Data reveals which NSW schools receive the most income per pupil

There’s a school in NSW where each student attracted a six-figure sum to pay for their learning. See how much your school makes per pupil with our interactive database.

Goodooga Central School, a tiny isolated K-12 school just 12 kilometres from the Queensland border, was the state’s highest funded combined or secondary school in 2021 on a per-student basis.

Goodooga secured a net recurrent income of $101,393 per student to facilitate learning for 31 kids, 97 per cent of whom are Indigenous. In 2021 the school employed 8 teaching staff and 12 non-teaching support staff.

NSW schools, both public and private, attract additional government funding based on four different types of disadvantage among students – disability, low socio-economic status, Indigenous status, non-English speaking background – as well as loadings for small and remote schools.

Eight of the ten highest funded schools per student were public remote or distance education schools. The two non-government schools in the top ten, Macquarie Grammar School with $57,893 per student and Lorien Novalis School for Rudolf Steiner Education with $57,249 per student, had 61 and 232 students enrolled in 2021 respectively.

Sydney Grammar School, the first urban private school on the list, ranked 20th with a per-student income of $46,790. Parents of students in Years 7 to 12 will pay tuition fees of $42,189 in 2023 to send their child to the inner city secular school.

The least funded schools on a per student basis were Bradfield College, a government-run senior secondary school with $2,935 per student and two Montessori schools – The Children’s House in North Ryde ($5,220) and Karuna in Narraweena ($6,016) – which enrolled 8 and 4 students respectively and both employed one full time teacher.