What high school actually costs

The sticker price is the first thing everyone looks at, and it's the most misleading number in the whole process.

Public school is free

SFUSD and the public charters charge no tuition. The district issues every student a Chromebook, breakfast and lunch are free for everyone, and schools can't charge for anything that's part of the education. A family can go through four years of a public high school and pay close to nothing, and plenty do. If cost is your main constraint, the public system is an option in its own right, and often an excellent one.

Private tuition is a range

Faith-based schools span the widest range, from subsidized models where families pay a few thousand a year through the high sixties. Independent schools cluster higher, roughly the low forties to high sixties. A few schools set tuition by family income, so there's no single sticker price at all. Because these numbers move year to year, treat them as a rough shape and check each school for its current figure.

Tuition still isn't the real cost

Two schools with identical tuition can land thousands of dollars apart once you account for the extras, or for what's already included. Some schools fold lunch, a laptop, books, athletics, and trips into tuition. Others charge for each à la carte. That's why every school's page here shows an estimated real-cost range next to the sticker tuition, so you're comparing the whole picture instead of the headline.

Giving sits on top of both columns. Independent schools ask families for annual-fund gifts beyond tuition, and public-school parent associations make the same ask at their own scale. It's voluntary, and no school publishes what families typically give, so the real-cost ranges here leave it out; just know the ask is coming.

Financial aid is more common than people assume

Many private schools meet a meaningful share of demonstrated need, and plenty of families pay well below the published price. If a school feels out of reach, ask before you rule it out. The sticker number is rarely the number every family pays.

None of this is meant to make money the only lens. It's meant to take some of the fear out. Know what's free, ask about aid without embarrassment, and check the tuition and estimated real cost for any school in the directory.