Students sit for the Lebanese baccalaureate exam at a high school in Beirut, July 10, 2023. (Credit: Hussam Chbaro)
BEIRUT — Many schools in Lebanon are planning to increase their tuition fees by thousands of dollars for the next academic year, which starts in less than three months. In some cases, fees will be doubling compared to the 2023-24 school year tuition. The new figures are almost the same as those from before the 2019 economic collapse, which pushed a significant part of the country’s population below the poverty line.
The Lebanese lira is now trading at LL89,500 to the US dollar, compared with LL1,507.5 in 2019. Following the 2019 crisis, education fees decreased significantly as a result of the devaluation of the local currency.
When the Lebanese economy became dollarized, educational institutions started adjusting their tuition back to pre-crisis rates.
Media outlets reported about the schools' plans to raise tuition fees, prompting caretaker Minister of Education Abbas Halabi to send a letter to private schools on June 7 regarding the increases, according to the state-run National News Agency. Halabi said that the budget of each establishment should be approved by the parents' committee and reviewed by the relevant department in the Ministry of Education before the fees are determined, citing law 515/96. To do otherwise is a violation of the law, Halabi said.
While the 2024-25 fees are almost a return to pre-crisis levels — despite the fact that Lebanon continues to struggle with economic collapse — the sudden increase by thousands of dollars will pose a big challenge to many whose financial standing deteriorated following 2019.
Prices circulating on social media
An image shared on social media showed 2024-25 tuition fees compared to 2023-24 at some schools.
عن ازمة الاقساط في العام الدراسي ٢٠٢٤-٢٠٢٥ ? pic.twitter.com/gkvWdBoD0V
— مصدر مسؤول (@fouadkhreiss) June 4, 2024
Having spoken with some of the concerned establishments about the accuracy of these numbers, L'Orient Today found out that, while schools have significantly increased their fees, the numbers circulating online have been exaggerated.
A source at International College (IC) said that the school's fees increased from $7,500 (2023-24) to $11,000 (2024-25), not $6,000 to $12,000 as mentioned in the image. When asked about the sudden $3,500 increase in fees, the source said that it cannot "give details over the phone." In the 2018-19 academic year, IC's fee for the secondary school was around $12,289 (more than $1,000 higher than next year's amount), according to the school's website.
Taking into consideration Grade 12 and the same timeframe mentioned above, the tuition fees at Wellspring Learning Community jumped from $7,000 to $10,500, according to the school's website. However, the image shared online shows that Wellspring's learning costs jumped from $6,000 to $11,000. L'Orient Today was not able to find the school’s pre-2019 tuition fees.
Meanwhile, Grand Lycee-Franco Libanais (GLFL), which is also included in the image, said that the fees for the upcoming year have yet to be set. Céline Gratiolet, the Administrative and Financial Director of the school, told L'Orient Today that " fees for the 2024-25 year cannot be fixed before Jan. 31, 2025, in accordance with the terms of law 515/96,” which Halabi had made reference to in his letter.
School fees can be paid in multiple installments throughout the year, meaning that when the academic year's official tuition rate is set in January, it theoretically should not affect the payment process.
"For this reason, [the 2024-25 fees] are not yet known and any figures circulating are the sole responsibility of those who put them online," she added.
It seems that GLFL is the only school among those mentioned above who did not yet declare next year's fees out of respect for the 515/96 law.
Despite the confusion regarding the numbers, it is clear that many schools have indeed raised their fees considerably which will likely have serious consequences for children’s education in Lebanon.
Can Lebanon return to the pre-2019 fees?
Lama Tawil, a representative of parent committees at private schools nationwide, told L'Orient Today that the country cannot fairly return to pre-2019 tuition fee rates seeing as the "situation is still the same and the crisis is persisting."
She said that "with the end of the 2023-24 school year, many schools informed parents about random increases without any thorough study," adding that the increases for the upcoming year "range between 50 percent to over 100 percent."
"These are very big increases that the parents can not afford, especially those who are not supported."
She added that the parents' committees are more vocal today than they were before 2019 because of how parents' financial situations have deteriorated.
“Most of the time, the administrations of public schools do not comply with the minister's decisions,” Tawil said, in reference to Halabi’s letter to the private schools.
"We have no confidence in the schools' commitments because they have not been respecting the ministry's decisions for years. We hope that the minister of education will take strict measures against offenders."
