International | Studying for success

Should you send your children to private school?

As shortcuts to elite universities, American schools work better than British ones

a school playing field as money

ETON COLLEGE can boast of educating more than a third of Britain’s 57 prime ministers over its 583 years. Less impressive is the fact that the number of its pupils winning places at the universities of Oxford or Cambridge fell by more than half between 2014 and the 2021-2022 school year. Some parents pick private schools in the hope that their kids will benefit from more attention or less bullying. Others bet that these institutions will lead to a better education, higher grades and a place at a venerable university. But soaring costs and changing university admissions policies are prompting discussion of whether the crests and crenellations are worth it.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Should you send your children to private school?”

Ukraine strikes back

From the June 10th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from International

Team Trump is getting handover hints from Team Biden

Even winners can learn some lessons from the losers

Women warriors and the war on woke

Trump’s Pentagon pick wants women off the battlefield


Why people over the age of 55 are the new problem generation

Baby-boomers are keeping their bad habits into retirement


Young people are having less fun

Youthful excess continues to decline

Is the age of American air superiority coming to an end?

The growing effectiveness of air-defence systems could blunt the West’s most powerful weapons

Why warriors should welcome laws of war

Lessons from a 17th-century thinker on preventing crimes against humanity