There are calls for an overhaul of Australia’s education funding system after new polling found more than a third of private school parents would have chosen the public system if it had been better funded.
Tue 21 Jul 2026 11.35 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Jessica Hromas
There are calls for an overhaul of Australia’s education funding system after new polling found more than a third of private school parents would have chosen the public system if it had been better funded.
The Australia Institute, which commissioned the poll, estimates the findings equate to more than 588,000 students who could instead be enrolled in the public system, lifting the share of children attending public schools from 63 per cent to 77 per cent – a level not seen since the 1980s.
The report suggests Australia’s public school funding shortfall is contributing to growing private school enrolments, despite the rising cost of private education.
“This polling shows a properly funded public school system could reverse decades of privatisation and save hundreds of thousands of parents from paying skyrocketing private school fees,” said Australia Institute researcher Skye Predavec.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (61 per cent) described public schools as underfunded, while more than half (52 per cent) said private schools were overfunded.
Similar views were expressed across party lines.
Australia’s public schools face funding shortfalls of over $4 billion a year.
After lengthy negotiations, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reached agreements with every state and territory by early 2025 to fully fund Australian public schools for the first time, although the target isn’t expected to be met until at least 2034.
The findings come after previous Australia Institute research found Australia is the most expensive place in the developed world to educate a child privately, with parents paying more than $100,000 on average for a Kindergarten-to-Year 12 education.
“Successive state and federal governments have continued to underfund public schools, pushing parents towards expensive private alternatives in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis,” said Ms Predavec.
“Australians have noticed their local public schools being starved of funds while elite private institutions splash out on new swimming pools, and they’re fed up.”
Australia has one of the most privatised education systems in the world, with more than 40 per cent of secondary students attending private schools.
It’s also one of the few countries in the developed world where private schools not only receive significant public funding but are allowed to charge parents unlimited fees.
According to the Australian Education Union (AEU), 56 per cent of private schools receive more funding per-student from federal and state governments than equivalent public schools.
In its report A Decade of Inequity, the AEU pointed out that Commonwealth and state governments had overfunded private schools by a total of $2.1 billion between 2024 and 2028, while underfunding public schools by $31.7 billion over the same period.
“It is this overfunding that allows private schools to hire proportionally double the number of support staff and three and a half times the number of building-operations and maintenance staff as public schools,” the report noted.
Ms Predavec said it was unsurprising many parents were choosing to send their children to schools with greater funding and resources.
She said the polling suggested the trend could be reversed, but warned Australia risked becoming an increasingly segregated education system if current enrolment patterns continued.
“Growing inequality in Australia’s school system risks entrenching a two-tiered education system and leaving disadvantaged students behind,” the report said.
“Politicians have a choice,” said Ms Predavec.
“They can listen to the voters by stepping up funding and help reverse decades of decline in public school enrolments, or they can continue underfunding public schools and push more Australians into paying unlimited fees in the private sector.”
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