Mike same re guitar lessons for my son. I had taught him the very basics and he started receiving guitar lessons in first year of High School. The first year was free - though he had to pass a basic audition to qualify for the lessons so not for complete beginners if not enough places. However after that the lessons cost. If you had two or three kids wanting lessons at school then yes it would get expensive. In our case my in-laws wanted to pay the costs which was a great help as during the credit crunch it would have been significant for us. Not everyone is that lucky though