The most expensive school in South Africa with its own nature reserve

Hilton College in KwaZulu-Natal has cemented its place as the most expensive school in South Africa, charging about R100,000 more than other top schools. 

School fees for 2025 are R430,054, meaning that the cost of attending the prestigious school has more than doubled over the past 11 years.

When enrolling for the first time, an additional R105,182.50 must be paid, approximately equivalent to the value of one term. This is a non-refundable entrance fee that will be used to contribute to the school’s development. 

The school’s estate is a whopping 1,600 hectares. This includes the 150-hectare college as well as 650 hectares of a nature reserve that is home to warthog, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, and six species of buck. 

It calls the nature reserve its “best-kept secret” and uses it to encourage a love for the natural world in its students and a respect for the environment. 

Hilton allows its students to camp within 5 km of the school buildings on the weekends, encouraging them to learn self-sufficiency and responsibility. 

The estate is bordered by the Umgeni River and includes four waterfalls.

The school was first established by William Newnham, who attempted to set up a school in Ladysmith in 1867. The venture failed, partly due to Newnham’s inability to stand the stifling summer heat. 

Newnham’s friend, Gould Arthur Lucas, a British Army Officer, heard of his struggles and helped him secure a piece of the Hilton Farmland to build a new school. 

The land was originally a Voortrekker-granted farm named Ongegund. The original farmhouse was expanded to serve as the main school building, and dormitories were set up near the farm’s stables. 

The school opened its doors on 29 January 1872 to 50 students. While Hilton College is now defined by its large, Cape-Dutch style buildings that house hundreds of learners, the institution’s beginnings were much more humble. 

153 years and counting

The school remained just two thatched bungalows on the large plot of land until 1878, when Henry Vaughan Ellis, a Rugby School alumnus, took over the lease of the college and began construction of the school’s first double-story building. 

From this point on, the Hilton grew in size, further buildings were added, and sports fields were cleared.

The school has a strong military history. Newnham formed the Hilton College Guard within the first few months of the school’s opening, the first school-mounted unit in the British Empire. 

It was ranked Detachment Number One in South Africa for over a century, and the cadets were only abolished in 1985. 

Ellis’s vision for the school was to model it on the prestigious English public school system. Following his retirement in 1903, the school was sold to a company owned by Hilton College Alumni. 

Since then, the school has been guided by the leadership of its old boys: the Hiltonian Society.

Over the last 153 years, the school has become one of the top private schools in the country, and the most expensive. 

It uniquely offers a dual academic pathway system of both the IEB and Cambridge learning systems. 

It has consistently achieved a 100% pass rate, and its 116 matriculants for 2024 achieved an average of 2.6 distinctions each. 

While there are schools that achieve a higher distinction rate for a lower price, Hilton’s pricey programme is less about academic achievement than it is about nurturing each boy’s individual needs, desires, and growth. 

The school doesn’t do entrance exams and its selection process does not only look at children who perform well in a traditional classroom setting. The school looks for boys who will resonate with its methods of teaching. 

“We don’t dumb down subjects, because we aren’t a conveyor belt for matric passes,” the school advertises. 

The school has produced a number of prominent South Africans, including Springbok rugby stars Bobby Skinstad and Gary Teichmann, Microsoft executive Paul Maritz, and former MP Tim Harris.

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More photos from Hilton College