The private schools in Bavaria are sounding the alarm: the high and probably further increasing energy costs could overwhelm them financially so that school closures cannot be ruled out. In a letter, the Council of Free Schools is now asking Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) for support. A first call for help from Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (free voters) apparently died away – and triggered resentment among the school authorities.
Peter Kosak was particularly annoyed by the “condescending tone”, even if he was already used to it from the ministry. “The minister dryly wrote back that private schools are companies and should therefore contact the Ministry of Economics,” says Kosak, council spokesman and head of the Augsburg diocese’s school department. “We are a school and the Ministry of Education is responsible for us.” Piazolo writes in the letter that he is aware of the state’s “obligation to support” the maintenance of the alternative school system. But when it comes to the question of whether companies “including private school providers” receive financial aid, a “larger context of consideration” is required. He forwarded the letter to finance and economics ministers.
The high energy costs hit private schools massively, complains Kosak. Unlike public schools, whose material costs, i.e. books, furniture and electricity or heating costs, are paid for by municipalities and districts, private school providers finance everything themselves. “We can’t pay for it, without help there’s a risk of school closures next year,” says Kosak. He calls for a change in the School Financing Act and more school fee replacement, i.e. higher overall subsidies for the 1364 private schools in the Free State.
“Next year we’ll be blank,” says Kosak
The school foundation of the diocese of Augsburg operates 46 schools, before Corona the energy costs amounted to 2.24 million euros. Kosak is assuming 6.6 million euros for 2022 – 2.9 million euros are estimated for natural gas alone, almost six times as much as in 2019. Kosak is counting on current prices, but experts expect further increases. 3.2 million euros were planned. “We already have a deficit of six million euros, so the reserves have been used up. Next year we’ll be broke,” says Kosak. All construction projects have been stopped, only safety-related measures are being carried out. Most of his schools are in old buildings, and heating them is expensive.
Shouldn’t the bishop financially help out a foundation of the diocese of Augsburg? Kosak waves it away. Church taxes are steadily falling. In total, the Schulwerk gets an annual budget of 18 million euros, more is not possible. He’s already driving to district offices and town halls and asking for help. Half of the 46 schools have a supply character, they cover the basic supply of a region or a place, for example at secondary schools. According to Kosak, the local politicians are “ready to talk”. These are not commitments. If private schools had to close, the state would be obliged to distribute the children or found new schools.
The Schulwerk Augsburg is not an isolated case, confirms Peter Nothaft, director of the Catholic Schulwerk Bayern, in which 180 schools and their sponsors are organized. About half of these schools belong to monasteries or small foundations. “Where are they going to get 50,000 or 100,000 euros more?” asks Nothaft. The next two years will cause him more worries than winter. It is very difficult to shoulder the costs in the long term. Especially since school operations consume more energy than before Corona due to digital lessons and corona-related air purifiers.
Unlike companies, many private schools in Bavaria have no leeway. According to Nothaft, the Catholic schools do not want to pass the costs on to the parents. Schulwerk Augsburg is currently charging 30 euros a month. If the energy costs were allocated, Kosak would have to charge 52.47 euros. That is not an option. One does not want to overwhelm families in these times.
The crisis is also affecting chic boarding schools
The situation in the non-church Neubeuern Castle is not quite as dramatic, says Jörg Schönfeld. But the board of the foundation has already had to increase the school fees, and further increases cannot be ruled out. The school fees there are many times higher than at other boarding schools in Bavaria and one can assume that the parents of most of the students will be able to cope financially with the current increase. The private school charges 3,860 euros per month for boarders, while day students who attend high school and sleep at home pay 1,690 euros. A third of the girls and boys come from abroad, the majority of the 180 boarding school students from very solvent families.
Despite this, Schönfeld is concerned with inflation and higher costs. Worse than the high energy prices are the expensive personnel costs, which make up 80 percent of the budget. The grants from the Free State for teachers have not grown with it. “In the medium term we will be able to solve this by raising fees – with great annoyance and possibly the loss of some customers.” It’s not a permanent solution.
Schönfeld hopes that at least the situation in Ukraine will improve again quickly. The war has had a direct impact on his school: 20 to 25 percent of the students have not returned after the holidays. “From the point of view of the Asians, Europe is a theater of war,” says Schönfeld, which is a deterrent. Ukrainian families lost their income, Russian families are affected by sanctions and cannot pay. And the domestic parents feared inflation and watched closely whether and for how long they still wanted to afford the “status symbol” private school.