The price of a boarding school is not a number. It is a calendar.

Picture this: it is February 2027 and a family in London receives the email they have been waiting for. Their daughter has a place at a Swiss boarding school for September. Within ten days they must transfer CHF 72,800. By 31 March, another CHF 54,800. Their daughter will not unpack for another seven months, and the family has already paid more than CHF 127,000.

The number everyone compares is the annual fee. The one that decides whether a family feels safe signing is a different one: how much is paid, when, and what comes back if something changes.

What a contract that explains it looks like.

Institut Le Rosey publishes its financial and contractual conditions for 2027-28 in French and English. Boarding and tuition fees are CHF 164,400, in three terms of CHF 54,800. A new student pays a non-refundable registration fee of CHF 3,000. On admission, a deposit of CHF 72,800 is due within ten days: the first term’s fees, which are not refunded if the student withdraws, plus a CHF 18,000 guarantee for extra expenses, with any surplus repaid after the student leaves. The second term is due by 31 March 2027, the third by 31 January 2028.

Then come the supplements. The last two years of the International Baccalaureate add CHF 13,900 a year, the French Baccalaureate CHF 4,900. Students not permanently resident in Switzerland must join the school’s medical insurance, at a fixed CHF 3,950 until their 19th birthday and CHF 8,620 after it. Pocket money runs from CHF 20 to 120 a week depending on the section, and the roughly ten cultural outings a year cost between CHF 60 and 250 each.

I added up only what the document fixes for a new student in the last two IB years who does not live in Switzerland: CHF 164,400 in fees, 3,000 for registration, 13,900 for the IB and 3,950 for insurance. That is CHF 185,250 in the first year, plus a deposit of CHF 18,000 that comes back in part or in full. No pocket money, no outings, no flights.

The clauses that weigh more than the number.

Enrolment renews automatically each year unless the parents or the school say otherwise. Parents who want to withdraw their child for 2027-28 must say so in writing by 31 March 2027. If they withdraw between 31 March and the start of the year, the first term is not refunded. If parents withdraw a student during a term, that term and the following one are payable.

And one clause says a great deal about who owns the relationship with the family. Le Rosey states that it never pays agents or intermediaries, that families who use them pay them directly and that agents cannot influence an admission decision. It also states that it will not ask for or accept donations to any development fund.

The blind spot: the March window.

At a school with a clause like this, a family thinking about moving their child has to decide by 31 March, months before the school year ends. For the school hoping to welcome that family, the window to be found closes in winter, not in summer. A school that waits until spring to become visible arrives late for exactly these families.

There is a second, quieter consequence. If a family only knows a school through an agent, the school does not know that the family is deciding. The website is the one place where the school can speak to them directly, before the deadline and without an intermediary.

A family is not afraid of the number. It is afraid of what nobody has explained.

Where I stand.

I believe a boarding school’s website should publish the full first-year cost, the payment calendar and the rules for leaving as clearly as this contract does, and on the page itself, not only in a PDF. An expensive school does not lose families by saying what it costs. It loses them by making them guess. Clarity on price is the first proof of how a school will treat a family.

What I would check.

• The first-year cost, added up. Fees, registration, deposit, supplements and insurance in one table.
• The calendar. What is paid and when, measured from the date of admission.
• The rules for leaving. Deadline for notice, what is refunded and what is not, explained in plain language and not only in the contract.
• Who pays whom. Whether the school pays agents or not, said on the website.
• The currencies. An approximate equivalent in the families’ own currencies, with the date of the exchange rate.

Where to start.

1. This week

   Read your website as a paying family

   Look for the full first-year cost and count how many clicks it takes to find it.

2. This month

   Write the cost page

   Table, calendar and rules for leaving, reviewed by your finance director and your legal adviser.

3. Before January

   Prepare for the March window

   Content for families considering a move: deadlines, visits and admission outside the usual calendar.

4. Every year

   Update with the new conditions

   As soon as the conditions for the following year are published.

Read your website as a father who has already decided he can afford it and now wants to know when he pays, and what happens if something changes. Three questions, without opening the contract:

• How much does he pay before his daughter sets foot in the school, and on which dates?
• If his plans change in March, how much does he get back?
• If the terms change the following year, who tells him, and how?

If your website answers none of them, the family will answer them with their imagination, and imagination is never cheap. If you would like me to review what a family finds on your website today about the real cost, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. The clauses of your contract are drafted by your legal adviser, not a designer.