Newington and Co-ed: an Ideological Gambit and a High-Risk Bet.
Newington College is three months into one of the most consequential and contentious decisions of its 162 years history, abandoning its identity as an iconic private boys’ school as it transitions to co- education. The legal battle brought by parents and old boys has run its course in the Supreme Court. But ironically, the threat to the school’s co-ed aspirations may not be that insufficient girls seek enrolment in future years to fill available student places.
The real question is the school’s future financial viability and its ability to fund the massive capital program to expand the school and repurpose it for admission of girls to the secondary school campus at Stanmore.
Newington’s capital program is approximately $250 million to become ‘fully co-ed’ by 2032. Around $150 million is earmarked in its latest Master Plan for new buildings to increase enrolments by 300 from 1,500 to 1,800 students. A further $100 million was estimated in 2023 to retrofit existing facilities for girls at all three campuses. This is more than $800,000 per additional student place.
However, the central questions remain unanswered: how will this huge capital program be funded; where is the business case that supports this expenditure; and who are going to fund this expansion? In effect, it would seem that Newington is attempting one of the largest capital transformations in Australian independent school history with no announced or apparent funding program.
For a transformation of this scale — cultural, operational and financial — where is the transparent plan outlining demand, capital costs, funding sources and management of risk? Where is the modelling that demonstrates this decision is grounded in fact-based evidence rather than ideology?
As a not-for-profit institution, Newington has obligations to its stakeholders — parents, students, alumni and the broader community. Yet there has been no detailed disclosure of how a co-educational model that forecasts a significant increase in senior school student numbers will be funded, staged or sustained.
Wouldn’t parents of current students and indeed, of future students of the school have a right to know? Surely the School Council has obligations and accountabilities, not just to the Uniting Church the owners of the school who don’t support debt financing, but also to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission (ACNC). As an ACNC member, the Newington Council is subject to ACNC obligations and guidelines. The ACNC “governance standards require that those entrusted with governance act with care and diligence and be accountable to its members and maintain public trust” .
If the analysis exists that co-education is the superior model for the school, why not disclose it? The law may not require transparency, but accountability to stakeholders with so much at stake surely does.
If, as is widely held, the Council’s decision to convert Newington to a co-ed school is ideologically driven, then the lack of transparency is because the numbers, as far as can be observed from an analysis of its latest published accounts, simply do not add up, or worse don’t exist.
The College’s own published financial trajectory raises serious concerns. Since 2019, operating costs — driven largely by salaries — have grown faster than fee revenue, while government funding has stagnated. On these settings, borrowing capacity is estimated at around $42 million. That is less than one-fifth of the required capital. Even under a highly optimistic — and arguably unrealistic — scenario of a 20 per cent fee increase, debt capacity rises only to around $80 million. Against a $250 million capital expenditure program, and allowing for inevitable cost overruns, the shortfall remains well over $200 million.
If this shortfall cannot be funded from annual operating profit and fee increases and it can’t be funded by debt, can the school rely on the traditional well-heeled benefactors and alumni for major capital funding. But there lies another uncomfortable truth. The co-education decision alienated a significant portion of the alumni base and wider Newington community — the very group historically relied upon to fund school expansion. If that support has fractured, what replaces it?
Unfortunately, Newington’s Foundation offers little relief. The large majority of these funds has been donated for scholarships and bursaries, not building works. Use of these funds would raise serious moral − if not legal − questions. If not available, the funding gap widens further.
At the same time, signals of early demand by parents of girls are hardly reassuring. To stimulate flagging demand, the College offered “Pioneer Scholarships” covering 25–50 per cent of fees for girls — while many existing families continue to pay full fees. Yet, despite these incentives, Kindergarten and Year 5 at both Wyvern House and Lindfield Prep fell short of expected enrolments. What does this say about underlying demand? What impact will this have on future fee revenue?
If these scholarships extend into later years — as logically they must to retain these female students and attract others — what is the long-term impact on fee income? Will further discounting be required to attract girls into Years 7, 8 and beyond? With downward pressure on fee income, how does this impact the capital program that already requires unprecedented funding?
Even with incentives, girls will remain a minority cohort for many years. Research suggests this is not a stable model. And as Dr Paul Burgis of PLC Sydney observed, successful co-education typically requires a majority female population. Yet even if Newington fills all 300 additional secondary places with girls, they would comprise just 16.7 per cent of total enrolments. Certainly, far from a majority.
Compounding these enrolment challenges, families are withdrawing sons to other GPS and independent schools. Longstanding community relationships appear strained. These are not abstract risks — they go directly to enrolment stability and future revenue. This is not a marginal financial challenge. Without the support base of older, more financially endowed alumni that have traditionally underwritten such projects, the problems of funding are existential.
This leads back to the central issue: the abject lack of transparency. If there is a robust, well-analysed financial business case, why not share it? If the assumptions are sound, why not test them openly? If the funding strategy is credible, why not explain it? Under ACNC governance standards of transparency and accountability to stakeholders, the Council would be expected to share it!
Absent transparency, stakeholders are left to draw their own conclusions. And the conclusion many may reach is this: that the decision to go co-educational was driven less by disciplined, fact-based analyses than by ideology. Parents might reasonably conclude, “this is not good enough for my daughters or my sons.”
Because, without clarity on demand, future fee structure, funding and execution, what might normally be a financial strain risks becoming something far more serious — a structural crisis − a high-risk bet on an uncertain future.
Paradoxically, without the added $100 million to repurpose the school for girls, the initial $150 million to expand the school but continue on as a boys’ school, doesn’t seem unduly challenging given the likely retention of a much wider support base. However, an unsupported $250 million untested transformation with no transparent business case or funding model is not bold leadership − it’s a $250 million gamble from which the school may not recover.
Dr Larry Cornell
Management Consultant and Author