How Much Does it Cost to go to Hogwarts?
July 14, 2011 in Editorial, Top
In honour of the release of the final Harry Potter Film, Centives decided to investigate what it would cost to go to Hogwarts.
Hogwarts is believed to be the best wizarding school in England. The average tuition for a year at England’s five most prestigious boarding schools is about £25,800.
On page 51 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry receives a letter detailing the equipment that he is required to purchase for Hogwarts. The letter is reproduced here. Centives went to Amazon.co.uk to estimate how much each of the items would cost.
Three sets of plain robes
Each set of robes costs £100, bringing the total to £300
One Plain Pointed Hat
Even an ancient and magical hat only costs about £20
One Pair of Protective Gloves (Dragon Hide or Similar)
Would Spirafil Synthetic Insulation and GORE-TEX waterproofing technology qualify as ‘similar’ to Dragon Hide? If so then they’ll cost you about £76.
One Winter Cloak (black, silver fastenings)
A winter cloak will sell for £25 and a silver brooch can be bought for £26.
One Wand
These go for £100.
1 Cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
There aren’t that many pewter cauldrons available on the internet but a heavy cast iron one will set you back £23.
1 Set Glass or Crystal Phials
These can be bought for £8.
1 Telescope
Gaze at the heavens for £108.
1 Set Brass Scales
Just £8, although as of this writing there is apparently only one left in stock so you better get a move on if you plan to go.
Students are also required to buy seven text books. According to this site an average textbook in the United Kingdom costs £46. Seven textbooks will see you fork over £322.
The total cost for the first year at Hogwarts comes out to £26,816 or US$42,752 at today’s exchange rates. This of course is the bare minimum and doesn’t consider the cost of pets, Quidditch robes and other incidentals that every student invariably faces. Nor does this analysis account for the premium paid for magical items.
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Way to expensive
This is such a fun discussion, I seriously am loving the comments discussing the the money exchange rates between different books, and time periods.
Hogwarts does not have a tuition fee.
Yes they do. Dombledore mentions in book 6 that Tom Riddle may attend although he has no money because they offer scholarships.
Hogwarts is free to attend, the money for Tom Riddle is from ‘a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes,’ not for tuition.
so really there is no tuition but you have to pay for required materials. its like public school. you don’t have to pay to go, but you have to pay for supplies and food and stuff
In the first book Vernon says “I am not paying for some [insulting name I don’t remember] to teach this boy some magic tricks.” Of course its totally possible that he was wrong.
crackpot old fool
I’m curious to find out what blog platform you’re using? I’m experiencing some minor security problems with my latest site and I would like to find something more risk-free. Do you have any solutions?
Anjan I’ve had classes with you before and frankly I would have hoped better of you. You took an average of tuition rates at boarding schools without even considering the reason why we pay tuition in the first place, to pay for all dimensions of our education. If we divide the total spending of a boarding school into different categories (i.e. teacher salaries, facilties upkeep, food related costs etc.) only those areas of spending that would be required by Hogwarts can be included and must be compared to the existing conditions at the school. For example, Brighton College, one of the boarding schools you used with roughly the same number of students as Hogwarts (according to JK Rowling’s most recent statement on this) employs a staff of 88 full-time teachers and 15 part-time teachers, while there are only about 14 teachers at Hogwarts. This obviously inflates your numbers even if we assume magical teachers are paid much more. I think similar analysis in the other categories of spending by boarding schools would lead to other instances of costs incurred by boarding schools that would not be needed by Hogwarts or at a much smaller cost (no need for electricity, food service employees get paid much less etc). If approached this way I think you might have a compelling analysis.
Your comparison of the magical gear required to tangible things we can actually buy in our society is clever and you should disregard anyone who might want to squabble over the cost of those items. Not only are these magical items that we can only hope to get an approximate cost of by comparing them to real products in the market and their prices, but also each shopper is different in their tastes spending total amounts the can vary greatly and these items contribute much less into the total cost than tuition.
Finally, the discussion of an exchange rate between galleons and pounds is not constructive and unnecessarily clouds the analysis. First, the statements made by JK Rowling and other supposed hints that would lead to a concrete exchange rate vary greatly and using any one of them would completely change the result. Second, even if these two societies existed in tandem there would be no exchange rate because they do not interact with each substantively. Even if this was a real world situation it would still be impossible (you could not even attempt to find two people with comparable salaries and calculate the percentage on their income they spend on something like food to get a rough exchange rate).
