October 26, 2026 — 6:00am
Brisbane’s private secondary schools award almost 50 different scholarships – and like public sector excellence programs, they spark heavy competition.
Across about 40 Brisbane independent and Catholic schools, two schools advertise up to 100 per cent tuition relief for academic scholarship recipients.
Lourdes Hill College and Mount Alvernia College offer three-year scholarships for year 7 and 10 students.
At Lourdes Hill, this would amount to roughly a $40,000 discount for a year 7 student, and more than $42,000 for a year 10 student, based on 2026 tuition fees and ignoring annual cost increases.
At Mount Alvernia College, a 100 per cent reduction on tuition fees translates to a cost reduction of about $32,000 for a year 7 student, and $36,000 from years 10 to 12.
E-Shane Lee, the director of Brisbane tutoring company Lee Excellence, said students enrolled in his company’s scholarship test preparation classes were not solely driven by how much they could save.
Along with parental school preferences, he said students were also motivated by “their own ambition to get into that school that they want”.
Lee said the roughly three dozen students in his classes – which help prepare students for ACER and Edutest aptitude tests – wanted recognition for their efforts.
“I would say a lot of the students in our program are very self-driven,” he said.
Lee’s students aimed for some of Brisbane’s most sought-after private schools, including Brisbane Boys’ College and Anglican Church Grammar School (Churchie).
Brisbane private schools offering academic scholarships without published values
- Anglican Church Grammar School (Churchie)
- Brisbane Boys’ College
- Brisbane Grammar School
- Clayfield College
- Loreto College
- Padua College
- Somerville House
- St Aidan’s Anglican Girls School
- St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School
- St Paul’s School
- St Peters Lutheran College
- Stuartholme School
“Obviously, with some school fees rising at the moment, a lot of families see that a scholarship might be the difference between whether they want to go to a private school or not,” he said.
Other students he tutored had their eyes set on highly competitive excellence programs at public schools, including Brisbane State High School, and the Queensland Academy for Science, Mathematics and Technology.
While these schools might not offer fee relief, the three Queensland Academy International Baccalaureate schools only offer selective entrance to students, while State High’s excellence programs function on a merit-based entrance model open to out-of-catchment students.
“Entry to the school through the academic selective entry category is limited and heavily oversubscribed each year,” the school website said.
Students entering through sporting or cultural excellence programs were required to adhere to strict requirements for their entire schooling journey, such as participating in the Greater Public Schools sporting competition events.
Across almost 40 Brisbane private high schools, more than half offered no merit-based scholarships for new or incoming students – including Brisbane Girls Grammar School, All Hallows’ School, and Hillbrook Anglican School.
Among schools offering academic scholarships, only half published the percentage-value of their merit awards on their school websites.
Brisbane girls’ school St Aidan’s Anglican College was among the schools offering the most scholarships, including an academic scholarship, specific merit-based fee relief, and bursaries.
At St Aidan’s, the academic scholarship covered part of a student’s tuition fees – an all-inclusive fee for students from years 7 to 12 costing $31,992 each year.
Principal Toni Riordan said the school used its scholarship programs to bolster a “commitment to opportunity, belonging, and student growth”.
“This is reflected in our cultural scholarship and the recently established Creeth scholarship,” Riordan said.
“These programs help expand access to a St Aidan’s education for students who will benefit from, and contribute to, our community, and particularly recognise character, potential, and alignment with the values of the school.”
The Creeth award, which considers merit and financial need, was funded through a charitable endowment. It covers 95 per cent of a student’s tuition fees, as well as textbook, uniform, and term-time accommodation costs from year 10 until the end of year 12.
For a year 10 student in 2026, dismissing annual cost growth, this would amount to a $91,000 reduction in tuition fees alone.
In some instances, whether a school offers a scholarship or not is influenced by what education body owned the institution and what interschool associations it was associated with.
For example, low-fee schools governed by Brisbane Catholic Education did not offer scholarships, although families experiencing financial hardship could apply for bursary support.
Meanwhile, schools within the Associated Independent Colleges (AIC) sporting collective were banned from offering awards that could allow them to poach from competing schools’ teams.
Among the six schools on the list were St Peters Lutheran College, Padua College, and St Patrick’s College, in Shorncliffe.
Other schools offered numerous culture, sports, and specific excellence scholarships, spanning from music and sport, to debating and chess – offered at St Joseph’s Nudgee College, Brisbane Boys’ College, and St Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace (Terrace).
Entry deadlines for ACER and Edutest aptitude tests fall across February and early March 2027.
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Source: The Sydney Morning Herald · Catherine Strohfeldt
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