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The article reports on private schools in Great Britain, whose costs are climbing along with their prestige. Although only a small percentage of British school children attend private versus public schools, most of the social elite have attended them, and the article attempts to quantify the return on parents' investment.

In 1992, 'The Economist' looked at how the educational background of the people in 100 top jobs in Britain had changed over 20 years. We found that almost the same number of people had been to public school and Oxford or Cambridge as in 1972. In 2002 the results are rather different. We chose 100 top jobs in politics, business, academia, the professions, sport and the arts. The drop in the number of public school and Oxbridge alumni is most noticeable in business. Among the political jobs in the survey, a few are held by public-school alumni and a few by Oxbridge types. The institution that has suffered most is Eton. Among the things that haven't changed is the average age of the top people: 57 now, the same as it was in 1992. Women's representation among the top people has risen by a massive 25%--from four to merely five.