How much does it really cost to send a child to school in Brisbane?

The cost to send a child to a state school in Brisbane, including uniforms and stationery, varies based upon the suburb in which they live.

And parents forking out hundreds of dollars on back to school items may find little comfort in the new claim that Brisbane is Australia’s most affordable city for a government education.

That is based on a calculation that it would cost $101,064 to send a child to Prep this year and keep them in a state school until they graduate Year 12.

The cost of uniforms and the book lists for schools vary across schools.Credit: Istock

Futurity Investment Group, which commissioned McCrindle to do the sums, said school fees and voluntary contributions ($294) made up just 8 per cent of the total cost of a government education for a child starting school in Brisbane this year.

Their calculations suggest the remainder would be spent on outside tuition and coaching ($1092), electronic devices ($967), transport ($714) and school uniforms ($401).

Yet individual circumstances, such as deciding not to employ a tutor or buy a new iPad, would change these estimates significantly.

Futurity’s Cost of Education report is the combination of an online survey of 2385 Australian parents and school income data reported to ACARA, which was used to estimate tuition fees and parent contributions.

The report predicts a 13-year Catholic school education in Brisbane would cost $202,485 – higher than in Sydney or Melbourne.

And it suggests the total cost of sending your 5-year-old to an independent school in Brisbane from Prep until the end of Year 12 would come to $369,646.

However, this depends on the school. Brisbane’s cheapest private school charges less than $4000 in annual fees.

Great value private schools with annual fees below $15,000 can be found in Brisbane, with excellent academic results.

The city’s most expensive private school, Brisbane Grammar, will charge Year 12 students an annual fee of $36,420 in 2025 – up 6.55 per cent on the previous year.

Sending a child to Grammar for high school would cost $218,520 in annual fees alone – not including uniforms and other costs – if their fees did not rise each year (which they absolutely will).

While state schools do not charge fees, parents still have to fork out money, including for uniforms, shoes, book lists, student resource schemes, iPads, lunchboxes, backpacks and camps.

These costs vary between individual schools in the state school system in Brisbane, according to a Brisbane Times analysis of publicly available information.

For example, the full book list for Prep in 2025 costs $144.13 at Boondall State School and $180.34 at MacGregor.

A uniform of three shirts, three shorts, a hat and a sports shirt for a primary student costs $216 at Ashgrove State School and $294.30 at Calamvale Community College.

Many schools have a BYO device policy, starting from Year 5. A cheap option would be an iPad 10th generation, at $497 from Officeworks, but parents could also go for a top-of-the-line model.