This is how much it will cost you to enrol your children at SA’s top schools

SA’s high-end private schools have increased fees by between 6% and 8.5% for next year.

Roedean School in Johannesburg has increased its fees by 8.5% or R26,434, from R310,994 to R337,428.

St John’s College, which is also in Johannesburg, hiked its tuition fees by 7.9% and boarding fees by 9.5%. Parents of pupils in grades 8-12 attending St John’s College next year will have to fork out an extra R26,096 as the fees have been increased from R304,995 to R331,091.

One of the most expensive boarding schools, Hilton College, increased its fees by 7.8% from R343,155 to R369,920. This year’s fee increase at the elite boarding school for boys in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands was 3.5%.

The fees for this year at the African Leadership Academy in Roodepoort, Johannesburg, which is the country’s most expensive boarding school, was R530,244.

However, the American International School of Johannesburg, which has campuses in Johannesburg and Pretoria, is the most priciest institution in SA as tuition fees for 2022-23 are R542,608.

New students joining the school have to pay a non–refundable capital fee of R176,400 to cover the cost of capital expenses.

In addition to this, a non-refundable holding deposit of R41,600 must be made to secure a place for the student but this amount will be offset against the school tuition fees.  

Fee increases at some of the other expensive private schools include:

— Michaelhouse: 6% (R328,000 to R347,680);

— St Andrew’s College: 6.5% (R320,064 to R340,869);

— NKearsney College: 7.5% (R303,710 to R326,480);

— St Mary’s School, Waverley: 7.1% (R293,050 to R313,990);

— Bishops Diocesan College: 7.7% (R289,700 to R311,960); and

— St Alban’s College: 6.8% (R287,850 to R307,350)

There are 2,282 private schools in the country catering for 735,085 pupils.

Hilton College spokesperson, Pete Storrar, said they were able to restrict fee increases to 3% in 2021 and 3.5% in 2022.

“Unfortunately, there are some significant cost items involved in running a boarding school that are beyond our control, including fuel, food and electricity. For this reason we have had to apply an increase of 7.8%. Given that general inflation is about 7.5%, our increase is in keeping with the general inflation rate.”

Advising parents of its fee increase for next year, St John’s College said: “the weak South African economy is still having a detrimental effect on the school’s finances and many families in our school community.

“We have made every effort to minimise our fee increases this year without compromising the quality of a St John’s education.”

St John’s College said that the high increase in boarding fees, optional extra lunches and teas and the rowing levy was a result of “the higher inflation in food and transport and utilities which are now all in excess of 10%”.

Audrey Mothupi, chairman of the Roedean School board, said it is a not for profit institution and the fee increase is a result of an increase in teachers' salaries, price increases from their various suppliers as well as increases in rates, taxes and electricity.

She said the 8.5% increase “represents a concerted effort by the executive of the school to contain costs wherever possible”.

“Tuition fees remain the main source of funding and are set each year to match the budgeted costs with staff salaries making up two-thirds.”

Lebogang Montjane, executive director of the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa (Isasa), which represents 785 private schools in SA, said fee increases of 8.5% are not unreasonable.

“Education inflation has always been 2% to 3% higher than the general inflation rate.” The consumer price index is at 7.4%.

He said that between 70% and 80% of a school’s operating costs went on staff salaries.

“During Covid, there were a lot of people who lost their jobs but now we are seeing a normalisation of the independent schooling market.”

Mandla Mthembu, chair of the National Alliance of Independent Schools Associations (Naisa), said schools have not levied “exorbitant” increases.

“Schools which are not subsidised depend entirely on fees because they don’t have any other form of support. Therefore they have no choice but to increase fees.”

But he conceded that some parents attending high-end private schools have been struggling to pay fees over the past two years.

“Some of them have taken their children out of the most expensive schools and placed them at less expensive schools.”

Mthembu said he moved his son to a new school at the beginning of the year where the monthly fee was R6,200 compared to R8,500 that he was paying at the previous school.

“One of the reasons was that there was a cost saving. The quality of education is just the same but there were many other extras in the previous school which I thought were unnecessary and costing a lot of money.”

Dawie Roodt, chief economist at the Efficient Group, said: “Many middle–class people are pretending to be rich by sending their children to very expensive schools but they are battling to pay those fees.

“I know of a number of parents who are taking their children out of private schools because they simply cannot afford it. They don’t say it’s because of financial reasons but give other excuses such as they don’t like the curriculum.”

He said parents were also home schooling their children partly because of financial reasons.

“The other reason is that the nature of education is changing. The business model of a teacher standing in front of a class is changing quite dramatically.”