Cost of Martial Arts Instruction in U.S. vs. U.K.

[MasterPain]

£5 = $7.80

£20 - £40 a month = $31.19 - $62.38 a month

Patrick, I think that comparing teh price after converting it is kind of unfair. A better comparison would be the price in pounds per lesson compared to the average income in the UK versus US class pricing compared to US average income. Please allow me to digress from martial arts to explain my thought:

I studied in London twice in college and saw similiar logic being applied by cohorts regarding exchange rate. It is unfair to think about the pound to dollar conversion if your income is in pounds.

My fellow students would always claim that England was very expenseive because a bottle of water cost $2 (1 pound- with a 2:1 exchange in 2004) at a conviences store in the UK versus $1 at home in North Carolina. I would always bring up the point that if you make $100 in the US and buy a $1 water it is the exact same price if you were buying making $100 pounds and buying a 1 pound water.

If Dobersky (assuming his income is in pounds that have been exchanged at a 1:1.56 rate) comes to the US to visit and pays $5 US for my class he is actually paying 3 pounds 20. Clearly, that would be cheaper for him than a US based student.

I think much of this is very regional. Where I live, the cost of living is very low, but so is income. A dollar is worth much more here than it is 100 miles away. It probably averages out well.

[DWx]

I'd agree with Dobbersky on the £5 a lesson thing. At least that is my experience with training with various TKD people across the country. £5 seems to be the standard rate all over which is £60 - £70 a month if you're doing 4-5 sessions a week. I don't think that "in the UK" is too vague as pricing for most things are fairly consistent. London though really is a different story and is not really a good basis for comparison as things invariably cost a lot more there compared to the rest of the country. Even vs the other major cities, London is more expensive.

But Lrtucker raises a good point about costs compared to income. In London you'll probably earn a lot more than if you do the same job elsewhere in the country but because the cost of living is much higher, it evens out in the end.

[Patrick]

That's what I am saying, essentially. We're talking about Chicago, a major U.S. city. Martial arts instruction will theoretically cost more there then in many other, smaller cities because it represents a higher cost of living, which applies across the board.

So, that's why the comparison to London. To compare Manchester to Chicago, I didn't feel was an apt enough comparison (could be wrong), as far as the populations of the cities.

I don't know that the conversion is any more unfair than any other methods. Comparing cost based on the value of the currency is probably no more inaccurate than other methods, including household or individual income. Nothing's perfect.

I realize that the U.K. is much, much smaller than the U.S., but for example, I'd never think of saying "in North Carolina, martial arts instruction costs..." just because there are so many different cities, schools, types of arts and what not.

Even within a state, you have big cities, small cities and what not. Perhaps the U.K. isn't like that, though it is interesting that Dobbersky said that martial arts in the U.K. cost £20-£40 monthly, while Danielle said £60-£70. There is a pretty sizable difference between those ranges.

Patrick

[DWx]

Even within a state, you have big cities, small cities and what not. Perhaps the U.K. isn't like that, though it is interesting that Dobbersky said that martial arts in the U.K. cost £20-£40 monthly, while Danielle said £60-£70. There is a pretty sizable difference between those ranges.

That's only because I do so many sessions in a week. People training at the same school who do 1 or 2 sessions per week (which is more normal) will pay the £20-£40. Not every single school will charge £5 a lesson but the pricing on average doesn't (at least anecdotally) deviate much from this and it does seem to be a good starting point.

Manchester is a major UK city. If you look at what percentage of the population lives there, its a good enough comparison to Chicago. Going with the 2.6 million, that's 4% of our population (62.3 million total population). Compare that to Chicago's 9.8 million, 3% of the population (312.7 million) live there. Trouble I have with the comparison to London is that it is so extreme compared to the rest of the UK and isn't a good representation of our cities. Just to put that in perspective, London's met population in 2001 was 12.5 million. Our next largest city Birmingham had a met population of 0.97 million. So London's met is 12x larger than our 2nd largest city! and that is most definitely reflected in the price of things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_United_Kingdom_settlements_by_population

[Patrick]

Dobbersky didn't mention how many sessions a week people were limited to, but that could definitely be the case.

I don't know that a percentage of population really works. The more people live in a city or area, the more expensive it is to maintain that city or area and the higher the cost of living is. So, that's why the raw number of people matters.

Big cities, in general, are extremes. But, I can see how London is probably more of an extreme to the rest of the U.K. than Chicago is an extreme to the rest of the U.S. Sort of like New York City is a big extreme, compared to the rest of the U.S.

Patrick

[DWx]

(I don't do statistics or economics so maybe this is wrong.) Manchester is an averaged sized city for the UK. That's why I tried to relate it in terms of city size vs overall population, sort of like a concentration factor.

If we're talking raw numbers only then in the UK we never hit the same "expensiveness level" because our cities are nowhere near as big. You have 9 cities with over 1 million population and 24 in the 0.5-1 million bracket. Compare that to the UK where we only have 1 city over 1 million and only 2 cities in the 0.5-1 million bracket. I agree that its more expensive to maintain a larger populace and that's why for us, London is so different from everywhere else and if we're just comparing cities themselves, then you could compare MA tuition fees in London to Chicago. In terms of raw numbers, Manchester's expensiveness level would match up to somewhere like Cleveland. But then does Cleveland represent the US as much as Manchester represents the UK?