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School fees really have a way of taking it out of you, and come next year, parents sending their kids to private schools are going to spend a lot more time squeezing.

BusinessTech notes that parents with kids in South Africa’s private schools should gear up for yet another year of tuition hikes outpacing inflation, as 2025 seems set to keep up the decade-long trend.

A recent report shows that, on average, school fees in South Africa have gone up by CPI plus 2.6% every year since 2012, and it looks like 2025 won’t be any different. For many parents, this could be a hard hit on the wallet.

Forecasts suggest this trend isn’t slowing down, even with the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) predicting a 5.1% inflation rate for 2024. As a result, parents could be looking at fee hikes of 6% to 10%, adding a hefty load to the financial strain in an already tough economy.

This pattern has been building for years. A SARB bulletin shows that, while inflation has ticked upward over the past decade, school fees have outpaced it, leaving a growing gap between tuition costs and other consumer expenses.

If school fees had merely kept up with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) since 2011, they’d be only 22.8% higher. But instead, tuition at South Africa’s top private schools has climbed even faster, adding to the pressure on families facing these above-inflation costs.

The SARB estimates an increase of around 7.7% in 2025 school fees, a figure that aligns closely with some schools’ early announcements.

For example, Roedean School for Girls recently published its fees for 2025, revealing a 7.5% rise, pushing the cost of tuition and boarding from R360,087 to R387,093.

Other top institutions are also expected to follow suit, reinforcing the steady climb in private education costs across South Africa.

Private schooling might have always been for the well-heeled, but these constant fee hikes are even squeezing the high-income homes.

With SA’s low- and middle-income families already feeling the pinch from climbing living costs, record-high interest rates, and sky-high fuel prices, it’s clear that even the wealthier households aren’t getting off scot-free.

And it doesn’t help that disposable income growth has been as slow as a Sunday drive.

Data shows that South African salaries have increased by a mere 1% over the past seven years, while inflation has surged by 40%, significantly reducing real purchasing power.

With school fees racing ahead of both inflation and salary growth, even high-income parents are finding themselves up against tough financial choices.

Strap in folks, it’s gonna be one hell of a year.

[source:businesstech]