Private schools aren’t full of rich kids – here’s the evidence

May 10, 2026 — 5:00am

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The title of Jane Caro’s new book is a dead giveaway – Rich Kid Poor Kid. Let me guess; the “rich kids” go to private schools and the “poor kids” go to public schools? Let’s dispel that myth right away. Independent schools have been the fastest-growing sector in NSW since 2000, enrolling 108,380 of the 162,295 additional students in all NSW schools in that time. That’s two in every three new students over the past 26 years being enrolled in an independent school. They can’t all be “rich kids”.

The strongest enrolment growth has been in independent schools charging less than $5000 per year – typically, Islamic, Adventist, Christian and secular schools serving low to middle-income families in western Sydney and regional NSW.

Caro claims “every middle-class kid who leaves the public system increases the ratio of needier students”. But it’s not “middle-class kids” who are leaving government schools. For the past 26 years, the biggest segment of new students in NSW independent schools has been children from lower-than-average-income........

© The Sydney Morning Herald