Big dreams, bigger school fee burden

Delhi parents struggle with rising private school fees, sparking protests and legal battles against schools for readmission.

Middle-class parents in Delhi, many of whom migrated from smaller cities and towns, tend to measure success by the kind of English-medium private school they can afford for their children — the more reputable the school and the higher the fee, the greater the achievement.

However, with salaries not catching up with the rate at which the fees of private schools have risen over the past few years, many parents are beginning to question this yardstick.

“I don’t know what to do. Even if I put my children in some other school, there is no guarantee that it won’t happen again,” says Vinay Kumar Rajput, whose children were among the 32 that Delhi Public School, Dwarka, expelled earlier this month, for not paying the increased fees.

Rajput, a software engineer, and his wife, Neelam Rao, who works for a non-profit organisation, don’t remember the last time they went out on a vacation because of the constant financial stress, which mainly stems from the rising school fees of their son, who studies in Class 3, and daughter, a Class 9 student.

Over a year ago, the couple purchased a two-storey house in Uttam Nagar, partly through a bank loan. However, months later, Rajput was laid off by the firm where he worked on contract. While he has just landed a job at another IT firm, uncertainty about their future still looms with their savings down to zero.

“Main gehun ki tarah pis raha hun. Chakki ke do hisse hain — ek school, aur duusra, sarkaar [I am being ground like wheat. The mill has two parts — the school and the government],” he says.

The software engineer says the school has increased the annual fees, including the expenses on uniform and books, from nearly ₹1 lakh in 2018 to ₹1,89,096 for the 2025-26 academic session. During this period, his salary has grown by around 30%.