Trinity Grammar was the only school in the group to keep its fees the same from 2018 to 2019. There are differing views on the cost of a private school education. Education fund provider ASG said its research showed Victoria was the second most expensive state in Australia for independent schooling. ASG projections suggest it will cost, on average, $438,390 to put a child through private education from 2019 onwards. That figure is $461,999 for New South Wales. However, the Independent Schools Council of Australia disputes these figures. It reported that in Victoria, most independent schools (29 per cent) charged less than $4,999 per year in 2017, with 26 per cent charging $20,000 and above.

For Rachael and Paul Jakubik, increasing school fees has meant tighter budgets. The Research couple send their daughters, Caitlin, 17, and Ella, 14, to Donvale Christian College and said fees had increased each year, by a small amount, for both girls. It costs the Jakubiks about $12,500 per child, per year to send their daughters to the school. Ms Jakubik said if it wasn't for their decision to contribute to an education saving fund 15 years ago, they wouldn't be able to afford the fees. "It starts getting paid back in Year 7 for six years of secondary school," she said. "We probably wouldn't have them at the school if we hadn't have done that."

She said extra costs – some of which were optional, such as a camp to Vanuatu – ended up adding extra to the cost of schooling. "It does get tricky, you do have to go without things, but I’m sure a lot of families don't. It's a big sacrifice." In the past four or five years, those sacrifices included not taking holidays and budgeting "for everything". But she said it was "relative to what you earn". "For other families it may be easier depending on their income." University of Sydney education researcher Associate Professor Helen Proctor said Melburnians held on to private school links longer after graduation than independent schools elsewhere.

"It's a really niche market that top-end market," Associate Professor Proctor said. "It is really quite very competitive. The schools jockey with each other to attract students at the same time as they have this idea of exclusiveness that only the chosen few can go. "There's a lot of mythology around the waiting lists, which fluctuate, but no school will admit it doesn't have a waiting list." Girls' schools often try to sell ideas of "leadership and a soft feminist approach", she said, while boys schools would project the image of "the well rounded man". "Open days are very crucial, it is where the parents get the feeling of seeing the real school. On the page with advertising parents are aware about how that can be manipulated and they really form opinions about the students and teachers at open days." An earlier version of this article wrote that Ruyton Girls School had lifted its 2019 school fees by 6 per cent. This figure was wrong. The increase was 3 per cent.