Australian boarding school fees 2024: Cranbrook, Geelong Grammar year 12 fees break $80k

Boarding school fees have increased to new highs in 2024. Use our interactive graphic to search the fees for 128 boarding schools across Australia.

Conor Fowler

@conorfowler5

2 min read

July 15, 2024 - 11:40AM

The Weekly Times

Analysis finds Victoria's public schools underfunded by $1.7 billion across 2023

Fees at two of Australia’s most elite boarding schools are now more than $80,000.

Cranbrook School in Sydney and Geelong Grammar in Victoria have topped the list of the most expensive boarding schools in 2024, coming in at $86,865 and $84,240 respectively for a year 12 boarding student.

Nationally, year 12 tuition and boarding fees increased by a median of 6.03 per cent in 2024, compared to a 4.5 per cent increase in 2023.

Australian Boarding Schools Association chief executive Richard Stokes. Picture: Andy Rogers

Australian Boarding Schools Association chief executive Richard Stokes said the introduction of a payroll tax in Victoria from July 1 this year has led to the steep increase in fees, while a perception boarding schools are only for wealthy kids is not the reality.

“76 per cent of boarders are from rural and remote areas. I reckon 90 per cent of Australia think it’s a rich kids place to go to school, but it’s where kids have to go to learn,” Mr Stokes said.

“There are 580 kids living in the Torres Strait that go to boarding schools on the mainland, because they don’t have a high school up there. The governments just can’t provide high schools in those remote areas, so there is no choice.”

Mr Stokes said the ABSA is working with the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association to continue to lobby for increases to the Assistance for Isolated Children boarding allowance, designed to help families with the cost of boarding.

“The AIC allowance is nowhere near where it needs to be, and rural families are struggling,” he said.

“It’s just about getting the government to understand these kids desperately need it to go to high school”.

While Australian boarding school fees continue to increase every year, they do not yet reach the heights of the most expensive schools throughout the Western world.

Brighton College tops the United Kingdom, coming in at £65,000 ($124,158 AUD) for a full year of boarding, The Taft School, Connecticut in the United States costs USD$75,250 ($111,349 AUD), while Institut auf dem Rosenberg, located in the picturesque town of St Gallen in Switzerland, costs a staggering CHF 150,000 ($247,674 AUD) for the average boarding student.

The median combined boarding and tuition school fees increased 6.46 per cent in Victoria this year, while NSW increased 6.24 per cent, Western Australia increased 5.78 per cent and South Australia increased 4.96 per cent.

According to the Independent Schools Association there were 139 independent boarding schools in Australia in 2023, with 15,204 boarding students combined.