2026-01-15
As families struggle with rising back to school costs, the Greens have called on Labor to adopt their $800 back to school payments plan, and bring forward their funding commitments for public education to offer direct cost of living relief to families.
A new study from Finder released on Wednesday found parents are spending thousands of dollars on back to school costs each year, including from ‘voluntary’ fees in public schools. On average, it costs $2,847 to send a child to primary school per year, and $5,310 in secondary school. Almost 1 in 3 families in Finder’s study say they can’t afford back to school costs and will have to go into debt, use last year’s supplies/hand me downs, or they kids will go without.
Around 1 in 6 Australian children are now living in poverty (or more than 950,000 children), according to the 2025 Child Poverty in Australia Report (pg8).
Over the next decade, public schools in Australia will be short-changed by $34 billion in funding, despite the government’s claims of fully funding schools.
Shortfalls in public funding mean parents continue to pay thousands of dollars in fees and classroom expenses just for their kids to attend public school.
At last year’s federal election, the Greens took a plan for $800 back to school payments made to families at the start of the school year for each child attending a public school, to help meet growing out of pocket costs, and a $6.8 billion plan for full funding to save public schools, funded by making big corporations pay their fare share of tax.
The rising cost of public education and increasing child poverty rates show that existing cost of living support is not enough.
Attributable to Greens spokesperson for Primary and Secondary Education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:
“Back to school costs are just getting higher and higher every year because Labor and the Liberals are short-changing public schools by billions and shifting the costs onto parents.”
“Australian families should be able to expect a free public education, instead they have ever-higher fees and charges and extensive back to school shopping lists that can add up to thousands of dollars.”
“With 1 in 3 big corporations paying no tax, and almost a million children in Australia living in poverty, something is seriously wrong.”
“When I was a public school teacher, like so many of my colleagues, I regularly spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to dip into my own salary to give students the resources they need, and I know parents do the same.”
“If Labor wanted to stop families from having to pay thousands in school fees, they would implement full funding of schools now, and help struggling families with $800 direct cash back to school payments as the Greens plan has proposed.”
“Every child deserves a free, world-class public education, and that’s what the Greens are committed to delivering.