So Anjan, while this is an interesting idea, and I appreciate the effort to apply economics to unconventional topics, I would urge you to think more thoughtfully and carefully about the analysis you use, especially when it is posted on the internet for all to see and could reflect poorly on our school.
This is the stupidest estimation ever. JKR said in an interview YEARS ago that the exchange rate between muggle money and wizard money was something like 1 galleon = $7.something. I don’t know off the top of my head but the figure is out there. So they could have gone through the books and done a TRUE estimation of cost instead of using stupid, overpriced merchandise from Amazon.com. Also, I think it’s pretty clearly implied that Hogwarts charges tuition, but Dumbledore also explicitly says there is a fund to help those who can’t afford it. Do you really believe Dumbledore, who believes everybody with a drop of magic in their blood has a right to come to school (even a werewolf) would allow a family to be prevented from sending their kids to Hogwarts because of money? Also, I expect the cost of attendance to be a lot lower than muggle boarding schools because they don’t have to worry about paying for maintenance on the building, nor do they have to pay for electricity or anything like that. Their biggest expense is probably food, but the school is ancient and rich and the food is prepared and castle cleaned by a slave race so they don’t even have to pay janitorial or cafeteria workers. Oh you muggles………
There are many things wrong with this assessment.
Firstly, you can actually find out the exchange rate of galleons to pounds, because the two books, Quidditch Through the Ages, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, list the price in pounds AND in galleons on the back. They each cost 4.99 GBP / 1 Galleon, 11 Sickles. Hagrid tells Harry there are seventeen silver sickles to a galleon, so each of these books costs about one and eleven seventeenth’s of a galleon (1.647 galleons). Dividing £4.99 by 1.647, gives us an exchange rate (assuming it doesn’t vary, which it may; I’m not sure if the Ministry of Magic has standardized it) of approximately £3.03 to a galleon.
Secondly, we also KNOW what Harry paid for his holly and phoenix tail feather wand–Philosopher’s Stone tells us that flat out. Seven Galleons. So, the wand ACTUALLY cost him about £21.21.
But we’ve also got to remember, when Harry bought his wand, the year was 1991, so if we’re figuring out how much that wand would’ve cost today, we’ll also need to account for inflation.
By visiting the US inflation site, we can do so, but first we’ll need to convert the GBP to USD. So, via http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/, we find that on July 31st, 1991 (the day Harry went to Diagon Alley to get his first year school supplies–the day of his 11th birthday), the exchange rate was 1.684 (dollars to the pound). Taking this conversion factor, we can calculate that Harry would’ve paid approximately $35.70 for his wand, had he given Mr Ollivander dollars rather than galleons that day.
So now, we go to the US inflation website : http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ .
So, if we put into their calculator the year 1991, $35.70, and the year 2011; we get that today, 20 years later, Harry’s wand would REALLY cost $59.17. Harry bought the equivalent of a $59.17 or (by using the current GBP/USD exchange rate of .6086 pounds to a dollar) a £35.91 wand. Basically he would’ve spent £36 at Ollivander’s, not £100.
Thirdly, we DO know for a fact that some Hogwarts students without means are able to get their hands on stipends and such to pay for school supplies, as Dumbledore tells Tom Riddle in the pensieve:
‘I haven’t got any money.’
‘That is easily remedied,’ said Dumbledore, drawing a leather money-pouch from his pocket. ‘There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spellbooks and so on second-hand, but–‘ — Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, p. 256, British Bloomsbury edition.
Obviously, Harry has a large enough inheritance from his parents that he doesn’t need to take advantage of said fund, but nevertheless, we know it exists.
Furthermore, we don’t even know if Hogwarts students have to PAY tuition. The books never mention it, but in the final book, Remus Lupin tells Harry, Ron, and Hermione that the Ministry of Magic (under Voldemort’s puppet-government run by Thicknesse) is now making attendance to Hogwarts compulsory; apparently formerly, British wizarding parents could decide to educate their children abroad, or homeschool them at home (although rarely done). This begs the question of, if Hogwarts becomes compulsory, what does one do if he or she is unable to afford tuition? (I’m thinking in particular of the Weasleys as an example here).
Also, despite their exchange regarding money for schoolbooks, Dumbledore and Riddle never talk about tuition expenses.
