Trevor Cobbold, February 2025, National Convenor, https://saveourschools.com.au
Many of Australia’s richest and most exclusive private schools increased their fees for 2025 by between five and 10 per cent, some by even more. Several schools blamed cuts in Federal Government funding as a factor causing them to raise fees. The claims are vastly exaggerated and served only to prompt alarmist headlines about private schools losing funding.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
First, very few private schools will have their funding reduced over the next five years. Almost all private schools will receive funding increases and those that don’t constitute the most over-funded schools in the country, being over-funded by hundreds of millions of dollars. Second, several schools complaining about funding cuts will actually continue to have their funding increased.
According to a Federal Department of Education ministerial brief released under FOI, 1,150 private schools (40% of a total of 2,909 in 2023) were funded at over 80% of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) by the Federal Government in 2023 instead of at 80% as provided for in the Education Act. They are due to transition down to 80% by 2029. They include schools in about 25 school systems such as Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran systems and 273 Independent schools. Education Department figures supplied to Senate Estimates show that, on average, Catholic and Independent schools in all states/territories are over-funded by the Federal Government.
The over-funding is due to the new funding model introduced by the Morrison Government. Save Our Schools estimates that the total over-funding for 2022-2028 inclusive at about $6.5 billion.
Very few schools will have their funding cut in dollar terms over the transition period.
because the SRS of schools is indexed annually. The indexation is to cover rising education costs has been about 4% a year in recent years. In effect, increased recurrent funding from indexation has largely offset the reduction in the SRS shares above 80% by the Federal Government.
Save Our Schools estimates that only 66 schools out of the 2,909 private schools will have their per student Federal funding actually cut between 2022 and 2029. Thirty of these schools are in NSW and 12 are in Queensland. The cuts range from less than one dollar per student per year to $494 and are less than $100 per year for 28 schools (see table below). The cuts are negligible. In all cases, they are less than two per cent of total income per student and only six of the 66 schools have a cut of over one per cent.
These schools are over-funded by $609 million for 2022-2028 inclusive. The over-funding for the 28 schools exceeds $10 million per school and their total over-funding is $369 million. It includes $23.3 million for Penleigh & Essendon Grammar in Melbourne, $22 million for St. Augustine’s College in Sydney and $17.9 million for Cannon Hill College in Brisbane.
Nearly all these schools serve highly privileged families. All except one serve families with an adjusted taxable income of over $210,000 a year. Several have a median family income of over $300,000 and one, Loreto Kirribilli, has a median family income of $418,000. By comparison, the average pre-tax household income in Australia is about $120,000. Fifty- eight of the schools have over 50% of their students in the top socio-educational advantage (SEA) quartile and 60 schools have less than 5% of their students from the bottom SEA quartile.
There can be no doubt that the cuts in funding to these highly privileged schools is justified. Nevertheless, false claims about funding cuts as the reason for fee increases have featured in the media over the past few weeks.
The online newspaper, WA Today, claimed that more than 40 Perth private schools face “cash cuts” by the Federal Government. However, only 8 will have their funding per student cut. The cuts are negligible, ranging from $21 to $217 per student and represent less than one per cent of the total income of the schools. The total over-funding of these 8 schools is estimated at $73 million. All 8 schools serve highly privileged families with a median family income ranging from $216,000 to $295,000.
JOHN XXIII College will have the biggest cut at 0.83% of its 2023 total income per student. The median income of families at the school is just under $300,000 and the My School website shows that 74% of its students are in the top SEA quartile and only 1% are from the bottom quartile. The school will still be over-funded by $10 million over 2024-2028 inclusive.
Principals of some high income private school claim high fee increases are due to reductions in government funding. For example, St. Catherine’s School in Sydney will increase its fees by 4.7% in 2025 and its chief operating officer said that one reason is that the school will lose $201 per student in combined government funding. This is a surprising claim because the Federal Government is the main funder of private schools and figures supplied to Senate Estimates by the Department of Education show that funding for St. Catherine’s will be cut by only $83 per student in 2025. This represents only 0.2% of its total income per student in 2023 of $44,518. Its median family income is $360,000 and it is over-funded by the Federal Government by $5.6 million over 2022-2029 inclusive.
The principal of Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School in Sydney wrote to parents to say that the increase in its secondary school fees by 9.5% in 20225 is due to declining government funding. However, Federal funding will increase from $6,081 per student in 2024 to $7,061 in 2029. Similarly, the principal of Daramalan College in Canberra said the school is being squeezed of Federal funding. However, its funding will increase from $8,155 per student in 2024 to $8,929 in 2029.
Such misleading claims by exclusive private schools are not unusual. It is a regular justification of high fee increases. For example, last year the chief executive of the NSW
Association of Independent Schools claimed that more than 70 Independent Schools faced government funding cuts of well over 4% in 2024. In fact, only 30 schools had their Federal funding cut, the average cuts were only 2.5% and were less than 2% of the total income per student in 28 of the 30 schools.
Also, the school council chair of Kincoppal-Rose Bay blamed reduced government funding as one of the reasons for a fee increase of 11% in 2024. This was yet another false claim because Federal funding increased from $4,394 per student in 2023 to $4,493 in 2025 and will increase to $4,646 in 2029.
In 2022, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story on how “private schools are grappling with how to plug the loss of tens of millions of dollars in government money” under the new funding system introduced by the Morrison Government that funnelled an additional $4.6 billion into private schools over the decade 2019-2029. The story was based on comments by principals who would only speak anonymously. For example, the principal of an Anglican school claimed it faced a multi-million-dollar funding loss. The fact is that no Anglican school in Sydney will incur a multi-million reduction in Federal funding.
One exception was the principal of the Catholic independent school Waverley College who claimed that the school would lose $27 million in government funding over the decade to 2029. This is incomprehensible. Waverley College is funded as part of the Edmund Rice Association of Catholic schools in NSW. The latest figures provided by the Department of Education show that the Association’s funding is projected to increase by $18 million from
$74.2 million to $92.2 million in 2023 to 2029.
Elite private schools in Australia are the epitome of the adage that “greed is good”. They are never satisfied. They grasp for every dollar of taxpayer funding they can get. Just recall the $769 million in JobKeeper payments, most of which went to the wealthiest Independent schools, not to mention numerous other special deals they get.
Independent Schools Victoria even wants the Federal Government to compensate the small number of wealthy private schools for payroll tax paid to the Victorian Government. The vast majority of Victorian private schools don’t pay payroll tax even though it is levied on all public schools including the most disadvantaged.
There is no case for taxpayer funding for schools whose fees alone vastly exceed the average funding for public schools. It is a complete waste of taxpayer funds. It allows rich schools to divert income from fees to the arms race in luxurious facilities such as libraries designed as a Scottish baronial castle as at The Scot’s College in Sydney, plunge pools for headmasters such as at The King’s School in Sydney, a $85 million aquatic centres at Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne and a $195 million new campus for Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne.
Wealthy private schools can also use recurrent government funding to contribute to over the top salary packages for principals and senior staff. Salary packages for principals of elite Sydney and Melbourne schools range from $500,000 to over $1 million. Many get more than the Prime Minister.
It is time to re-think government funding for wealthy private schools.
17 January 2025
Trevor Cobbold National Convenor
SOS - Fighting for Equity in Education