How much does it cost to run a school ?

I am puzzled because the average spending per pupil is at around 5,000£, but university students who have much less contact time, and whose lecturers (in my experience) are not paid more than teachers, will pay on average 8,500£.

Neither (state) schools nor universities are for profit organisations. So I assume that these ^ numbers indicate the actual cost of educating a pupil / student. So what makes a school less expensive to run than a university?

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Reply 1

Aj12

Not sure. My college had a budget of 6 million apparently

Reply 2

llys

Original post by Aj12

Not sure. My college had a budget of 6 million apparently

For how many pupils?

Reply 3

Aj12

Original post by llys

For how many pupils?

Around 2 thousand. Starting to wonder if that figure was right though. Seems a hell of a lot

Reply 4

chidona

Original post by llys

Universities hire a lot more staff than schools do, and have a lot more infrastructure as well to maintain.

The cost of running a school depends really on how many pupils are there, the quality of the teachers (no surprise that higher pay attracts higher quality teachers) and infrastructure.

Reply 5

llys

Original post by chidona

What do you mean by "infrastructure" ? Building maintenance, electricity etc.?

---
I suppose that universities have disproportionately more administrative staff than schools.

Reply 6

Kareir

And Universities aren't just educational centres, they research too.

_Kar.

Reply 7

johnnn

In that budget you have all the top dogs making big 6 figure salarys thats where alot of the money goes!!

Reply 8

llys

Original post by Kareir

And Universities aren't just educational centres, they research too.

_Kar.

I think that most research grants don't come out of the university budget though. At least my boss has external grants; all of his postdocs have their own grants (not paid by the university), and half of his PhD students are paid their salary from his grants (again, not by the university).

His salary is paid by the university. But he has to pay the overheads for lab space, electricity etc. out of his grants...

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 9

teshnit

I go to a private grammer, pupils * fees, leads me to believe theres a turnover of £11.5m just for the senior + junior school, 800 senior, 400 junior.

Reply 10

llys

Original post by johnnn

In that budget you have all the top dogs making big 6 figure salarys thats where alot of the money goes!!

Yes, I guess there are lot more well-paid none-jobs at university..

Reply 11

viksta1000

My school got a total budget for 2010/2011 of £22.5m, to pay for maintenance, staff, electricity, stationary, books etc and we got a £1m grant to build a new building

Seems alot, but with a student number of 2100 and staff of 450 (not including cooks and supply staff) it seems reasonable

EDIT: its not a private school its a high school/6th form/sports college combo!

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 12

chidona

Original post by llys

What do you mean by "infrastructure" ? Building maintenance, electricity etc.?

---
I suppose that universities have disproportionately more administrative staff than schools.

Yeah, depreciation on their capital stock, essentially. Any university has an immense amount of physical capital (buildings, teaching equipment etc.) that's in continual need of replacement or repair. An average school has nowhere near the same amount.

And it's not just admin staff - the university may well hire out cleaning firms and catering staff, on a scale that is likely to be equivalent, if not greater, to a typical school.

Reply 13

Tony_Soprano1

How to run a bad school?

10 Unskilled Teachers left with no options but to teach and who uninspire themselves let alone students
1 Janitor potential peado
100 Tons of industrial size toilet paper obviously the children need some activity to do
10000 Uniforms imported from a china sweatshop
A few grants from my mate dave for some shiney whiteboards

and BAM you have a school

Reply 14

jhubbert

In my college it's about 4-5 million for 900 pupils. Don't forget that most of that goes towards staff salaries with well over 100 members of staff

Reply 15

ilickbatteries

Depends on the size of the school.

Think of a school like a business.

Overheads : Heating, lighting, insurance, maintenance of equipment, maintenance of grounds, maintenance of buildings

Staff : Teaching staff - Headteachers can be on 80k+, deputy heads on 45k+, subject heads 40k+, teachers at the top of the payscale 34k, etc.

Then there's the administrative staff, such as the receptionists, those who work in finance, then the support staff (reprographics, teaching assistants, lab techs, librarians) maintenance staff (caretakers, cleaners) kitchen staff (dinnerladies etc)

Then there are other costs, such as things put on for students like discos, plays, music lessons. Books, lab equipment, paper, computers, photocopiers, chairs, tables and so on.

Schools are not cheap!

Reply 16

ily_em

Original post by teshnit

I go to a private grammer, pupils * fees, leads me to believe theres a turnover of £11.5m just for the senior + junior school, 800 senior, 400 junior.