Highest-grossing secondary and combined schools revealed: See where your school ranks

The state’s highest grossing schools have been revealed, and some have made an eye-watering amount of cash. SEARCH FOR YOUR SCHOOL

Elite Upper North Shore boys’ school Knox Grammar can be revealed as the state’s richest combined or high school, based on newly released financial records for the nation’s schools.

In 2021, Knox raked in a whopping gross income of $112,756,549 – the only school to have soared into nine figures that year – the vast majority of which (85 per cent) was gleaned from its primary and secondary parents. State and federal government funding accounted for 11 per cent of Knox’s income.

The school charges a minimum of $22,590 for each Kindergarten student and $36,840 for their seniors, plus $34,110 for boarding.

It’s one of the state’s more expensive private schools, but is eclipsed by the likes of SCEGGS Darlinghurst, Cranbrook and the King’s School which all charge seniors over $40,000 per annum.

The reveal follows data released earlier this week which also showed which NSW schools have spent the most money and which NSW schools receive the most income per student.

Knox Grammar School was 2021’s richest school, with a gross income of more than $112 million. Picture: Tim Hunter

Hornsby’s Barker College came in second, grossing $97,490,384. The coeducational pre-Kindergarten to Year 12 Anglican school charges parents up to $37,390 a year, but ranked 81st in the Year 5 NAPLAN rankings, and 55th in Year 9 results.

Sydney Grammar School ($96.4 million), The Scots College ($87.2 million) and The King’s School ($83.8 million) came third, fourth and fifth respectively.

The 58 richest schools were all private schools, some of which receive tens of millions of dollars in government funding.

Malek Fahd Islamic School in Greenacre, for example, secured $35,712,461 from the government, most of it from the Commonwealth. 94 per cent of the students have a non-English language backgrounds, one of several factors for which additional funding is provided to all schools.

Malek Fahd Islamic School in Greenacre was one of the 58 richest schools in the state in 2021, with the majority of funding coming from government sources. Picture: NCA NewsWire / James Gourley

Combined, those 58 schools brought in more than $2.5 billion, almost three times more than the bottom 200.

The richest public high school was Camden Haven High School in Laurieton on the Mid North Coast, bringing in $28,080,274 – more than $21 million of which was state government funding. The school raised $342,945 from its parents and community.

Almost half of the students have a socio-economic background in the lowest 25 per cent of the Australian population. It also educates a large number of distance learners.

Four in five of the 50 lowest income secondary schools however are non-government schools, the majority of which were small schools in Northern Sydney and the Riverina.

There are 13 schools who recorded a 2021 gross income of under $1 million, all but one of which have a population of fewer than 100 students. The four Montessori schools at the bottom of the list had less than 10 students each.