ABRSM fees - are they value for money?

ABRSM fees - are they value for money?

This Friday, 19th January 2018, is the UK online closing date for ABRSM exams and as I was getting the necessary information I needed for entering this terms students, I noticed as usual that the ABRSM fees have gone up again between £1 and £3 depending on the grades. I then decided to dig a little further to see how much they have risen over the last six years and as this table shows, there has been an increase of between 14% to 19% over this time period.


Grade     2012      2018    % change
Grade 1   £33.50  £40.00  19%
Grade 2   £39.50  £45.00  14%
Grade 3   £44.00  £52.00  18%
Grade 4   £49.00  £58.00  18%
Grade 5   £52.00  £62.00  19%
Grade 6   £61.00  £72.00  18%
Grade 7   £67.00  £78.00  16%
Grade 8   £79.00  £91.00  15%

For some grades this is about twice as much as wages have increased over the same time period. Of course these are figures for the UK so feel free to leave a comment about increases in the fees for other countries in the comments below.

So do these exams offer good value for money. Have ABRSM exams become elitist only available to those from well off families? And where does the money go? 

Then I conducted a poll on my YouTube channel and as of writing this post 55% of you thought that the ABRSM exam fees were extortionately overpriced . Of those who belong to the 45% who consider the fees good value for money, a couple of comments made interesting reading.

mruberduckI do not think they are ‘extortionately’ overpriced, so I guess I have to go for this option. They are a little expensive and this does nothing to help the ever-growing air of elitism that surrounds classical music these days, but realistically it’s going to cost a lot to hire a venue and pay for the training and time of an examiner. However it’s possible that the ‘product’ you get from lower grades is not worth the money as it won’t open any doors for you. The later exams i.e grade 8 and onwards do grant you some respectability in the music world and can open doors in your career so the money is definitely worthwhile. I think it’s sad how many monetary barriers there are for the study of music, but when you consider it from a business standpoint it is unavoidable. A possible solution would be for the government to offer schools funding for the exams of any students learning an instrument at that school. This would increase the schools focus on music and its education in general (which would be GREAT) and would allow young people to have one less barrier in their musical journey.

 

Annelie Etsebeth
As an adult who pays my own exam fees it just add another (certainly not the only) reason to do well in my exams. I did get a shock when I saw the difference in price for grade 3 & 4 but I'm still willing to pay the fees because I want constant feedback to know that I am progressing. If the fees are a problem there is always the option to skip exams and only do the grades that are required!

You might think that the examiners are paid very high wages, but according to one source I read ,

The money, is miserable; you earn more washing up in a hotel kitchen.

The same author also mentioned 

You can’t do the job unless you are prepared to spend a large chunk of your life on the road or in the air

....which may be a clue as to where some of the money goes. ABRSM examiners travel all over the world and never examine local to their home in order to avoid possibly examining someone they know or students of a local teacher they may know (even though it did happen on one occasion that an examiner of my students was a friend of mine at the Royal Academy of Music many years ago.)

It may surprise you to know that The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music is a  registered charity. The ABRSM is one of the UK's 200 largest charitable organisations ranked by annual expenditure

According to Wikipedia, a charity is a

non-profit organization (NPO) whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. charitable, educational, religious, or other activities serving the public interest or common good).

According to their latest set of public accounts, the ABRSM raised over  £41,000 000 from Exam fees and just under a further £8,000,000 from publishing sales. You can view their public accounts here

 http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends82/0000292182_AC_20170131_E_C.pdf

Now call me cynical, but although ABRSM is technically non profit making, it doesn’t have fat-cat share holders, my idea of a charity, even if not exactly the legal definition of one, is an organization,  that promotes the welfare of others, expressed by the  donation of money to good causes. OK the ABRSM does award to a lucky few free scholarships to study music, but pricing worse off families out of taking their exams seems somewhat contrary to the principle of a charity.

Added to this charitable organisations, are eligible for  reliefs and exemptions from taxation in the UK. such as income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, stamp duty land tax and value added tax. How convenient.

So which side of the fence do you fall? Having heard more than maybe you previously knew, do you think that ABRSM exam fees are good value for money? Please leave a comment below.