Throughout 2020 to 2026, many parents of students attending St. Mary’s International School in Tokyo have expressed their complaints and concerns about the rising tuition fees at the school. In truth, it is not hard at all to see the reason for their frustration— tuition fees in the 2020~2021 school year have been ¥2,300,000, but their prices have risen as much as ¥500,000 in the passing of five years, summing up to a hefty sum of ¥2,800,000 for the 2025~2026 school term. Comparing the two vastly differing prices, some students even started to harbour a dislike for the school. In a student-led survey taken in 2025 for the 8th grade population at the school, 49%—almost half—of the participants answered “disagree” for the following question: “Do you think the tuition fee of Saint Mary[’s] is matching the quality of learning, activities, and school life?” Although the opposing majority of the grade answered “agree”, that does not cancel out the voices of those who disagree, and in fact, identically expresses their discontent.
However, this is certainly not the case—and should not be the case—as the school proclaims its identity as a “non-profit organisation”. As two conflicting standpoints arise in the question of the increasing tuition fees, the students’ and parents’ real focus becomes, “Is the rising tuition really worth the education we are receiving?”
Rate of Tuition Increase & Exact Values
To understand the extent of the parents’ concerns, it is important to examine how much tuition has increased over recent years. The exact tuition values of each school year from 2020 to 2026 are shown in the bar graph to the left. The tuition for 2025~2026 was taken from the St. Mary’s International School homepage as of 2025, and as for the older dates, a digital archive called the Wayback Machine was used to visit older captures of the SMIS homepage to find the tuition of those years. As the chart above shows, prices have increased between ‘21~‘22 by ¥120,000, and consecutively between ‘23 and ‘25 with the former increase being ¥210,000 and the latter being ¥170,000. These large-scale increases in tuition over multiple years are most likely what piqued the parents’ attention.
Quality of Education at St. Mary’s: Strengths & Weaknesses
The aforementioned increases in tuition are a major contributor to the parents’ concerns; However, when they are confronted with what the school truly has to offer, the expensive tuition becomes, at least, somewhat reasonable. With not only an advanced level of education, including the IB (International Baccalaureate) Program for high schoolers and a heavy focus on global citizenship, the school has various facilities and devices installed for various purposes. The many machines, tools and instruments set in the Design Technology, Art, and Band rooms are one example in the field of fine arts; others include the multiple science labs, and especially the large-scale athletic facilities such as the field, gym, pool, and the Multi-Purpose Halls. This school campus setting with these installations allows for an exceedingly wide range of studies and arts, only made possible by the school’s tuition, its main source of income.
However, as previously indicated in the survey results on the first page, almost half of the 8th-grade students were not satisfied with the quality of learning compared to the tuition. To investigate the reason behind this, the 8th grade students, within the same survey, were given the chance to describe what they thought would make classes more enriching and meaningful, and some of the most popular answers were the ‘opportunity for student input’ and ‘optional seating arrangements’. Although ‘optional seating arrangements’ have to be put aside as designated seats are sometimes necessary, students indeed have very few outlets to express their opinions and complaints, especially when it comes to unreasonable and/or mistaken punishments by teachers. Therefore, their only hope to convey an idea to the administration would either be through the Student Council, or direct communication to the administrative staff, which many people in the grade feel reluctant about. The restrictions on school laptops, although having little impact on the actual learning, are another point of contention—although some of them are reasonable, like website filtering, many aesthetic and functional features that would, to an extent, benefit students, such as profile pictures, system appearance, control center, and low-power mode, are limited. Currently, the restrictions placed as of 2025 are at an unfair level, limiting even the ability to install new software updates.
Investigation Results – The School’s Perspective
To grasp more relevant and reliable information, members of the St. Mary’s faculty were interviewed about their opinions on the school’s tuition. Dr. Andrew Davies, the incoming headmaster of this school, “…[doesn’t] think that the tuition at St. Mary’s is very high, but within the Tokyo/Japan context, [the school is] probably in the middle of schools”. Indeed, some other international schools in Tokyo, such as ASIJ (American School in Japan) and St. Maur International School, had an even larger tuition fee, requiring ¥3,425,000 and ¥3,142,000, respectively. On the other hand, there are also schools which require much lower tuition fees, like Seisen International School and Sacred Heart which only require a sum of ¥2,370,000 and ¥2,620,000 each. This suggests that St. Mary’s’ tuition fee of around ¥2.8 million is, in fact, a median value between Seisen’s ¥2.3 million and ASIJ’s ¥3.4 million, leading to the conclusion that St. Mary’s provides a fairly reasonable tuition fee.
The school’s setup of how they expend their income also seems extremely efficient. According to Mr. Matthew Wakabayashi, the business manager of St. Mary’s, the school “…spends a lot of money on facilities…[and] compensation, meaning how we pay our teachers or staff”. An example of one of their projects was undertaken in the summer of 2024, by replacing some of the school’s lighting with LED lights, most likely with the purpose of reducing energy costs and usage.
Dr. Davies also mentioned the costs required for “…purchasing materials and supplies…textbooks, technology…[and] salary” were also present, but commented that “from what [he has] seen in terms of expenditures and approvals and systems…[he doesn’t] see money being wasted.”
Moreover, the fact that uncontrollable factors existed cannot be ignored; due to the costs in general that cover international travel and transport, otherwise known as overseas expenses, which keep increasing every year, the school had to raise its tuition fees. “It’s better when you’re running the school’s finances to always do a small tuition increase, just to stay on top of increased costs”, Dr. Davies remarks. The effects of yen depreciation and inflation also left a heavy mark; Mr. Wakabayashi explains that “[For] our teachers, who need to eat and live in Japan,…when we look at inflation…Our compensation, our pay, has to actually go up as well because of the inflation. So that is one of the reasons why we decided to raise, to increase our fees”.
Additionally, the costs used for maintenance work had accordingly increased by “at least 10~20%” from past years, as a result of the contractors invoicing the school with a high price, because of inflation and high labour costs. How expensive land is in Tokyo exacerbates this matter—As Tokyo ranks significantly high in land prices globally, the school in general needs more costs for maintenance, adding to the aforementioned maintenance cost. This increase in the expense directly reflected the school’s need for more income, and this ultimately led to the increased tuition fee.
Conclusion: Is the Tuition Raise Explained?
To aggregate the information collected and discussed, the relationship between tuition and educational quality at St. Mary’s International School presents a complex picture, having qualities that match both sides of the argument. The school provides access to an exceptionally wide range of educational and specialised facilities, with clear, transparent explanations of how and where tuition fees are used and why it increased. However, data reveals that 49% of the students remain unconvinced that these factors fully account for the increasing tuition over many years, mirroring their opinions of the quality of education. Whether it be by pure misunderstanding caused by the lack of explanation given by the administration, or simply a dissonance between parents and the school, drawing the “satisfaction line” for both parties must be a priority; Ultimately, in order to balance the tuition fee and the education provided, a place for open dialogue must be established—including not only parents and the school, but also the voices of students; the ones that are the most directly impacted the quality of education.
