The parents keeping Ballarat's schools alive: families choosing roots over runways

Sarah Chen made her choice on a cold morning last April, standing in the playground at Sebastopol Primary School. Her two children were running between the climbing structure and the basketball court, and she realised she wasn't looking for an exit strategy anymore.

Three years ago, Chen worked in Melbourne's CBD. She commuted 90 minutes each way, rarely saw her kids before bedtime, and lived in a cramped rental in Footscray on $2,400 a month. Last year, she and her partner bought a four-bedroom weatherboard in Mount Pleasant for $685,000—less than half what an equivalent property costs in Melbourne's inner suburbs. Now she runs a part-time accounting practice from home.

Chen represents a quiet reversal happening across Ballarat's school communities. While property prices in Melbourne and Sydney have pushed young families into a holding pattern, parents in this regional city are making deliberate decisions to stay put. Schools are reporting fuller enrolments, and families are committing to decades-long stays rather than treating houses as stepping stones.

The shift matters because it changes the texture of Ballarat's neighbourhoods. Schools aren't just educating children—they're anchoring families who might otherwise disappear into the rental market or move interstate. When parents stick around, school canteens fill, parent-teacher associations get funded, and communities develop institutional memory.

Building roots instead of climbing ladders

At Ballarat High School, principal Michael Torr has noticed a change in family stability since 2023. "We're seeing parents who arrived here five or six years ago now sending their second child through the school," he said. "These aren't temporary residents. They're planning fifteen-year stays."

Torr points to the school's investment in practical programs—year 9 carpentry and metalwork run in partnership with Ballarat's manufacturing sector, which employs 4,200 people according to regional development data. The school's VCE results improved 3.7 points on average between 2024 and 2025, largely because students aren't disappearing mid-way through to follow parents' job transfers.

The Ballarat Catholic Diocese runs five primary schools across the city, and enrolment numbers released in March showed an uptick for the first time since 2019. St Andrew's Primary in East Ballarat added 14 students to its 2026 intake, while Mount Carmel Primary in Sebas noticed wait lists for kindergarten—something unheard of during the decade-long property market climb.

Parents like Marcus Willoughby, a software developer who moved his family from Canberra to Ballarat two years ago, describe a deliberate calculation. "I could earn more in Sydney," he explained. "But I'd be working 50-hour weeks to afford a house worth $1.8 million. Here I earn 20 per cent less and have a house I actually own and time with my kids on weeknights."

The numbers tell a story

Ballarat's median house price sits around $625,000 as of June 2026—a 12 per cent increase from last year, but still a fraction of Melbourne's $1.15 million median. The Regional Development Victoria report from May noted that Ballarat has attracted 7,800 new residents since 2020, with 62 per cent citing "lifestyle and housing affordability" as primary factors.

School communities are adapting to permanence. The Ballarat Tuition and Learning Centre, a non-profit literacy program operating out of the Ballarat Library on Sturt Street, now runs after-school programs three nights a week instead of one, because families aren't moving mid-term anymore. The organisation's data shows 89 per cent of families who enrolled in 2023 were still active in June 2026.

For families considering the shift from Melbourne or Sydney, the reality is straightforward: proximity to schools, affordable mortgages, and full-time work matter more than proximity to a CBD. Ballarat's schools aren't perfect—wait lists for specialist programs remain years long, and rural teaching vacancies persist—but they're improving because they're finally getting the thing every school needs: families who plan to stay.