Canberra's most expensive private school fees hit the $20,000 mark this year for a year 12 student, but Canberra Grammar School's 4 per cent fee increase for 2014 is at the low end of the scale, and nowhere near the 12 per cent fee rise of Burgmann Anglican School.
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Burgmann made the ''really difficult decision'' to put up fees by a blanket $940 per student from kindergarten to year 12 to meet the demands of the rapidly growing school, which has gone from 24 students in 1999 to 1530 students enrolled for 2014.
''In addition to the ongoing costs of … providing a quality education with the best possible equipment, technology and particularly student experiences, the two main factors that we have in our costs are both buildings and facilities, and our staff,'' principal Steven Bowers said.
''We've been really happy to experience above-average growth in student numbers and that has meant above-average growth in the need for buildings and teachers, and above-average growth in fees.''
Mr Bowers said the school board had made the decision to raise the fees considerably - for a kindergarten student, the increase is 14.6 per cent - and in effect, slightly reposition the school within the Canberra market.
The board made the decision in mid-September, with ''some'' parents deciding to enroll their children elsewhere as a result.
The school's year 12 fees are now at $8720 a year, but in comparing schools, it must be noted that fees are calculated differently by each school, some offering all-inclusive tuition amounts and others adding on subject levies, camp costs, book-hire costs or IT levies.
Figures also only apply to a first child, with most schools offering discounts of varying amounts to subsequently enrolled siblings.
While Burgmann parents had more opportunity than many to enroll their children elsewhere when faced with a fee increase, Marist College is still to release its 2014 fee schedule, which it says will go out to parents this week.
Parents at Covenant College and Orana Steiner School are faced with the second largest fee increases in 2014 at 7 per cent, followed by Daramalan College at 6.6 per cent.
St Mary MacKillop College is the only school to have kept its fee increases under the inflation rate, imposing just a 2.4 per cent increase, with the rest imposing 4 to 5 per cent increases.
St Edmund's College did not respond to a request for its 2014 fee schedule.
