Private schools foster and create social inequality in education and society at large. The economic wealth of private schools compared to neighbouring state-funded schools (local authority and academy/free schools are included here) mean that some children are quite simply worth more than others. This report quantifies the economic gap between private and state schools. It recommends that steps should be taken to redistribute and democratise the ownership of the wealth held by private schools leading eventually to their integration into the state education system.

Private schools in England receive substantially more income per pupil than their local state school peers in their local authority. In 2017-18, on average the private schools in this sample had a mean per pupil income 3.7 times higher than their local state-funded schools. This refers to state schools in the same local authority area as particular private schools. The mean income per pupil for private schools in the study was £21664, for the state-funded schools the same figure was £6024. For each pupil in a private school, the school received an income equivalent to what a state school would receive for 3.7 young people.

The economic gap in school incomes varied across the country and between different private schools. For the most elite boarding schools, this figure was substantially higher. Twenty three schools had per pupil incomes seven times higher than their local state schools. At the top of this list, Marlborough College had a per pupil income 12 times higher than state schools in the same local authority and Eton College had an income 10 times higher.

The most extreme economic inequality existed between boarding schools and local state schools. However, even if the equivalent cost of boarding in the state sector was subtracted from the income of these schools, the richest ten schools still had an income per pupil that was at least £30,000 higher than their local state schools.

There are geographical inequalities between the income and wealth of different private schools. It is across the rural counties of the South of England where economic inequality between state and private sector are at their most extreme.

Independent day schools, which have lower fees and costs than boarding schools, tend to follow a similar pattern with the largest economic inequalities compared to local state schools generally found in London and the Home Counties.

For these independent day schools 33 had a per pupil income £10,000 higher than their local state schools. The five day schools with the highest income per pupil had an income which was higher than their local state schools by £15,000 per pupil or more (St Paul's Girls' and Latymer Upper in Hammersmith and Fulham, St Albans School in Hertfordshire, and King's College School in Merton).

Given these inequalities, we explore a range of policy recommendations, from voluntary donations by private schools to the abolition of charitable status, full nationalisation of endowment wealth and the integration of private schools into the state sector. These recommendations are scaled from more minor changes that could take place whilst private schools continue to exist to structural reforms that would see the full integration of private schools and the democratic ownership of their economic and cultural resources.

The publication of this report was funded through an ESRC Impact Accelerator Award at Durham University. Thanks to my co-presenters and attendees at the BSA special session on The Material Basis for Elite Education (April 2021), students and staff in the HESI research group and the team at Common Wealth for their comments, edits and thoughts on this project.