Education Fees Planning
Protect your children’s education from currency depreciation. Plan in the currency of the destination.
Education is the single largest investment many African families make — and the one most vulnerable to currency risk. A year at a UK boarding school costs approximately £40,000. A year at a US university costs $60,000 or more. If you are saving for these fees in kwacha, naira, or cedi, currency depreciation is quietly eroding the real value of your education fund every year. We build dedicated education portfolios denominated in the currency of your child’s destination.
The Currency Problem
Consider a Nigerian parent who starts saving for their child’s UK university education when the child is 8 years old. In 2015, the naira traded at approximately 200 to the pound. By 2025, it trades at over 2,000 to the pound — a tenfold depreciation. A parent who saved NGN 20 million in 2015 (then worth £100,000) would find that same sum worth approximately £10,000 today — enough for one term, not four years.
This is not an extreme example. It is the lived reality of thousands of African families who saved diligently in local currency for education fees denominated in hard currency. The only reliable solution is to save and invest in the currency you will need to pay in.
For African investors, the structural question is even more important because many African tax regimes are evolving rapidly. What is tax-efficient today may not be tomorrow. We design structures that are robust across multiple regulatory scenarios.
Our Education Planning Approach
We design dedicated education portfolios that are ring-fenced from your other investments and denominated in the currency of your child’s destination — typically British pounds for UK schools, US dollars for American universities, or euros for European institutions.
The investment strategy is tailored to the time horizon. For a child who is 5 years old and destined for UK boarding school at 13, we have an 8-year horizon — long enough for meaningful equity exposure. For a child who is 15 and heading to university at 18, we have a 3-year horizon — requiring a more conservative, capital-preservation approach.
We model the full cost of education — tuition, boarding, flights, living expenses, and annual fee inflation (typically 3–5% per annum for top schools) — so you know exactly what you need to save and invest today to meet tomorrow’s fees with confidence.
School Selection Support
While we are financial advisers rather than education consultants, we understand the landscape. We know which schools and universities our clients’ children attend, what the fee structures look like, and how payment schedules work. We can connect you with specialist education consultants who help with school selection, applications, and guardianship arrangements.
We also advise on the financial implications of different education choices — the total cost difference between a UK boarding school and a South African international school, for example, or the financial case for a three-year UK degree versus a four-year US degree.
Our Process
01
Education Mapping
02
Gap Analysis
03
Portfolio Construction
04
Annual Recalibration
Next step
Every strategy begins with a conversation. We would welcome the opportunity to understand your circumstances and show you what is possible.
Key Facts
3–15 years
GBP, USD, EUR
3–5% p.a.
£35–50K
$50–80K
R150–300K
Related Services
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