Why SA parents are spending up big to educate kids

SOUTH Australian families are spending up to 40 per cent of their net income to send their kids to private schools, as figures reveal the astounding rise in fees over the past decade.

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SOUTH Australian families are spending up to 40 per cent of their net income to send their kids to private schools, according to a national lender specialising in loans for school fees.

And, in some instances, they’ll still be paying off the tuition fees years after the kids have finished school.

Edstart CEO Jack Stevens says based on applications to his firm which provides customised loans for school fees, SA families are spending on average a larger proportion of the household income on tuition fees than nationally — where it’s sitting at 35 per cent.

Mr Stevens said the figures were proof private schools weren’t just for the mega-wealthy and parents were choosing to invest in their child’s education as a priority.

“Australian parents are now paying out-of-pocket school fees of over $10 billion a year,” he said.

“(And) it is a big misnomer that it is only very wealthy families who have their children in private schools … this is absolutely not the case.

“To invest upwards of 35 per cent of your net income into your child’s education is incredibly large (but) people are now allocating a massive proportion of their household income to school fees.

“In many homes school fees are the largest, or second largest expenditure.”

Mr Stevens said some parents opted for a longer-term repayment option which gave them up to five years after their children had finished school to pay off the school fee loan.

School fees in SA have increased 62.5 per cent in the past decade.

Figures released to The Advertiser by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for our Cost of Living: Decade of Difference series showed education costs had risen in South Australia by 62.5 per cent in the past decade.

This compares to the state’s overall CPI inflation of 25.1 per cent for the same time frame.

The biggest increase was in the primary sector, which had risen by 74 per cent, while the costs associated with secondary school had increased by 72.5 per cent and tertiary was up 44 per cent.

In 2017, of the 266,705 students enrolled in SA schools, 173,506 (or 65.1 per cent) were in government schools and 93,199 (or 34.9 per cent) were in non-government schools.

It’s a very similar picture to 10 years earlier, although the number of students enrolled in non-government schools was slightly less in 2007 when 88,118 of the state’s 258,761 school-aged children were at private or independent schools (34.1 per cent).

According to the ABS’s household expenditure data, compiled every six years, the average weekly spend on education — for primary and secondary — in 2015/16 was $44.65, up from $10.99 in 2003/04.

Some parents won’t finish paying their children’s tuition until after they’ve finished school.

Mr Stevens said data sourced by his company shows the average independent school fee in SA ten years ago was $4750, compared to $7500 today.

“When many people think of independent school fees, they think of costs in excess of $20,000 a year, but a true average payment per student is actually between $7000 and $7500,” he said.

“There are certainly schools that charge more than $25,000 but that is not the average … in

South Australia at the moment we look after families who are spending in excess of $75,000 a year to send their three children to top tier schools as well as those where the total fees for a couple of children at a religiously-affiliated school might be $6000 or $8000 a year.

“This spread is reflected across the country (and) the behaviour, the thinking, the priority on education is the same … people are spending a pretty significant proportion of the household income — whether that be $80,000 or $800,000 — on school fees.

“A lot of parents firmly believe that they will get a great outcome (for their kids) from investing in a non-government school and they are willing to make sacrifices, whatever that takes, to give their kids the best possible education.”

Andrea Eblen with her children Soraya, 15, and twins Electra and Harry, 12, are happy with their schooling decisions. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

Choosing the school that’s right for you

THE school path Fullarton mum Andrea Eblen had long mapped out for her children changed as her kids grew and developed their own personalities, likes and dislikes.

She and husband Harry always planned for their three children to go to independent primary and secondary schools and were prepared to pay the tens of thousands of dollars each year in school fees it would cost.

However, they’re all now students at the highly sought-after Glenunga International High School — their local — and couldn’t be happier.

Soraya, 16, is in Year 11 and twins Electra and Harry, 13, are in Year 8.

“Originally, we chose Loreto (at Marryatville) for the girls as that was my mother’s old school and they each started school there,” Andrea said.

“For Harry we chose St Raphael’s (a small parish school in Parkside) which we loved … we felt really welcome the moment we toured it and it met all our expectations throughout primary school. It’s a small, community school and Harry is still in contact with his friends from there.”

However, the all-girls school didn’t prove the best fit for her eldest, so when it came to high school the family decided to look at nearby Glenunga which appealed to Soraya.

Andrea, a nurse, had also heard good reports about it from work colleagues.

“For her it was the best decision (to make) and she’s now thriving and has so many opportunities … she’s taking chemistry, physics and biology which we never guessed she’d do,” Andrea said.

So positive the experience, it inspired a rethink of secondary school for the twins — Electra was to stay at Loreto and Harry to go to Mercedes College at Springfield.

“The younger kids wanted to go (to Glenunga) and the added bonus was it meant they could just walk to school.”

Financially it’s also meant immense annual savings totalling tens of thousands of dollars a year in school fees — the family is paying less than $3000 a year to send their three children to Glenunga, compared to potential school fees of around $18,000 per child at Loreto and Mercedes (Year 12).

“It has taken the financial pressure off but, for us, this wasn’t the diving factor. We are just so lucky to be zoned to a school that is as good as Glenunga.”