Furthermore, comparing Hogwarts to universities (yes, I know, not boarding schools, but as there aren’t any wizarding universities–graduates may go into training for a particular field, but there are no formal higher education institutions–I’m going to assume university cost is a better equivalent) we find that British students’ tuitions are FAR LESS EXPENSIVE than in America. Universities’ expenses are much more covered by the state, bringing down the cost of tuition.
Finally, we know that Hogwarts is only ONE school of magic in the UK. All this leads me to believe that it in all likelihood does not charge tuition, or, at the very least, it is significantly reduced from what one would pay to send their muggle child to boarding school. Therefore, it is my assumption that Hogwarts must be funded by the Ministry of Magic in whole or in part, or by a very huge endowment (which, is actually probably more possible than you’d think, seeing as the school’s been around since the ninth or tenth century).
Thank you – a well thought-out reply which has done the research I was thinking needed doing, and addressed most of my “but that was addressed…” moments.
You are most definitely a potterhead and I appreciate it greatly, haha. This comment is honestly fantastic.
Actually, I think that Hogwarts is run by some form of commitee, or board. We know that Hogwarts is run by a board, as mentioned in the second book (they were the ones in support of closing the school in the second book).
I also think that Hogwarts does not have a tuition, as it does not have the cost of many conventional schools.
-Hogwarts does not pay electricity bills.
-Hogwarts is staffed by loyal sla..er..servants. Yes, very loyal servants that are not paid and yet will take a knife to the chest for their masters.
-We know from Hermione that the first of the 5 fundamental exceptions to Gamp’s Laws of Elemental Transfiguration prohibits the summoning of food from thin air. Then one would assume that food would need money, but remember that Hermione also stated that food could be duplicated and transformed, meaning that all of Hogwarts could just be eating the same food over and over again.
-We could assume that Hogwarts teachers are not paid as much. This is because they probably receive benefits (such as housing, medical care {Madam Pomfrey}). It could also because of passion. Often, Dumbledore is ridiculed for being “just a headmaster.” And why else would people take up the DADA post when they knew that they were going to get fired the next year?
-We could also assume that the castle holds itself together, as it was created by 4 very powerful wizards. It has often been said to contain lots of ancient magic.
[…] […]
Well then, prospective Wizards who truly want to learn real Magick and Wizardry should attend the online Grey School of Wizardry (www.GreySchool.com)! It’s a much better deal.–here are the comparable figures:
Tuition: $30/year for youths (11-17); $60/year for adults (18 and older); $120/year for “Magisters.”
Textbooks: Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard–$20 (required for 1st year); Companion for the Apprentice Wizard–$20 (required for 2nd year).
Robe: (class available on making your own) ($75-$100 to purchase)
Wand: (class available on making your own) ($15-30 to purchase)
Gloves: (not required)
Cloak: (class available on making your own) ($80-$125 to purchase)
Pointy hat: $30 from costume store. (not required)
Tabard: (required: class available on making your own)
The Grey School offers more than 380 classes in all aspects of the magickal artes, in 16 Departments for Majors and Minors, at 7 year-levels. 30 highly-qualified faculty. Graduates are certified as Journeyman Wizards. Summer campouts around the country; many other social activities.
Bright Blessings,
Oberon Zell, Headmaster
Grey School of Wizardry
http://www.GreySchool.com
Yeah this is a really nice school. i go there and we have fun !
[…] will cost you roughly £26,816: “Hogwarts is believed to be the best wizarding school in England. The average tuition for a year […]
…oh…
[…] 4. How Much Does it Cost to go to Hogwarts? […]
NEEEERRRDSSSSSSSSS!!
Why don’t you bugger off
Bugger off you filthy muggle.
[…] (Centives via LifeInc) […]
[…] I came across this interesting post titled “How much does it cost to go to Hogwarts?” http://centives.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/how-much-does-it-cost-to-go-to-hogwarts/ […]
I think Hogwarts would fall in a category like Olin. It invites you and other than preparing yourself
with the “list” of books, wand and robes, and whatever else… it is free.
According to: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Wizarding_currency J.K. Rowling has said that a single galleon is the equivalent of about 5 pounds, so it all works out to be about 5,200.
Remeber, it’s all relative. If you live in a country that spends pounds, you earn money in pounds, It’s the same for the wizards. They get paid in galleons so it probably isn’t that much money to them.
