Catchment premium vs private school cost, 2026
Cotality’s July 2025 figure for the Killara High, Willoughby Girls and Lindfield Learning Village zones. At 6.19% that premium costs about $80,000 a year in interest before a single school fee is paid.
Enter the zoned home, the comparable home outside the line and your state. The calculator prices the extra duty and the interest on the premium, counts what the public school still costs, and tells you how fast the home must grow to beat the fees.
Same three growth rates on both homes. The premium is recovered at sale only to the extent the zoned home grows; interest and duty are never recovered.
Both examples use two children at an independent school, the RBA 6.19% rate, and zero growth so the premium comes back at sale but earns nothing. Change the growth above to see the answer move.
| Catchment (as Cotality names it) | Premium | Duty + interest, 13 yrs | Fee gap, 2 children | Verdict at 0% growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Princes Hill + University High Melbourne · $1.1m outside vs $1.457m inside | $357,000 | $308,698 | $629,400 | Zone route ahead by $320,702 |
| Killara High + Willoughby Girls + Lindfield LV Sydney North Shore · $3.27m outside vs $4.57m inside | $1,300,000 | $1,204,148 | $589,890 | Fee route ahead by $614,258 |
Fee gap = Futurity 2026 independent school cost minus government school cost, two children, 13 years. Duty from Velofy’s stamp duty engine at 2026 rates; the Sydney figure includes NSW premium property duty above about $3.9 million.
A school catchment premium is the extra amount buyers pay for a home because its address is inside the intake zone of a sought-after public school, compared with a similar home in the same suburb just outside the boundary. Cotality measured it in July 2025 at $1.3 million (39.8%) for Sydney’s Killara High, Willoughby Girls and Lindfield Learning Village zones combined, and $357,000 for Melbourne’s Princes Hill and University High zones. Two of the nine catchments studied were cheaper inside the zone than outside.
It depends on the size of the premium and on whether you get it back when you sell. On Cotality’s Melbourne example, a $357,000 premium costs about $309,000 in interest and extra stamp duty over 13 years, against a $629,400 gap between independent and government schooling for two children on Futurity’s 2026 figures, so the zone route is ahead if the premium holds its value. On Sydney’s $1.3 million premium, interest alone is about $80,000 a year and the fee route is cheaper by more than $600,000. This calculator runs your own prices.
The break-even growth rate is the annual price growth the zoned home needs so that the growth on the premium, recovered when you sell, covers the extra stamp duty, the interest on the premium and the public school’s own costs, net of the fees you avoided. Below that rate the fee route is cheaper; above it the zone route is. The calculator leads with it because the 13-year dollar gap depends entirely on the growth you assume, and a single rate you can judge for yourself is more honest than a verdict built on a hidden default.
Not on the evidence available. Cotality’s July 2025 study found that six of the seven catchments carrying a premium had weaker capital growth over 15 years than the surrounding areas. The Sydney North Shore cluster grew 126% inside the zone against 150% outside it, and the Melbourne cluster 82.6% against 106.1%. That is why the calculator applies the same growth rate to both homes by default and asks you to change it deliberately.
Futurity Investment Group’s January 2026 estimates for a child starting school in 2026 are $401,512 for an independent school in NSW and $435,902 in Victoria, including fees and extras such as uniforms, devices, camps and transport. Catholic schooling is $223,919 in NSW and $247,999 in Victoria. Government schooling is not free: $106,567 in NSW and $121,202 in Victoria, about 90% of it extras rather than fees. The calculator counts those public school costs on the zone side.