In an ideal world, there would be no public schools. This is because, if there were no public schools it would mean ultimate equality in education. Everyone would be treated the same, taught effectively in the same way, and all under the control of the government. Public schools are seen as fundamentally unfair, with 7% of the population attending, yet their graduates making up 74% of judges, 32% of MPs and more than 50% of the civil service and journalists. The consequence: put best by BBC in the 2010 documentary, ‘Why Public School Boys Run Britain’, is an ever burgeoning class with considerable influence who all share a public education. How can this possibly be fair?

Yet, as enticing as this argument may be, like all forms of idealism, it lacks traction in the outside world. Firstly, in the absence of public education, house prices would simply rise next to well esteemed schools, hence retaining the barrier to entry of cost into a privileged education. The demand for houses in the local area would increase meaning the house prices will increase. Whilst some may see this as creating a positive wealth effect in the area, the reality is that this will price lower income families out of the market, creating not only public schools but whole communities where price prevents entry into a given area, a far from socially optimum outcome.

The second false accusation in favour of banning public schools is that it is easier for us to get into university. As I’m sure we all know, being brought up in this divine metropolis makes getting into a university harder for us compared to a state school student with the same grades. This is because of “positive discrimination,” which UCAS reserves for those whose permanent address is in a neighbourhood with low progression to higher education or if you attended a school which achieved less than the national average of five A*-C / 9-4 passes. If you meet one of these conditions, you’re eligible to be considered in a contextual manner, hence levelling the playing field and making defining public schools as ‘fundamentally unfair’ ludicrous. Additionally, if you fail to gain a place at university and meet these conditions you can attend foundation courses at the most prestigious universities from Durham to Leeds. Personally, this makes the argument of public schools “fundamentally unfair” illogical; no matter how you’re brought up universities still give these foundation year students a whole year to get to grips with the course. Whilst I believe that positive discrimination helps further class mobility, this consequently means that public schools can no longer be defined as unfair, as the higher education system has adapted to take privilege into account at the expense of those from public schools.

It’s of no surprise that public education is positively correlated with wealth, yet as the Guardian found, it is only the top 5% of earners where this correlation begins. Hence, those currently attending public schools are among the most wealthy in Britain. Should they be abolished, this would lead to parents giving a little bit extra “funding” in order to help out their precious child get better grades. This increase in funding to the school to get better equipment and extra support leads to basically being a public school but without the title. Not only would this defeat the object of banning public schools, but this has the potential to become an economical and regulatory disaster. Randomly donated money is unpredictable for the school to become allocatively efficient with their allowance to produce the best outcome for the welfare of the students. This means that public school’s annual fees helps the schools to be financially smart, allocatively efficient and benefits the student's welfare and standard of living.

Rather controversially, banning public schools would also hinder our progress in the international scientific, political and business world. Like it or not, Eton and Harrow have a track record of producing high achieving individuals. A level economics itself relies heavily on the contribution of John Maynard Keynes, an Eton boy along with other notable individuals such as George Orwell. Eton boasts an impressive 22 Prime Ministers simply because Eton, Harrow and most public schools employ professors and research laureates who otherwise wouldn’t be devoting time to teaching.

Moreover, public schools generate billions of pounds for the UK economy, supporting thousands of jobs and contributing significantly to tax revenue. Indeed, latest figures from Oxford Economics and the Independent Schools Council show that fee-paying schools contributed £13.71bn to UK GDP in 2017. “This puts public education on a par with the city of Liverpool in terms of its contribution to the UK economy,” says Forbes. This is combined with the increase in fiscal spending that would have to be enacted should public schools be banned: the number of students in public schools is similar to the number in state school in Scotland. Also, public schools could also be needed due to popular support. Although only around 7% of UK pupils attends public schools, a new survey by HMC and market research firm ComRes found that 68% of 2,000 people questioned thought parents should have the right to pay for their children’s education. The strongest support came from Conservative voters, of whom 83% said parents should have that choice, compared with 70% of Lib Dem voters. More surprisingly, 56% of Labour voters said parents who could afford to pay should be able to do so. It is not our governments place to restrict the choice on where people want to spend their money.

Whilst historically and in principle, public schools are contentious institutions that in an ideal world would cease to exist, this view is incompatible with reality. In the context of wealth and power imbalance, public schools are a symptom not a cause – if they were to be abolished de facto public schools would prevail. This is added to the fact that, from the perspective of retaining an individual’s ability to choose, the dent in the public finance that would be an inevitable result of banning public schools and the loss of world class teaching that wouldn’t otherwise be available – it is simply not practical to ban public schools. Similarly to Labour, who backtracked in their 2019 manifesto, refraining from banning public schools, the Student Economist stand firmly behind public schools.

Matt Heath