Questions from American Muggle/'Shipping Post

[Dai Evans]

No: HPFGUIDX 8194

Charmian" <sashibuya at h...> wrote:
> 
> On the school:  I get the impression from my limited amount of 
> British cultural knowledge that Hogwarts is sort of like Eton or 
> Harrow in terms of prestiege, but appears to be funded by the 
> government. On the other hand, it also seems to be the wizarding 
> equivalent of Oxbridge, based on what I heard Rowling has said (no 
> higher ed.), and various clues in the books (Ron's elder siblings 
> went to work right after school). 

JKR has indeed said that there are no wizard universities. Hogwarts 
is the only wizarding school in Britain, so it cannot help but be the 
best. Having been around for about a millenium or so it will have 
amassed a certain level of prestige.

> On how nearly all the adults work for the state (with the exception 
> of one of Ron's brothers who works for the bank, Lockhart, Skeeter, 
> L. Malfoy, and Voldy...it seems to be the expected thing to go into 
> civil service) :  I recall reading an British novel set recently 
> where a lot of the characters also all worked at Whitehall (and the 
> rest were academics). Is this some sort of British convention? 

No, we're not communists, we don't all work for the state. I can't 
imagine that all wizards do either. I think it just so happens that 
JKR put that in coincidentally. The civil service has to have a 
civilisation to serve otherwise it has nothing to do. It can't be 
completely self-serving (see second law of Thermodynamics).

I don't think that Hogwards can be government funded. It must cost a 
mint to fund a child through a school like that; excellent class 
sizes and facilities, massive buildings and ground etc. not to 
mention the fact that it's a boarding school, although it could be 
independently funded through its' own investments. Recently Trinity 
College Cambridge found that its' investments had paid off so well 
that it considered letting students off tuition fees (Trinity has 
about £300 million in readies according to a poll I saw a couple of 
years ago). With 1000 years of history, Hogwarts could easily have 
amassed quite a stash.



Dai