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This is incredible. I have never seen or read anything more idiotic than this. Please find yourselves a real job, or go study some place else, because clearly your “University” is a below average institution. And more incredible is the amount of morons losers that actually believe this non sense. Un-be-lie-va-ble.
I feel sorry for you
Honey, to explore the economics of fiction is not to believe in the world created. There are reasons I don’t think this was a well put-together piece, but the concept of belief or disbelief doesn’t come into it.
If you have no interest in theoretical and speculative economics (i.e. the economics of made-up stuff), you should probably avoid Centives in the future.
Isn’t most economics speculative (i.e. made up)?
First, assume a can opener…
Why would you keep reading if you found it so idiotic? People are just having fun, lay off Judge Judy.
So any particular reason for using the british name rather than the american one?
[…] (Centives via LifeInc) […]
Any chance we can get a scholarship? 😛
Don’t you know? All wizards are on scholarship.
[…] How Much Would It Cost to Go to Hogwarts? — One fan has done the math, and it comes in at a pricey $43,000 dollars a year! (Wow, Highland Rim Academy is a steal!) […]
Personally, I’d say you might have to compare a wand to something more like a laptop. The wands available online don’t exactly do much (this may be because i am a misinformed muggle of course), but are obviously very very important in the wizarding world. A magic wand is a precise tool vital for all magic so I would imagine it would cost rather more than a set of robes.
There is actually a wand for sale that is a universal remote control which operates using gestures.
Agreed. You buy your wand one time, unless you have an unfortunate mishap where it breaks or is stolen, and its your forever. Obviously an item of such power that is expected for a lifetime would cost somewhere in the thousands.
Harry paid seven Galleons for his wand.
Harry paid 7 galleons which is about 35 pounds. Not so much, I suppose.
This also supposes that Hogwarts costs the same to run as a regular school, disregarding the fact that it is probably funded not directly from parents.
For example, instead of having a huge staff to cook and clean, Hogwarts employs House Elves, who work constantly and require no money; presumably the only expense there is food, and I doubt much at that, given the size of House Elves.
Additionally, Hogwarts is magic – we know electricity doesn’t work there, and presumably they don’t need to pay any other utilities, either – it’s all just magic. The heating costs alone that are probably saved by magic. I can’t even imagine what an average-sized boarding school costs to heat.
They also don’t have to pay postage to send correspondence to the children at home or the parents, other than the upkeep of owls which I assume is relatively minimal, especially as it seems that the owls probably hunt on their own rather than getting fed.
Also, the staff is relatively small – twenty, maybe? – also lowering THOSE costs. Hell, one of the staff is even a ghost – he probably doesn’t even get paid! How would he use the money, and what could he possibly use it for?
Not to mention it’s entirely possible that Hogwarts gets money from stuff grown in the Herbology greenhouses, potions that Snape brews, or things collected from magical creatures in the Forbidden Forest (remember Slughorn?)
So…yes. I really doubt that Hogwarts costs as much to run as a normal, muggle boarding school.
[…] * Scenes from the class struggle in Hogwarts: it costs at least $42,752 to get a proper wizarding education. […]
Could there also be some savings at Hogwarts for the upper year students as seen in the Half blood Prince? Remember Harry and Ron getting their books from the shelf in the Potions classroom at the start of that year? Harry’s book belonging to Severus Snape becoming his book for Potions for that year….Hmmmm. Thoughts?
You must remember that Prof. Slughorn told Harry that he could use the spare (Snape’s) book until Harry bought a new one, which Harry eventually did.
Cute post. But it assumes that goods and services in the Potterverse are valued equivalently to those things in the Muggleverse and are based on the same rules of supply and demand. In a world where magic can be used to create things, economics may function very differently.
The post also assumes that all students pay the same amount for tuition. Not a safe assumption by any standard. Even in the Muggle world, many students pay vastly different amounts for college and private school tuition. We Muggles call them “scholarships.”
$42K per student per year? I rather doubt the Weasleys could have afforded to send their six (?) children to Hogwarts by that estimate. Perhaps they got scholarships or free tuition because of Arthur’s position at the MoM.
The tuition was free, it being basically a state-run school. Books, uniforms, and materials and such aren’t though. It’s no wonder Ron always had hand-me-down robes! There was one year that there were five Weasley kids in school at the same time!
