Read the fine print: Additional fees help international and private schools get around gov’t-imposed fee caps + inflation: International and private schools in Egypt have long been struggling to make ends meet, as rising inflation and a weakening EGP raises costs for operators, while a government-imposed cap on annual tuition fee increases limits their ability to increase their income. Some schools rely in part on fees that don’t fall under the technical umbrella of tuition — giving them more leeway for increases — while others are reportedly using loopholes in how they report their tuition fees to the government as they look to create a buffer against soaring costs, according to several stakeholders Enterprise spoke with.

REFRESHER- Since 2019, private schools have faced a more stringent cap on tuition fee hikes after parents lobbied the Education Ministry to put a stop to what they said were unfair increases. Private providers have been allowed to raise prices by as little as 7% each year, down from 14% previously. Those that charge more than EGP 10k per year have been limited to raising costs by 7% per year on their 2015-2016 fees, which the government deemed their baseline year, meaning the actual increase increment has remained steady each year. Private schools with tuition fees below EGP 10k per year have a 10-25% cap on their annual tuition fee increases. Last year, the Education Ministry agreed to allow schools to calculate the annual increase based on the previous academic year, providing some breathing room.

The biggest loophole: How tuition fees are reported to the ministry. Some schools try to circumvent the government cap by reporting fees that are higher than what they actually plan to charge, giving them breathing room to raise tuition fees without raising alarm bells, several sources told us. For example, if a school’s actual tuition fees are EGP 70k per year, they could report to the ministry that their fees are as high as EGP 300k, one of our sources said.

Other schools open new branches or divisions to set new fees: A school could opt to add a new division that offers the American or British curriculum, for example, and report a fresh set of fees to the ministry that are closer to the fees they need to charge to keep the business running, educator and international school consultant Mohammed Rizkallah said. Some schools also get a bit of leeway from the government when they incur investment costs such as setting up a new branch. El Alsson, for example, received a one-time exception to the tuition rise cap in recent years after purchasing a new campus on pricey land and facing soaring building costs, El Alsson Executive Director Karim Rogers previously told us.

Then there’s a host of other fees outside of tuition payments that are tacked on to what parents pay to schools: Several international schools charge a non-refundable application fee when parents apply for admission for their children, with these fees ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand USD. One parent we spoke with, Sammar Refaat, told us that she applied to several schools for her son and was required to pay these non-refundable fees at each one. Once students are accepted, international schools also typically charge another non-refundable registration fee to secure a spot in the school, which Rizkallah noted can be a “significant” amount.

Don’t forget uniforms + other materials: Although these payments are not necessarily made directly to schools, parents are often required to purchase uniforms for their children if schools have specific dress code requirements, our sources noted. Some schools also charge parents fees for curriculum-specific books, which can set them back anywhere between EGP 20k-70k, Rizkallah told us.

Examination fees: In addition to paying for certain external examinations such as the International Baccalaureate(IB) assessments, SATs, or British Cambridge exams — which are paid directly to external organizations — some parents have reported being charged by schools for in-house annual exams. “This year, I had to pay an EGP 600 assessment fee for each of my four children to sit for their standard annual exams, which we didn’t pay for in previous years,” Radwa Talaat, a parent, told us. “While it is standard practice to pay for graduation exams from high schools like the SATs or A levels, it is not justified to pay for any other assessments in foundation or middle schools,” added Rizkallah.

Some of these fees are understandable and broadly accepted, while others are ruffling feathers: Schools are limited in their options to maintain their financial sustainability, making some of these measures “justified,” Rizkallah and another international school professional told us. Over-reporting tuition fees to the ministry, for example, has proven itself necessary for many schools to avoid “running the business at a loss,” one source claimed, speaking on condition of anonymity. However, charging additional fees — such as those for registration and applications, as well as standard assessments — runs against government guidelines, as the Education Ministry forbids schools from imposing application and registration fees, Rizkallah stressed.

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