LIST: Far North Qld’s richest schools, income per student revealed

New data has revealed how well funded our local schools are and how much they have to spend per student. See where your school ranks.

Dhivya Rajanala

2 min read

June 25, 2024 - 5:00AM

The Cairns Post

Tagai State College had a higher gross income than any other school in the Far North however it encompasses 17 campuses across the Torres Strait.

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Far North Queensland’s best-funded school has received more than $213.9m in five years with the total income per student sitting at $33,926 in 2022, new statistics reveal.

An independent analysis of school financial records from the MySchool website have shown the money some schools make every year, and how little some schools have to survive on.

The figures revealed Tagai State College had a higher gross income – $213.9m over the past five years – than any other school in the Far North Queensland region, however the college encompasses 17 campuses across the Torres Strait.

The region’s second best-funded school was St Andrew’s Catholic College Redlynch Valley, which had a gross income of $153m over the same period.

Its total gross income per student in 2022 was $19,757.

The school with the third highest gross income was Trinity Bay State High School, in Manunda, which made $151.4m over five years and had a gross income per student of $17,884 in 2022.

The figures include all fees, charges and parental contributions as well as state and federal government funding and any other private sources over the five years from 2018 to 2022.

It does not include any deductions for capital works or debt servicing.

The analysis does not include special schools or schools that did not have complete financial data in MySchool for one or more of the five years.

Bartle Frere State School at Bartle Frere had the lowest gross income of any school in the Far North Queensland region.

Bellenden Ker State School, south of Cairns, is among the region’s schools operating on little funding.

It made just $2.1m over the five-year period.

Bellenden Ker State School had the second lowest gross income of any school in the region, making only $2.1m over the five year period, however with fewer students it’s among the top schools for gross income per student at $74,016 per pupil in 2022.

Irvinebank State School had the third lowest gross income of any school in the Far North Queensland region with just $2.2m over the five-year period.

Its total gross income increased by 21 per cent from 2018 to 2022 while the total gross income per student in 2022 was $72,494.

A Department of Education spokesman said Queensland schools provided some of the most geographically dispersed and remote learning anywhere in the country.

“Our schools are appropriately funded so that students can grow, learn and thrive no matter where they live,” he said.

“The amount of funding a school attracts is affected by local factors and conditions, such as location, student cohort, staffing needs, programs offered, enrolment numbers and the age/size of facilities.”