School trips burning $10,000 holes in parents’ pockets: Study reveals real cost of extra activities
They’re the costs on top of the exorbitant costs — with parents now spending more than half of their children’s annual tuition fees on extras such as overseas excursions and tutors.
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Tutors and expensive overseas excursions costing up to $10,000 top the list of extra education-related items pushing up the cost of educating kids in private schools as parents vie to give their children “the very best”.
National analysis shows parents are spending up to 53 per cent of their annual tuition fees on classroom add-ons.
Private tutoring is the most common cost with families forking out on average $2,276 per child each year — or $1,215 per subject — finds the study by Edstart, a lender that specialises in helping families pay school fees.
But school trips are costing parents the most.
Edstart chief executive Jack Stevens said on average parents are spending $4,638 a year on school excursions with international destinations such as New Zealand, the US, Japan, Nepal and Cambodia increasingly popular.
“The most expensive trip recorded during our analysis was for a study tour costing almost $10,000,” he said.
“Increasingly, the focus is less so on the academic side of things and much more about a student being well looked after and having well-rounded experiences, so they’re not just book smart but street smart as well.”
Mr Stevens says his company has experienced a 10-fold increase in inquiries from parents about meeting costs beyond a school’s scheduled fees, sparking the recent survey of more than 1600 parents in which out-of-pocket trends were mirrored across each state.
“Of course parents want to give their kids the very best but if things pop up they haven’t planned for, it can cause financial stress and easily cripple a family budget,” Mr Stevens said.
He says while the recent study focused on private school families, parents with kids in the public system are also facing increased costs which he hopes to quantify next.
“The additional cost for schooling can also be applied to those in the public system … there are many extra costs parents are being asked to pay for which has the same impact on a family’s bottom line,” Mr Stevens said.
SA Association of School Parents’ Communities president Jenice Zerna says she’s also aware many families are feeling weighed down by financial pressures associated with some school activities.
“It does make it really hard … travelling, even if it is just to Canberra and the school gives plenty of notice and offers a payment plan, can become expensive and be unaffordable for some, putting pressure on the parents while the children can feel pressure from their classmates if they are the only one not going,” she said.
She says required purchases of laptops and iPads can also be challenging for some families.
Technology buys, including laptops and iPads, are costing the average household $1,758, according to the Edstart study.
Managing Director of Tutors SA Don Wenura Dissanayake isn’t surprised by the tutor spend national average, saying demand from within both the public and private education sectors, for primary and high school-aged children, is driving his company’s third major expansion in six years.
“There is increasing demand for extended learning opportunities beyond the student’s school year level as well as demand for scholarship preparation tutoring such as for the private school scholarships (ACER) and special entry programs in public schools (such as Glenunga International High School’s Ignite accelerated learning program),” Dr Dissanayake said.