And the Weasleys had seven kids- Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred & George, Ron, and Ginny. Somehow people always forget George…
That’s sweet <3
wonder how much Hermione had to pay… when she took all those extra classes… supplies/books for one or two classes would have cost a lot, but then to double that, or more for the extra classes, wouldn’t that have been expensive?? don’t think she had a lot of money… ((comparing to taking classes at a “muggle” college.. 1 semester’s worth of books were really expensive and this was just a community college…those “private” schools I hear can get pretty costly!
no it is not for free, not once did they say it was free. Dumbledore told Riddle that they have a scholarship for kids you can’t pay, which mean that they do pay fees
wow you all realize this is make believe dont you.
Didn’t you know that make believe is infinitely more interesting than reality. Hence its popularity.
http://xkcd.com/359/
Oh yes it is but it is fun to make believe what I would do if I won the lottery. I have no life so I depend on make believe to make me happy – kinda sad huh? LOL
Yes, but it’s fun… like sitting and reading Little Women, or The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe….. the fun is not just reading the book, but imaging if it was real or what you would do. that’s the best part of reading.. books take you away for a little while and let you imagine… if J.K Rowling had never sat and imagined, there would be no Harry Potter… J.R.R. Tolkien writing The Hobbit.. it’s imagination and pretending ….Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.. what would Gene Wilder have done without it…
[…] an excercise from the Economics Society at Lehigh University calculated that the average tuition costs for Harry Potter’s Hogwarts school came out to […]
According to an interview done by JKR, a galleon is equivalent to about 5 pounds. Bearing that in mind the Harry Potter Lexicon website has a converter and according to its calculations in pounds a Hogwarts Education would be 5363 galleons, 3 sickles and 11 knuts. In US currency that would be 4245 galleons, 8 sickles and 5 knuts. The converter can be found at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/galleons.html.
But the currency wouldn’t change for U.S. currency. The amount in galleons would stay the same — perhaps only its worth would change.
The pewter cauldron is one of JK’s very few errors – or rather, an error on the part of a Hogwarts secretary. Pewter is a very soft, low-melting metal, quite unsuitable for putting over a fire to brew things in.
wasn’t that one of the reasons Percy was writing that article on faulty cauldrons? 🙂
[…] How Much Does it Cost to go to Hogwarts? […]
[…] A recent post on Centives, a blog from the Economics Society at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, found that plenty of wizarding families were breaking Gringotts bank to have their students go to at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Between tuition, books and academic supplies, the total to £26,816 ($42,752). And that's just for the first year. […]
[…] LeHigh University has calculated the cost of magical education in England. Their blog post, “How much does it cost to go to Hogwarts?” estimates the cost of Harry Potter’s first year at the […]
Dang, even if you had to pay $42,752 USD a year, it would still be a bargain considering all you get. You learn spells to cure injuries and aliments (compared to the cost of health insurance!), you learn spells for cleaning the house (wouldn’t need to pay a housekeeper anymore) and you learn to fly on a broom (have you seen the cost of airfare lately?!).
[…] Wow, that’s a lot of cash. The Weasley children were very lucky to be on scholarship. The full breakdown of cost can be found HERE. […]
In the second book, Hermiones parents are seen at Gringotts, changing their muggle money, so there must be some sort of exchange rate.
[…] ¿Cuánto cuesta un año de educación en Hogwarts? […]
[…] In case you’re looking to enroll your kids (or yourself), here’s how much it costs to attend Hogwarts. […]
Discussing the exchange rate between Galleons and Pounds or dollars makes lite sense. Wizards have little desire for muggle products (except possibly food) and certain raw materials. Products created by witches and wizards on the other hand are illegal to sell to muggles (a word so hated by my muggle spell checker that it offers up any word in substitution). There is no basis in trade and so no basis in exchange rates, except as galleons, sickles, and knutes are valued as their raw metals of gold, silver, etc.
And Hogwarts is a free state run school. You never see in any of the letters that Harry receives (most notably the letter inviting him to attend Hogwarts) any mention of scholarships or tuition, something which would have to have been sent to Harry, as the Dursleys very definitely would not have paid his tuition.
[…] students studying economics at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania decided to calculate the amount that Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore might have charged his young […]
Very probably state funded. Otherwise the Weasleys wouldn’t stand a chance.
