Imagine a school where students wear £800 sunglasses with their uniforms, carry their textbooks in a £25,000 Hermes tote and spend downtime partying on Daddy’s private yacht or blowing £30,000 a night on private tables in exclusive members-only clubs.
It may sound like a Hollywood teen movie, but this was par for the course when I attended a top boarding school in Switzerland. And from there? Easy access into prestigious universities such as Harvard, which is where I went, and on to high-flying City careers such as my own.
Due to the impending VAT on private school fees, a growing number of British parents are considering moving their children to European boarding schools. The average British boarding school charges £14,000 per term; increasing fees by the 20 per cent VAT charge would therefore cost parents an extra £8,500 every year.
German schools have already started to try to lure British parents with the fact that there,…
