School-fees inflation in Nigeria — primary, secondary, tertiary 2024-2026

When middle-class Nigerians talk about the 'cost of living crisis', housing and food usually get top billing. But the line item that has moved fastest in real terms over the last 24 months is school fees. The /inflation tracker we run shows education in the CPI sub-basket up 41% YoY — but the headline understates what families actually pay, because public-school fees (still single-digit in many states) drag the average down.

Private primary schools (Lagos baseline). A mid-tier private primary (think Greensprings, Children's International, Avi-Cenna level) charged ₦650K-₦950K/term in 2024. Same schools in May 2026: ₦1.05M-₦1.55M/term — a 47-63% increase over 24 months. Top-tier (British International School, Lekki British) crossed ₦3M/term this year. The driver is straightforward — teacher salaries indexed to a partly-dollarised expat scale, diesel for school buses + AC, and imported textbook costs.

Private secondary. Similar 45-55% rises. Greensprings Year 9 went from ₦1.4M to ₦2.1M/term. Day Waterman in Abeokuta crossed ₦4M/term. The harder-hit segment is the ₦200K-₦400K/term schools — many shut between 2024 and 2026 because parents couldn't absorb fee increases, and operating costs killed the schools that tried to hold prices flat.

Federal universities — the biggest jump. UNILAG, UI, and OAU undergraduate fees rose from ~₦20K-₦60K/year in 2023 to ₦100K-₦190K/year in 2026 — increases of 200-400%, depending on faculty. State universities followed (LASU now ₦150K-₦250K). Private universities (Covenant, Babcock, Bowen) clear ₦1.8M-₦4.5M/year, up 25-35% over 24 months. The federal-university jump is the politically loudest one, but in absolute naira terms still cheap relative to private secondary.

The middle-class squeeze, quantified. A typical Lagos middle-class family with two primary-school children + one secondary-school child now spends ₦9-13M/year on school fees alone, against a household income that may not have moved more than 20% nominally. That's a forced reallocation of disposable income that shows up in every other budget category — fewer family flights (/flights), fewer hotel weekends (/hotels), cheaper supermarket baskets (/basket).

Where it goes from here. Watch September 2026 fee letters — that's when the new academic-year prices land. Three things to track: whether federal universities push past ₦250K (politically explosive but financially likely), whether private secondaries break ₦3M/term as the new mid-market floor, and whether the FX rate (/fx) stabilises enough to slow the imported-textbook component. Our /state-of-naira dashboard cross-references all three.

For families thinking about offshore options, a UK-undergraduate budget (Russell Group, in-person) now lands at £28-35K/year all-in, which at the parallel rate is ₦47-59M/year — making Covenant or Babcock look like a bargain in pure-naira terms. The honest comparison flips only when you weight post-degree earnings: a UK STEM graduate earning £35K/year in their first job clears more in 18 months than a Lagos-employed Covenant grad clears in 5. The /visa-fees page and /remittance leaderboard keep both sides of that calculation current.