Independent schools tap families for fees and more

Private school charge hefty fees and get plenty of government funds – but here’s why they are really so much richer the public schools.

Independent schools are netting up to $7000 per student each year more than public schools from fundraising and investments alone, data reveals.

That’s without accounting for tuition fees that hugely increase what private schools have to spend per child.

Analysis of federal MySchool figures for the biggest 25 South Australian schools in each of the public, independent and Catholic sectors shows stark differences in revenue from sources other than government funding or parent fees.

Public Mark Oliphant College managed to raise just $24 per student in 2019, the most recent data available, in addition to $151 in fees.

In the same year, independent Westminster School reported revenue of $7161 per student from “other private sources” on top of $17,094 in fees.

While Westminster said the figure was an anomaly, following a concerted fundraising drive over several years for major building works, other independent schools also recorded significant non-conventional revenue streams.

Wilderness School raked in $4322 per student from fundraising and investments, plus $21,484 in fees, and St Peter’s College $3684, plus $23,786 in fees.

Among the 75 schools analysed, public schools received an average $208 in “other” revenue and $1117 in fees and charges from families, includes charges for sports and other activities and fees from international students.

Catholic schools averaged $513 and $6295 and independents $1222 and $11,748.

The state government is deep into a $1.4bn capital upgrade of schools, which includes the move of year 7 from primary to secondary schools.

But independent schools have kept pace or done better, with many major capital works projects in progress or recently completed.

These include Scotch College’s $27m Wellbeing and Sports Centre, Prince Alfred College’s $22m boarding house which opened in 2019 and Mercedes College’s $20m arts and sports precinct.

Westminster, which receives little government funding compared with other SA schools, relies on an engaged community of parents and alumni, principal Simon Shepherd said. Usually this amounted to under $400 per student on top of fees, but a current $38m redevelopment of the Marion campus had inflated this in the MySchool data.

“We’ve had a huge fundraising campaign, we’ve had about a decade of squirrelling away money because we wanted to achieve something meaningful,” Mr Shepherd said.

“We’ve accumulated and been able to build amazing new resources.”

Maintaining connections with alumni was essential, he said.

“Part of our strategic plan is to foster and build relationships,” he said.

“The measure of the success of a school is not just how a student does in their ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank), it’s how they’re going seven or eight years after school.”

The school has a foundation which helps raise and manage funds, with an investment committee of highly credentialed business leaders such as Stephen Mathwin and Robert Patterson.

Westminister students in cooking class, Lilly, 15 and Charlie, 16 are in year 10. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

The redevelopment includes a new $16m Inquiry and Innovation Hub which has a commercial kitchen, fashion, robotics, engineering and other spaces.

Westminster year 10 student Charlie said the food tech facility provided “access to a large variety of equipment, giving me the freedom to explore my creativity”.

Fellow student Lilly said it was a “collaborative space which is great for teamwork”.

Originally published as Independent schools tap families for fees and more