The average increase in exam entry fees applied by England’s three exam boards between 2020 and 2025 has significantly outstripped inflation, Tes analysis shows.
The inflation-busting increases have been labelled “completely unacceptable” and “hard to stomach” by sector leaders, who have called for the exam boards to lower their fees and the government to consider “action against profiteering”.
Fee increases have surpassed inflation by as much as 3.55 percentage points at GCSE and 2.99 percentage points at A level, according to the analysis of 10 core subjects.
Exam boards say they deliver exams as efficiently as possible and have had to respond to cost pressures.
The board that exceeded inflation by the most was Pearson. Its A-level entrance fee has increased by an average of 27.6 per cent over the past five years, adding £28 per entrant. This is nearly three percentage points above inflation (equating to £3 per entrant above inflation).
For GCSEs, this increase was 27.4 per cent over five years, adding £11.54 per entrant. This is 2.67 percentage points above inflation (equating to an extra £1.13 per entrant).
In a close second was OCR, which has also increased its A-level entrance fees by an average of 27.6 per cent - or nearly £30 per entrant - since 2020. This cost rise is 2.88 percentage points, or £3.11 per entrant, above inflation.
For GCSEs, the OCR increase since 2020 was also 27.6 per cent, amounting to £11.50 - 1.86 percentage points or 78p above inflation per entrant.
At AQA, whose entrance fees remain the cheapest of the exam boards despite above-inflation increases, A-level fees rose by an average of 25.6 per cent over the period, or just over £23 per entrant. This is 0.67 percentage points, or 43p per entrant, above inflation.
However, its GCSE entrance fee increases were by far the largest proportionally, rising by an average of 29.4 per cent, or just over £11 per entrant. This is 3.55 percentage points, or £1.35 per entrant, above inflation.
Exam entry fee increases ‘hard to stomach’
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said the above-inflation increases “are really hard to stomach for schools already facing a host of financial pressures”.
“Schools have no choice but to pay exam fees. The only choice they have is which exam board to use… although there is little difference between them,” he added.
While these fee increases perhaps appear small in relative terms, when scaled up to the number of entrants for GCSEs and A levels last summer, the savings schools could have made would have run into the millions.
And the above-inflation fee increases have come during a period of particular financial stress on school budgets, which have “largely stagnated” in recent years, . This follows real-terms cuts to school funding between 2010 and 2019.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It’s completely unacceptable that schools and colleges have been faced with yet another rising cost that they can do nothing about.”
He added that exam boards “must work to keep costs to an absolute minimum rather than make this situation even worse”.
GCSE maths
The exam entry fee with the worst inflation was AQA’s GCSE maths.
AQA increased its entry fee for the subject since 2020 by 9.95 percentage points or £3.63 above inflation per entrant. If this extra cost had not been applied across all GCSE maths entrants in 2024, schools could have saved just over £3 million.
Rob Gasson, CEO of the 11-school Wave MAT, said exam fees are another “hidden” cost that continues to grow “with no justification”.
“It’s high time to question that value of having multiple exam boards…the simple solution seems to be the obvious one: have one exam board with free exams to state schools,” he added.
Mr Gasson said this would put millions back into schools and suggested that nationalised organisation the Scottish Qualifications Authority would be a model to consider.
ձ’ findings are based on what the indicates an exam entry fee in the summer of 2020 should have cost in January 2025, had it followed inflation.
Due to the nature of the bank’s calculator, it is only possible to enter whole numbers - as a result the exam boards’ respective entry fees were rounded to the nearest whole number before entry into the calculator.
Matt Wrack, acting general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, urged exam boards to lower their fees and called on the government to “examine this issue as a matter of urgency with a view to taking firm, effective action against profiteering in education”.
Mr Wrack also questioned why “financially healthy” exam boards were increasing costs “at all, let alone...above the rate of inflation”, given the financial pressure on schools.
The 10 subjects that Tes analysed prices for (because they are offered by all three exam boards) are: biology, business, chemistry, English language, English literature, geography, history, maths, physics and religious studies. Modern foreign languages were excluded for consistency because they are not offered by OCR.
An OCR spokesperson said: “Our fees have broadly matched inflation in recent years. As a not-for-profit, OCR only increases fees when absolutely necessary and we work hard to keep costs low. As well as inflation, changes to exam fees reflect other cost pressures including the essential investment required to keep exams fair, secure and future-proof.”
A Pearson spokesperson said: “We recognise that school budgets are stretched and we will always aim to keep fee increases to a minimum, while providing as much value for money for our qualification fees.
“Included within our fees is two full years of support for teachers. This includes access to scripts at no extra charge, as well as data for school staff to help inform more personalised teaching and learning at both individual school and multi-academy trust (MAT) level.”
A spokesperson for AQA, the only charity of the three exam boards, said that it “seeks to deliver qualifications as efficiently as possible, passing on savings to its customers, which is why we remain highly competitive on price. That includes delivering lower volume qualifications, such as community languages, at a loss.”
Across each of the English Baccalaureate GCSE subjects, AQA exams “generally cost less for schools, colleges and exam centres than those from other exam boards”, the spokesperson said, adding: “Of course, even though we always strive to deliver the best value possible for our customers, it’s worth noting that exam fees make up only 0.6 per cent of total expenditure in schools.”
AQA reinvests all surpluses into further product development and research for the benefit of the education sector, they said.
An Ofqual spokesperson said that it requires exam boards to publish their prices “so that schools and colleges can make informed choices about which qualifications they offer”. It will be publishing its annual Qualification Price Statistics for 2024-25 later this month.
The Department for Education has been approached for comment. The Joint Council for Qualifications declined to comment.
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