Catalan families are the ones that pay the most in fees compared to other autonomous communities. This is mainly because more than half of the charter schools do not receive enough public funding to maintain themselves and, also, because there is a minority, more elite model, which charges to differentiate itself from the offer and pay for services.
This is one of the conclusions of the EsadeEcPol study, The cost of access to subsidized schools in Spain, led by Lucas Gortazar, Ángel Martínez and Xavier Bonal, who consider that fees are a barrier to equal opportunities. To prepare it, they have crossed data from the Household Expenditure Survey on Education (2019-2020) and the Private Education Financing and Expenditure Survey. They consider that this is the first “major x-ray” of the agreement.
Catalan families spend an average of 1,696 euros per year (188 euros per school month), while in Madrid they contribute 1,156 euros; in the Basque Country, 959 euros; those of Valencia, 597; and those of Andalusia, 453. The Spanish average is between 680 and 860 euros.
But these averages hide diverse and complex educational systems. Thus, in Spain, as in Catalonia, 30% of the centers paid for with public funds are subsidized. The rest is public. The subsidized center is basically concentrated in Catalonia, Madrid and the Basque Country, where 70% of the fees paid by families enrolled in subsidized centers are.
“Catalonia has not surprised us because the percentage of public spending on education is one of the lowest in Spain,” sociologist Xavier Bonal explained yesterday to indicate that families compensate with their contribution for the financing that the centers do not receive from the administration. which does not happen in other communities. This is an aspect already highlighted by the Ombudsman. At least half of the centers, and up to two thirds (with modest average fees), would be at this extreme.
“But there is also a significant proportion of centers with over-financing and economic benefit (25%), which do not justify their high fees,” the professor continued. This also occurs in other autonomous communities such as Madrid and the Basque Country that combine the economic transfer from the administration with a fee to parents to provide more services to the centers or obtain an economic benefit.
In Madrid, with a public sector larger than that of Catalonia, a different situation exists. The better-funded subsidized centers charge higher fees. And the larger the size, the taller.
In the Basque educational system, the subsidized education system enjoys sufficient funding, but some centers charge fees for extraordinary expenses that go beyond what is considered public educational interest, which once again creates an economic barrier for students.
These situations contrast with what happens in the Valencian community or in Andalusia, where only 4 out of 10 students in the subsidized pay.
In general terms, in Spain, 30% do not pay or barely pay and 10% assume 45% of the total expense. Transferred in installments is from 310 euros to 1,000 per year in installments. Added together it means that the agreed amount will be between 947 and 1,186 million euros for the stages ranging from 3 to 16 years.
The authors propose reorganizing the sector to prevent the double network from amplifying inequality of opportunities. This would require, as they conclude, activating educational policy measures to guarantee the real freeness of the system, eliminating fees but also avoiding the differentiation of services.
This situation should be accompanied, as they state, by a commitment to equity and the reduction of school segregation by all subsidized centers, with the enrollment of vulnerable students. “The context of demographic decline can be considered especially favorable for developing a strategy to improve financing linked to educational equity,” they point out.
In this sense, they propose to analyze the theoretical cost of school places in the public and concerted sector in all autonomous communities, as Catalonia has already done, as a result of the Pact of the educational community against school segregation.
Other aspects they raise are eliminating concerts from centers that are clearly over-financed and whose fees are high. Audit non-agreed expenses and fees in those centers that, even though they are not in a situation of overfinancing, are providing non-agreed services through fees, and supervise the cost of the canteens.
