As Australian parents weigh up the cost of back-to-school stationary and new school shoes, research out today has revealed the staggering amount it costs to educate your child in Australia.
Even parents who choose to send their children to public school - where school fees are generally only a couple of hundred dollars a year - will pay an average of $92,710 to educate one child over their school years.
A Catholic education came in at double that, at $195,074, while a private education costs a staggering $316,944.
See below for a full breakdown of the cost of education by capital city and state.
These are among the findings of new research released today in the Investment in Education Index, which found the total cost of schooling has jumped six per cent in the last year.
The organisation behind the research, the Futurity Investment Group, surveyed thousands of parents across every Australian state.
They took into account not only the cost of school fees, but also uniforms, school excursions and camps, outside tuition and extra supplies such as sports equipment, electronic devices and musical instruments.
It will perhaps come as no surprise that by far the most expensive place to gain a private education in Australia is Sydney, coming in at an eye-watering average of $377,993 for 13 years of schooling.
That's over $150,000 more than in Perth, the most affordable capital city for independent schools.
But even with the high cost of private school fees - the most expensive of which have just surpassed $50,000 a year - these account for just over half the total cost of private education.
The next largest expense after school fees was electronic devices - averaging $2871 a year for a Sydney private school child - followed by outside tuition ($1873) and musical instruments ($867).
For students in Catholic school, the school fees made up just under a quarter of the total cost of schooling, with 77 per cent spent on ancillary costs.
But even for parents who choose a full 13 years of public education for their children, the costs are significant.
The most expensive place to go to public school is Melbourne, where parents fork out $108,879 from Kindergarten to Year 12 - up $6,072 just since last year.
School fees accounts for just five per cent of this sum, costing an average of $387 a year.
Parents spend three times that amount on outside tuition ($1,431 a year on average), with the next largest expenses being electronic devices ($1,074), musical instruments ($828) and textbooks ($357).
Sydney was the next most expensive, coming in just shy of $95,000 - $5,319 more than just one year ago.
The findings come as an extra blow to NSW families being hit by the axing of the $150 back-to-school voucher program instated by the Coalition, as well as the paring back of the popular Active and Creative Kids vouchers to a limited subset of NSW children.
The cheapest way to educate your child in Australia is to send them to a public school in regional and remote Queensland or Tasmania, which were both priced at just over $72,000.
"Households are already stretched by spiralling cost of living and interest rate pressures," Future Investment Group CEO Sam Sondhi said.
"With less discretionary money to spend, it's going to be a challenge for many families to pay for the total cost of education."
It is forecast that school expenses will continue to rise by at least 14 per cent in the next five years and by almost one third in the next decade.