Considering the actual costs: the number of teaching staff at the institution is not very high. How many teachers are at the main table? The same goes for support staff: one (1) caretaker and his cat, a groundskeeper and his dog, and a lot of house elves who do not earn wages. All they need is full boarding and that can not be very expensive, considering the nature of the elves and the work they do for it. I also do not get the feeling that the education materials or methodologies are frequently updated which limits the expenditure on staff development considerably. So far, it seems that the only really high costs will be the maintenance of the building, methinks. Yet there is never mention of that in the books. Must all be done over the summer?
Why does this thread remind me of the Clerks dialogue about construction workers on the Death Star?
Good point about the Weasleys!
I actually never got the impression that there is a tuition cost for Hogwarts. I always thought it was free to attend, you just buy your own supplies.
Just like our public school system???
@addysopinion *comprehensive (public school is a form of private boarding school, eg Eton.)
A cheap Chinese Celestron telescope? Please, choose something that people will actually use.
do they have scholarships?
[…] How Much Does it Cost to go to Hogwarts? — (Via Freakonomics.) […]
You forget that there is probably a decently large wage premium for witches and wizards relative to muggles. Given the immense skill-gap, and the fact that the wizarding world has their own government and currency, I would presume that $42,000 is quite affordable for a wizarding family. For example, the average 10 Yuan cab fare in Beijing is expensive for middle class Chinese, but quite cheap at around $1.50 for Americans. The one group who would need help affording Hogwarts would be the muggle-born students. While Hermione’s parents were both dentists and could probably afford Hogwarts, I wonder how many muggle-born kids have an aptitude for magic, but cannot afford a Hogwarts education.
On a side note, this opportunity to mix Harry Potter and economics just made my day!
You forget that they have a fund for kids who have no way of affording a magical education. Remember when Dumbledore went to the orphanage and gave Tom Riddle a bag of money to buy his school stuff? he said it was from a fund thingy
the real question is: how much is that in galleons?
I’ve always wondered what the exchange rate of Galleons to dollars is…I was figuring maybe $15-20 to one Galleon?
The Galleons look to be about one ounce of gold or there about. So the true value of gold is done on the world market and as of this posting is worth almost $1600 an ounce.
The exchange rate has been guestimated by the powers-that-be (AKA J.K. Rowling) as 5 GBP to 1 galleon.
Can’t you get a scholarship or something?
Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort) was told that there was a scholarship available for orphans and such.
So yes, this was probably how the Weasleys were able to afford everything, even though the father was a head of a department at the Ministry and the family did all that they could with second-hand equipment.
This makes it obvious that, across the pond in the United States, only rich kids get a university-level education in their wizardry. The rest probably have to use Google and teach themselves. I bet the accidents are spectacular.
This is how area 51 came to be. Bad wizarding education control.
Wizardary education in the US is very expensive. Using Harvard fees as a guide, these are the costs involved:
Tution £ 32,971.00
Room and board (21 meals per week) 9,331.00
Student fees and insurance 1,866.00
Books and required supplies 1,740.00
Misc. fees and charges 311.00
Total annual cost £ 46,219.00
Actually, in the wizarding world, students don’t generally go on to university level studies. They’re done after they complete their 7th year, and they’re considered adults once they turn 17. If they choose to pursue their studies it isn’t in a formal educational system.
So, being rich wouldn’t make a bit of difference in the U.S.
Hogwarts is good- but not university-level. These are middle and high-schoolers (US) that we’re talking about. You have to go on for further training if you’re looking at that sort of education. Why else was Harry taking specific classes 6th (and would have 7th) year? To get into Auror training. Gotta have the chops if you want to be FBI, yes?
[…] Link -via Marginal Revolution | Image credit unknown, via Diary of a Death Starlette […]
J.K. Rowling has said in interviews that Hogwarts is a state-run school and attendance is free. This is bolstered by the fairly free hand the Ministry of Magic seems to have in intervening—in Order of the Phoenix they force the school to take on a “high inquisitor” who eventually usurps the Headmaster position, and in Deathly Hallows the Voldemort-controlled Ministry seems to directly appoint a new headmaster (though I suppose that could have been achieved by intimidating the Board of Governors).
Even if tuition is free, though, that’s still something like £1000 of mandatory equipment, and presumably several hundred pounds more of replacements and additional textbooks for each of the other years. It’s no wonder the Weasleys had to stretch to educate seven children.
