Why Expensive School Trips Are So Divisive (And What Schools Can Actually Do About It)
I was sitting in the school gymnasium on a Tuesday night, balancing a cup of lukewarm coffee on one knee, when the head of the “global programs” committee clicked to her third slide. It was a photo of students in bright rain jackets standing on a misty mountain ridge in Costa Rica. Very beautiful. Very expensive. The price, in bold lettering, was $4,850 per student.
The mother next to me, a woman I vaguely knew from pickup line small talk, didn’t say anything. She just slowly put her hand down—the hand that had been raised to ask a question about the itinerary. She didn’t ask it. She sat back and folded her arms. I knew exactly why.
Her daughter and my son were in the same year. I’d overheard her on the school steps a few weeks before, telling another parent that a school trip to Iceland wasn’t in the cards this year, maybe next year, if the car held up. The way she said “maybe” sounded like a door closing. Now she was watching a presentation about how this international adventure would build confidence, global citizenship, and resilience, and she was trying very hard not to sigh out loud.
I’m not against school trips. I’ve been a teacher, and I’ve seen what an overnight camp trip to the coast does for a shy kid. The first time they have to pack their own bag, the first night away from home, the shared awkwardness of group meals—there’s real learning in that. And I’ve also seen the other side. The trip to Rome the year before had been the talk of the playground for months. But when the final payment date passed, the group photos on social media showed eleven students out of a class of thirty-two. Nobody mentioned the missing twenty-one. We all just looked at the pictures and planned for the next one.
Here’s the thing about ridiculously expensive school trips: they don’t just give some students an amazing experience. They also give a lot of students a very clear, public lesson about what their family can’t provide. That’s a lesson no child should be learning through a permission slip.
The businessman father in the audience asked about “scholarships” and “financial assistance,” using the bright voice of someone who doesn’t need them. The head of the committee nodded and said yes, there was a fund, but the details were vague. We had a silent auction last spring, she reminded us. It raised enough for one partial scholarship. One. For a trip that would send more than a dozen kids to Central America.
What stunned me wasn’t the cost. Airlines, hotels, guides, insurance—I get that international trips cost money. What stunned me was how quickly we all accepted the divisiveness as a normal part of school life. We didn’t say the uncomfortable things, like: “If we offer a $4,850 trip, we’re actively creating two different school experiences for kids.” We didn’t acknowledge that the kid whose family can pay gets a passport, a taste of independence, and a line on their college application, while the kid whose family can’t gets to watch everyone else pack.
I remember my own son coming home from school two years ago, before this new international program started, when the year six residential trip was a three-day outdoor camp an hour from home. The whole year went. All thirty of them. The kids with allergies, the kids who’d never slept away from their parents, the kids whose families lived paycheck to paycheck—they all stood in the same muddy field, climbing the same wooden platforms and burning the same toast over the same camping stove. It wasn’t glamorous. Some of them cried. But nobody was left behind. And honestly, that’s the point of school: to do some things together, not to do the most impressive things apart.
So what’s actually the point of a $4,850 trip? I think the honest answer is that the point is not really education. A three-day local trip can teach just as much about independence and resilience if the kids are given real responsibility. The expensive trip is about exposure, yes, but it’s also about branding. Schools want to say they offer global opportunities. Parents want to say their child went to Costa Rica. The photos look great on the newsletter.
But let me implement some realism here. I’m not saying every school should cancel every international excursion. Some schools genuinely have the resources and the parental support to make a truly incredible trip accessible to everyone—if the fund is properly set up, if the school subsidizes with their own budget, if the “extras” are built into the price. It’s when the trip becomes a luxury item with a fundraising committee that we need to stop and think.
What can actually be done? A few things I’ve seen work, in real schools, without perfect funding.
First, tier the opportunities. Run the local residential trip for everyone—make it compulsory, like my son’s year six camp. Then offer the international trip as an optional extra that happens outside the core curriculum calendar, so it doesn’t dominate the whole school year’s conversation. When the big trip is an add-on, it’s easier for the families who can’t afford it to say no without feeling like their child is missing a school event.
Second, if a school does offer an expensive trip, cap the cost at what the average family in the community can realistically pay. Not what the wealthiest can pay. There’s a school near ours that switched from a week in Spain to a long weekend in a heritage town, with a language immersion program run by a local university. It cost $350, including food and accommodation. They still went away together. They still spoke the language. The only “disposable” thing was the price tag.
Third, if you’re a parent facing this right now, don’t wait for the school to fix it. Go to the PTA meeting and be the one who says what everyone else is thinking. Not “we need scholarships,” but “how do we make sure every child in this class can go?” You might be surprised how many other parents are quietly relieved that someone finally said it. Suggest a survey. Suggest payment plans that start in year four rather than year six. Suggest fundraising the whole cost for the entire year group instead of one scholarship.
And if your own kid’s school won’t change? Then have the conversation at home, plainly and without shame. “We can’t afford this, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean you lose out on learning. We’re going to do something else together.” I’ve learned that kids understand more than we expect, and what they actually resent is not the trip itself. They resent the feeling of standing outside the circle while everyone else is talking about what to pack.
I don’t look at the Costa Rica slide with hatred. The teachers running it genuinely believe they’re giving kids a life-changing experience. Maybe they are. But I keep thinking about the mother next to me, and her daughter. The daughter didn’t raise her hand either. She was too busy trying to figure out how to tell her friends she wasn’t going.
At the end of the meeting, the head of the committee asked for more questions. The businessman father asked about the discount for early bird registration. Two people raised their hands about packing lists. Nobody brought up the 21 kids who weren’t in the photograph.
The meeting adjourned. The mother next to me threw out her coffee cup and said, “Well, that’s that then.” She walked out into the car park, and I could see her shoulders shift, like she was already putting it at the back of her mind. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I don’t have a neat answer. I just know that the next time our school plans a trip, I’m going to be the one asking the question nobody wants to hear. And I’m going to bring another parent with me. Maybe one with a smaller car payment.
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