NSW education: Schooling a child born in 2018 could cost more than $500K
THEY’RE Sydney’s half-million dollar babies. New research shows parents in the Harbour City could fork out as much as $547,414 on private education for a child born in 2018, with the cost of education skyrocketing in the past decade.
NSW
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THEY’RE Sydney’s half-million dollar babies.
New research shows parents in the Harbour City could fork out as much as $547,414 on private education for a child born in 2018, with the cost of education skyrocketing in the past decade.
Sydney is the most expensive city in the nation for private schooling, according to ASG Planning for Education Index data, which forecasts that affluent parents will pay $72,072 more than the national metropolitan average of $475,342 for private education over a child’s 13 years.
And the overall cost of education in Australia has soared by 61 per cent in the past 10 years — almost double the 34 per cent rise in wage growth for the same period.
ASG chief operating officer Bruce Hawkins yesterday said cash-strapped parents were making sacrifices “across the board” in order to meet their educational aspirations for their kids.
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While parents felt the pain of rising school fees, the survey of more than 13,500 people also showed expenses relating to extra-curricular activities, computers, uniforms, school excursions and camps had also caught many by surprise.
“The aspirations of children’s education is top of mind for a lot of parents and funding that, unfortunately a lot of parents are leaving it too late to think about that and getting caught out,” Mr Hawkins said.
“Children are looking to do more and more activities and schools are offering more extra-curricular activities that support the core curriculum.
“Whether it be rowing, music or general sports, those costs add up.”
Sydney parents wanting to put their child through the private school system from kindergarten through to Year 12 could pay $61,632 in “other non-fee education costs”, the data showed.
Christina Ho, senior lecturer in social and political sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, said the data showed the “extreme” commodification of education. “It’s not that surprising that Sydney is the most expensive city for private education, given that education has become a commodity,” Dr Ho said.
“It’s almost a real estate in education that seems to preoccupy a lot of Sydneysiders.
“This is really a symbol of why there is so much inequality because people who have the resources are essentially abandoning the public system and using the resources to contribute to growing disparities in the education system.”
While education costs continued to rise, the rate of the increase has declined since last year due to slower price hikes within secondary schooling. The forecast cost of a private education in Sydney fell by $27,726 compared with last year while the projected cost of government education dropped $3466 to $71,614.
Meanwhile, the expected cost of a faith-based education only rose by $281 in the past year to $251,143.
Association of Independent Schools of NSW chief executive Geoff Newcombe said the ASG’s estimated costs of schooling appeared “significantly inflated”.
Dr Newcombe said the median level of tuition fees per student for schools located in the metropolitan Sydney area in 2016 was $6074.
“In metropolitan Sydney, 69 per cent of independent schools charge tuition fees of less than $10,000 and only 13 per cent charge more than $20,000,” he said.
Given the hefty cost of education and its associated expenses, an increasing number of parents are opting for preloved school uniforms and textbooks as a way of getting financial relief. The Uniform Exchange in Pymble is one of the businesses proving popular with parents including Micky Mylne, whose daughter Sophie is about to start Year 10 at Barker.
“Don’t buy new if you don’t need to,” she said.
“We always wanted to send the girls to a private school, so we spent a lot of time on financial planning.”
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