What Canberra private schools will cost in 2024

Tuition for a year 12 student at Canberra Grammar School will cost $30,410, while a year 12 student at Canberra Girls Grammar will pay $30,500, which is tuition plus a $900 resources levy.

After a couple of years of modest increases during the pandemic, all families will be hit with fee increases next year, ranging from 3 per cent at Orana Steiner School to up to 35 per cent for some year levels at Brindabella Christian College.

Daramalan has increased fees by 12 per cent, Marist College by 13.5 per cent and Blue Gum Community School by 14 per cent.

Canberra Goulburn Archdiocese Catholic systemic primary school fees will increase by 3 to 10 per cent in the ACT, with fees ranging from $3300 to $4100 per year.

The Catholic secondary schools will increase fees from 6 to 15 per cent to the range of $10,000 to $15,000 per year.

New South Wales schools in the Archdiocese will increase fees by 5 per cent.

Director Catholic Education Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn said the system was moving towards "fee simplification" where all systemic primary schools in the ACT will have a single fee level within three to four years.

"There's currently a huge variation in what's paid ... by parents at schools and it is not able to be predicted by any single background measure of the school," Mr Fox said.

"We believe this is the appropriate thing to do, to pursue simpler fees to ensure that we're able as a system and every individual school to provide the resources that are needed."

Mr Fox said it was not possible to keep fee increases below 5 per cent because of constraints on government funding, which was means-tested against through the direct measure of income.

"Our funding under the agreed the arrangements determined by the Australian government and the ACT government isn't keeping pace anywhere near the costs.

"The direct measure of income measure can move around and affect funding for next year. So we have to balance the books. We have to be financially sustainable."

Brindabella Christian College parents were told the fee structure had changed because the school was one of the "most negatively affected schools in the country" in the shift to a government funding the direct measure of income.

It means that primary school parents will be paying up to 35 per cent more per student next year in young grades while tuition for year 11 and 12 students will increase by 19 per cent.

Brindabella Christian College board chair Greg Zwagjenberg said parents were overwhelmingly understanding of the schools' needs with a recent survey showing an 85 per cent satisfaction rate.

"As advised to all of our parents, with the four-year Commonwealth transitional assistance funding coming to an end, like every private school in Australia the changes in the Commonwealth's education funding model from socio-economic standard (SES) to schools resource standard (SRS) requires prudent long-term financial management decisions to be made," Mr Zwagjenberg said.

"Noting our college fees going into 2024 remain significantly below our specific competing private educational providers in the north of Canberra, Burgmann and Daramalan, and even that of Blue Gum."

Association of Parents and Friends of ACT Schools president Raffy Sgroi said families would be looking for other parts of the household budget to trim before considering withdrawing students from private schools.

"Parents of independent schools, they are aiming to have a really high educational system for the kids and so you prepare to pay whatever it costs," Mrs Sgroi said

Mrs Sgroi said independent schools were having to spend more on teacher salaries to keep up with large increases in the ACT public schools. Wellbeing measures were also a growing expense for schools as they continue to support students in the aftermath of the pandemic.

"Keep an open mind when schools are coming down with this decision. It's actually a tough decision for them as well, balancing the books and also dealing with the wellbeing and the high [quality] education of children.

"But definitely, if you're thinking about the rising salary for public school [teachers], now for an independent school ... retaining the top, good-quality teachers, they need to meet those expectations."

Mrs Sgroi said families in financial difficulty should speak to their school about their situation to see if they can arrange a payment plan or fee reduction.

Many schools also offer sibling discounts and second-hand uniform shops to help with education expenses.

Mrs Sgroi said the increases to fees this year were not excessive considering many schools had lower percentage increases since the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Like anything, rental markets or wage increases, they all came all as a big storm because we didn't do anything for the past two, three years."