Hogwarts Upkeep - How big is the community?

[joanne0012]

No: HPFGUIDX 36494

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Felicia Rickmann" <felicia.rickmann at d...> wrote:
>   Costs would be lower than at comparable muggle 
> schools, as the physical plant has long since been amortized and much of the 
> labor is provided by house elves.  If they can support an entire complex 
Ministry 
> of Magic, they can also suport a school!
> 
> In that case, any ideas anyone on exactly how big the wizarding community 
within the UK is, or would need to be?  It's an interesting point to ponder as 
magic can onloy do so much mending and organising within the school I suppose. 

There have been extensive and inconclusive discussions on this topic before, and 
I believe that there's a discussion buried somewhere in the Lexicon.  Most would 
be circular for our purposes here, since they extrapolate from the number of 
students (in itself a dispute, of course).  

But the underlying point is that the number of students (whatever that is) is in 
direct proportion to the size of the wizarding community. Furthermore, since 
wizards live longer than muggles, the ratio of adults to children woudl be higher 
in the wizarding world than in the muggle world (Voldemort's effects excepted). 
So the ratio of supporting adults to supported students would be higher among 
wizards than among muggles for two reasons -- the longer lifespan, and the 
shorter number of years of education provided.