[…] an excellent post on calculating how much they should be putting aside for their kids’ education! […]
Just wanted to point out one little discrepancy. The first point made in this report is that “Hogwarts is believed to be the best wizarding school in England [and] the average tuition for a year at England’s five most prestigious boarding schools is about £25,800.” According to the books the location of Hogwarts is most likely in Scotland, not England. If this is the case, then we must calculate the average cost of tuition at Scotland’s most prestigious schools. I found this site [http://www.best-schools.co.uk/league-tables/scottish-schools-a-levels.aspx] which lists the country’s best schools according to grades. From this site, one can calculate that the average cost of tuition is closer to £24,849, almost £1000 less than the original number. Hope this helps!
why do you assume that Hogwarts charges tuition fees?
I would expect it to be funded by Wizard taxpayers
Exactly! The poor Weasleys have 7 kids to put through schooling. And also, Hogwarts is the ONLY school in England for Whichcraft and Wizardry. The others are in France and probably Germany or something.
I agree!!! I have two little wizards in elementary school and my tax money is not even paying for schools supplies those are coming out of my pocket!!
[…] of the release of the last Harry Potter movie (which I’m quite excited to see later today!), a blog post, via Marginal Revolution, trying to estimate the annual cost of attending […]
[…] In honour of the release of the final Harry Potter Film, Centives decided to investigate what it would cost to go to Hogwarts. Hogwarts is believed to be the best wizarding school in England. The average tuition for a year at England's five most prestigious boarding schools is about £25,800. On page 51 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry receives a letter detailing the equipment that he is required to purchase for Hogwarts. The let … Read More […]
You didn’t take into account the cost to hire people creating visual effects whenever you cast a spell so that, you know, they look like real magic.
Harry Potter is set in England. It’s country in western Europe. They are much more liberal about using state funds to help people do things get an education. Especially someone as potentially dangerous an uneducated witch or wizard. I mean the uneducated ones, especially the muggle-born ones could wreack all sorts of untentional havoc. Now you’ve got me thinking what a mess the magical education system must be in the USA. Where it’s probably pay as you go. Wait why am I devoting so much my time thinking of fictional magical educational systems?
>Harry Potter is set in Scotland.
Fixed that for you.
The Ministry of Magic, and therefore the centre of control in the wizarding world, is in London, England. Hogwarts is in Scotland, yes, but most likely it would fall under English jurisdiction.
I agree with finmagik. Not only is school education more funded in Europe, there are other elements in the production of magical items that cannot be easily compared in a non-magical community.
For example, hand-tailored robes would cost us 100 pounds, but in a world where the tailoring is done with a flick of the wand, increasing production and decreasing the amount of time actually needed to produce the robes, the cost is less.
Furthermore, the production in England caters to a larger group than in a non-magical world. All students would be buying the same supplies, also lowering the production costs.
@randophoria
The software won’t let me respond to you directly. There is no such thing as an “English juristiction”, England does not have its own government. The Ministry of Magic is located in Whitehall and presumably a Ministry of Her Majesty’s Government just like any other Ministry. Therefore it is not English, it is British, and responsible for governing matters throughout Britain.
Also it is made clear that the Ministry does not usually hold direct control over the operation or funding of Hogwarts. It is only in the fifth book where the Ministry makes a concerted effort to take over the school. Otherwise the school is governed independently.
Magical Education in the USA?
Whoa Boy! You had to ask. You are right. It is a mess!
Historically, until the early 20th century, due to the pervasive protestantism of the country, magical education was accomplished almost entirely abroad, American wizards and witches would send their children to European (or rarely) Asian academies. There was the odd exception for wizarding “homeschooling” which had decidedly positive results, but was not widely practiced. Of course, there have always been rumors of small, isolated and secretive ‘native American’ or ‘Carribean’ schools. There is also a tall tale regarding US General Sherman torching a southern school of magic during his fateful march to the sea in 1864.
This haphazard approach was changed during the First World War, under the Administration of Woodrow Wilson, who was, unknown to most Americans, a partially trained wizard in his own right, having been secretly trained in an Eastern European Wizarding academy for several years in his youth. Wilson’s admiration for the European penchant for War, Socialism and magic enabled him to establish the Federal Magician’s Progression, under which America’s first secret wizarding academy, Innsforth was founded in 1917. Innsforth was located near Dunwick, Massachusetts. The Academy was for men only. Not only that, but the school was also closed to racial minorities. The Academy stayed open nearly seven years, until Calvin Coolidge’s administration shut down the academy in 1924 citing a variety of justifications ranging from the then current Prohibition climate to budgetary restrictions. Franklin Delano Roosevelt resuurected the defunct agency in 1934, some think, in hope of ameliorating the Great Depression. The agency was reformed, reorganized and renamed the Federal Secular Miracle Administration (FESMA). The deteriorating Dunwich campus was demolished (though not without significant loss of life by the construction crew due to an unfortunate accident). New Wizarding campuses were built in downtown New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. A women’s only campus was opened in San Francisco, California. A minority-only school was planned for Tallahassee, Florida, but funding was withheld by the legislators of southern states for nearly three decades.
