Softening the blow of fee increases for the new school year

We understand that the current operating environment means many schools will be having material increases to their fees in 2025.

At the same time, families have faced added pressures on their household budget with higher cost of living over the past couple of years, which has reduced their ability to take on additional costs.

This means many schools are trying to juggle these two competing factors - balancing their books vs keeping families happy and maintaining enrolments.

Expected fee increases in 2025

Research as part of our 2024 Edstart School Insights Report found that almost half of the schools we surveyed are expecting to raise their fees by more than 5% and is a significant jump compared to a year ago.

Source: Edstart. Based on a survey of 213 schools, June 2024

This highlights the pressures schools are facing as higher inflation continues to cascade through to the cost of running a school.

“Softening the blow” for families

From our conversations with schools around the country, they’re doing a range of different things to help prepare families for fee increases. These include letting parents know about fee increases early so they have more time to plan, and clearly communicating about the reasons for increases so they have a better understanding of what their fees are going towards. They’re also looking at providing more payment options and flexibility so it’s easier for parents to manage fees within their budget.

Increased workload and complexity for schools

While offering more payment options and flexibility helps ease the pressure for families, it can result in a higher workload for schools as staff have to allocate more time to set up, adjust and follow up on payments. Having more payments happening more often on different payment cycles increases complexity, making it harder to stay on top of family payments.

Having fewer families paying upfront and opting to pay in smaller payments that are spread throughout the year will also impact cash flow for schools.

How Edstart is helping schools with fee management

Our Edstart Plus fee management service has helped schools provide increased payment flexibility to families while also delivering operational and financial benefits for the school.

With our technology helping streamline fee processes, 92% of our partner schools have seen a reduction of time spent on fee administration, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives. We even managed to help one school achieve a 75% decrease in fee-related workload, freeing up two additional days each week.

One of the unique features of Edstart Plus is that schools are able to let parents spread their payments across the year without impacting their cash flow. This is because Edstart provides schools with upfront payments regardless of when parents choose to pay. This has meant that 100% of partner schools have seen improvements to their cash flow, enabling them to plan and budget with certainty.

Our Family Support team also reduces the workload for schools by handling everything from managing complex payments to delicate conversations. The majority of our team are parents and are able to draw on their own experience to empathise with and support families. This means schools are able to separate money conversations with parents and focus their interactions on the education and wellbeing of students. Since implementing Edstart Plus, 86% of schools have reported stronger relationships with parents, and 90% have increased retention of enrolments.

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