Private school fees boom

TUITION fees at some of Sydney's most expensive private schools have topped $30,000 this year for the first time, and in many of those schools parents are also paying hundreds more in other compulsory fees and charges.

Fees for a Year 12 student at SCEGGS Darlinghurst are $30,501, a 5.5 per cent rise on last year, which does not include extras such as a $500 technology fee, sports fees, school excursions and camps and extra subjects.

Reasonable increases ... Geoff Newcombe head of the Association of Independent Schools.Credit: Jacky Ghossein

The Scots College fees are up to $30,900, a rise of 4.8 per cent, though that fee includes tuition as well as sport and curricular programs.

Several other schools are charging tuition fees only slightly short of the $30,000 mark, including Cranbrook School, ($29,664), which also charges a $1050 technology fee in senior years, and Sydney Grammar ($28,827).

Most schools cite salary costs as the most significant factor influencing fee rises.

Teacher salary rises in non-government schools will vary between 2.5 to 4 per cent this year, according to the Independent Education Union NSW.

Stephen Grieve, president of the NSW Parents' Council, said the rate of increase at most schools had fallen over the years and paying $30,000 a year was not in any way typical.

''Fees can be much, much lower than that at some of the systemic schools,'' he said.

''But these parents might experience as much pressure as those at the other end of the spectrum - it's horses for courses.''

In their letter to parents explaining the fee increase, SCEGGS Darlinghurst's head of school, Jenny Allum, and the chairwoman, Sharon Cook, also cited a computing program which will see every girl in years 5 to 11 receive a tablet PC, and capital projects.

The Scots College principal, Dr Ian Lambert, said the school worked hard to ''hold operational expenses to about 2 per cent and salaries and wages, which equates to 61 per cent of all expenses, to 5.5 per cent.''

The International Grammar School is increasing its year 12 fees by 5.95 per cent to $20,290. Among several factors cited in the school's letter to parents were uncertainty around state and federal government funding, although ''there is no risk to our present funding levels for 2013''.

The executive director of the Association of Independent Schools, Geoff Newcombe, said the increases of about 5.5 per cent were very reasonable.

Education costs typically run ahead of general inflation. The secondary education consumer price index was 7.7 per cent last year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Mr Newcombe said despite the federal government's pledge that no school would lose a dollar under reforms stemming from the Gonski Review, some schools worried their funding ''will be decreased in real terms over time''.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Education, Peter Garrett, said the National Plan for Improvement would take into account parents' capacity to contribute. ''Public funding of the benchmark for non-government schools will range from 100 per cent for special schools for children with disability, down to a calculated amount for students at well-resourced private schools,'' she said.

The average government school recurrent costs index has been growing about 6 per cent each year, though it was significantly lower last year, 3.9 per cent, due to reduced growth in state and territory funding.