Enrollment in the academies peaked in 1938, with some interest being expressed by private institutions in developing their own “secular miracle” curriculums. Unfortunately, due to a sensation corruption scandal at the Chicago campus the Federal Government nationalized all magical education. The scandal caused permanent harm though and the Chicago campus closed on the eve the US entry in late 1941. Interest in magical training was diminished during the Second War War, though, there are many (still classified) examples of warlocks and witches contributing to the War effort on multiple fronts. Some of these stories inevitably leaked in to the popular press and were reported as stories of super-powered heroes battling the Axis powers.
Federal budget cuts accompanying the end of World War 2, unwanted publicity from the popular press and rising tensions of the Cold War prevented large scale investment in the magical education. The existing campuses limped along with minimal contribution. In 1954, FESMA was re-organized into the National Miracle Management Administration (NMMA) and new campuses were planned for several large US Cities. Other changes included the gender integration of the New York and Philadelphia campuses. San Francisco remainded an “all-witches” campus. Funding of the Tallahassee campus was blocked by recalcitrant southern politicians. These measures allowed a brief resurgence in magical education in the US, until 1956, when the House Un-American Activities committee conducted a secret hearing on the possibility of Communist infiltration into the American Magical Academies. This investigation resulted in the blacklisting of a significant portion of American Secular Miracle instructors. As a result, many staff and instructors at the American Academies left the United States and emigrated to Europe. Many found positions in the European schools. A few professors made high protest statements by joining the staff at Eastern European and Soviet magical institutions. The resulting exodus decimated the American Academies with the result that the Philadelphia Academy closed in 1959.
In 1961, the New York City and San Francisco campuses were forcibly integrated. In 1965 the Johnson Administration was finally able to overcome the delaying tactics of southern Senators and fund the Tallahassee Campus. That Campus was completed in 1968, but enrollment was much less than expected.
In 1975, the Agency’s name was shortened from ‘National Miracle Management Administration to merely ‘National Management Administration’ (NMA). To this day, no one can recall how the decision was made regarding the final name.
In 1983, the NMA was placed under the Department of Defense as part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. As a result their budgets were increased ten-fold and some wizards and witchs were accepted into the United States Air Force as officers. There are also rumors that the newly minted Wizard-Officers played a role in the final days of the Cold War, including an elaborate bluff of Premier Gorbachev at the famous Reykjavik summit in Iceland in 1987.
In 1994, the NMA was ejected from the Department of Defense and established as its own, civilian agency once more. However the military did establish their own military Wizarding Academy, located at the Cheyenne Mountain complex, in Colorado and another secret location in the New Mexico desert.
Over the last fifteen (or so) years, the civilian academies in New York, San Francisco and Tallahassee have kept a low profile, slowly growing in size and importance. Recent events in England, have only emphasized the need for Americans to value their magical assets and to maintain a steady engagement with the rest of the Magical World.
Very nice!
The plural of “cauldron” should not have an apostrophe in it.
We’ve fixed it now, thanks!
[…] 6. How much does it cost to go to Hogwarts? […]
I’m not seeing a Galleons, Sickles, Knuts exchange rate.
If Dumbledore’s power to create things with a waive of his wand (e.g. feasts) is not unique to him, I’d suspect that there is serious hyperinflation going on with wizard currency because it’s essentially a world without scarcity.
Someone hasn’t read the books, obviously. The House Elves prepared the feasts in the Hogwarts Kitchens. Dumblestore merely apparated it up to the dining room.
Besides, I’m sure the currencys have standard anti-counterfeiting charms built into them. Otherwise they wouldn’t be stable stores of value worth hoarding in Gringotts’ vaults. Duh.
Clearly, you have not read the books. Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration means that no one can magically create food — there can and will be plenty of scarcity, and there is no shortage of starvation, as we see even the Trio go hungry on their mission through the seventh book.
Still cheaper than my college tuition!
more expensive