The soaring cost of educating high school students is driven by the unusually high number of Australian students who go to private schools and the unusually high prices of those private schools.
It costs Australian families $4,967 per year to send a child to high school, almost four times the OECD average. This figure is the average for all families with a child at high school. Families who send their children to private schools are paying even more, with fees now reaching up to $55,000 per child, per year.
Key findings:
- More than 40% of Australian high school students now attend private schools. If the current trend continues, most Australian high school students will attend private schools by 2055.
- Despite increasingly high fees, private schools don't offer a substantially better education than public schools. Research shows gaps in test results are mainly due to differences in the socio-economic background of students, rather than the quality of the teaching.
- Private schools that have enough money to build swimming pools and horse stables still receive significant public support. At the same time, public schools face a funding shortfall of over $4 billion.
"Governments are throwing public money at private schools that clearly don't need it," said Richard Denniss, co-CEO of The Australia Institute.
"Australia's private schools are growing, and their fees keep rising. Yet all this money isn't buying a better education for Australian children. In fact, as private school revenues and enrolments have surged, Australia's performance on international tests has declined.
"Wealthy schools are free to charge parents a fortune while still receiving taxpayer funding. This double-dipping is not allowed in many other countries, and it's clearly not helping Australia's students, the economy or the Commonwealth budget.
"Schools which can afford to build things like indoor swimming pools and rifle ranges should not be receiving taxpayer dollars.
"Diverting money from rich private schools into public schools would help level the playing field and would simultaneously encourage families to send their children to public schools, which would save them a small fortune.
"Government policy has created a two-tier education system and it's not helping Australia. Indeed, it's not even keeping private school fees down. It's time to admit the system needs radical reform rather than more tinkering around the edges."
