. I’m proud to call her my
wife.”
Next week: More Men Open Up
[email protected]
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