How much does it really cost to send a child to school in Brisbane?

However, this depends on the school. Brisbane’s cheapest private school charges less than $4000 in annual fees.

Great value private schools with annual fees below $15,000 can be found in Brisbane, with excellent academic results.

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The city’s most expensive private school, Brisbane Grammar, will charge Year 12 students an annual fee of $36,420 in 2025 – up 6.55 per cent on the previous year.

Sending a child to Grammar for high school would cost $218,520 in annual fees alone – not including uniforms and other costs – if their fees did not rise each year (which they absolutely will).

While state schools do not charge fees, parents still have to fork out money, including for uniforms, shoes, book lists, student resource schemes, iPads, lunchboxes, backpacks and camps.

These costs vary between individual schools in the state school system in Brisbane, according to a Brisbane Times analysis of publicly available information.

For example, the full book list for Prep in 2025 costs $144.13 at Boondall State School and $180.34 at MacGregor.

A uniform of three shirts, three shorts, a hat and a sports shirt for a primary student costs $216 at Ashgrove State School and $294.30 at Calamvale Community College.

Many schools have a BYO device policy, starting from Year 5. A cheap option would be an iPad 10th generation, at $497 from Officeworks, but parents could also go for a top-of-the-line model.