Australia - British Expat Forum

Can anyone help as we are getting such conflicting reports?
We are looking at coming out on a student visa but have been told that we will have to pay £4,400 per child per year in education fees this is just in a state school!Yet friends of ours who emigrated in January are just paying a contribuion and have asked their school on our behalf what we would have to pay.They have come back with the answer "just a contribution does not matter what visa you are on" so we are now very confused!Can anyone help??

Firstly, you don't say who told you that the cost would be $4,400 per child per year? Normally a state run public school, would expect a minimal fee, per child, per year. Where you live determines which state school your child attends. Only when you pay privately can you have a personal choice.

Which visa you came into the country on, is no business of the school.

SSue 8)

Hi Sue, thanks for getting back to me.
We were told by an agent that we would have to pay school fees. Since posting my first comment on this I have now discovered on education web sites this is because on a student visa you are not paying taxes.Therefore have to pay school fees.
We are still looking in to this and the costs of it as it may differ from region to region..I would advise others to look into it to, if going down the student visa route as you don't seem to be told it at the start.
The cost is also in pounds not dollars so as you can see is very expensive!

Quote:

We were told by an agent that we would have to pay school fees. Since posting my first comment on this I have now discovered on education web sites this is because on a student visa you are not paying taxes.Therefore have to pay school fees.

OK, now I understand, never heard of that before, but then I don't know anyone who's come here via this visa. That sounds feasible/reasonable, but I can see it could add up to a tidy sum, and you do right to check it out.

Thanks for giving us the info anyway, as you say it's not a well known fact.

Good luck,
SSue 8)