Key Insight 78% OF OPPORTUNITY EDUFINANCE PARTNER SCHOOLS ARE AFFORDABLE TO FAMILIES LIVING IN EXTREME POVERTY December 2025
In June 2025, the World Bank updated the global poverty lines for low, lower-middle, and upper-middle income countries.1,2 Based on these new definitions of global poverty, Opportunity International EduFinance (Opportunity) has updated its country-specific framework to define an ‘affordable non-state school’ through the lens of low-income families’ access to these schools. Applying this methodology to 15 countries3 show that 76.3% of EduQuality schools and 79% of SLA-participating schools charge fees that are affordable to families living below the global definition of extreme poverty.
How Does Opportunity Define an Affordable Non-State School? There is significant debate in academic literature around whether low-fee private schools are affordable for low-income families.4 Given the lack of a clear “Yes or No” consensus in the literature, Opportunity finds the more useful question to be “what is the maximum school fee that is affordable to a low-income family in X country?” By defining this maximum threshold, one can then apply these criteria to any school in any country to determine if its fee structure would be affordable to a low-income family. In academic research, there is similarly no consensus around what constitutes an affordable school fee. Opportunity conducted a full literature review and identified six methodologies proposed by leading academic researchers of how to define an affordable school fee threshold.
Key Findings of the Literature Review Educational expenditure is typically based on financial indicators such as gross national income (GNI) per capita, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, minimum wage, or income poverty lines. Many methodologies fail to consider other educational expenses in addition to school fees, including uniforms, textbooks, and school meals. Across several academic papers, as outlined in Figure 1, affordability is defined as a maximum percentage of household income, per capita income, or minimum wage, adjusted for household size and number of children. --------------------------------------1. June 2025 Update to Global Poverty Lines. World Bank Factsheet June 5th, 2025. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/factsheet/2025/06/05/june-2025-update-to-global-povertylines#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20new%20poverty,be%20living%20in%20extreme%20poverty. 2. World Bank Country Classifications by Income Level for 2024-2025. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/world-bank-countryclassifications-by-income-level-for-2024-2025 3. Including all 13 countries where EduQuality operates and 11 out of 13 countries with Education Finance Products (EFP)-facilitated SLA workshops. The remaining two SLA countries (Guatemala and Senegal) did not have available data. 4. Opportunity EduFinance, 2023. Sole Proprietor Low Cost Private Schools Evidence Brief. March, 2023. https://edufinance.org/publications/research-and-learning/education-finance-network-sole-proprietor-low-cost-schools-conditions-for-success/