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harry potter - Where did Hogwarts get money for salaries, food and other purchases?


We know that you can't transfigure food, so you have to grow it or buy it. Ditto money.


I'm sure that aside from some medicinal plants Herbology Professor had there were no farmlands at Hogwarts. So they must have bought food (as well as potions ingredients for Snape etc...). And they needed to pay the teacher salaries.



Where did all that money come from according to canon?


Ministry funding?


Tuition?


Patent money on Dumbledore's inventions?


Philanthropic donations by Malfoys and co?


Other?



Answer



The Ministry pays for it all, apparently.


From Twitter earlier this evening:




My friends and I are having a super intense debate about the cost of tuition at #Hogwarts


— @emmaonline1 on Twitter (17 July 2015 at 7:53pm)




@emmalineonline1 There's no tuition fee! The Ministry of Magic covers the cost of all magical education!


— @jk_rowling on Twitter (17 July 2015 at 7:59pm)



Given the space allowed by Twitter, it’s understandable that she didn’t go into more detail about the funding structure.


I assume that this doesn’t cover student supplies – there are plenty of instances of students buying their own books, robes, pets, etc.




I wasn’t so surprised to learn that it was Ministry funded.


If there were multiple schools, then I think at least some schools would be private (paid-for), for rich families like the Malfoys. But (almost) everybody goes to Hogwarts, so it’s the equivalent of public education which is government funded. Ergo, Ministry funding.


And the Ministry have a compelling reason to fund the school. There aren’t any other options for education – save private tuition or going abroad – so poor families would just be unable to educate their children. The risk of those students not attending, and so having no knowledge about how to control or use their magic, would be a disaster waiting to happen. It’s much cheaper to educate students at a young age, than mop up their accidents as adults.


I would hope there are strict laws about Ministry non-interference in Hogwarts. Clearly those laws aren’t always enforced *cough* Umbridge *cough*, but it seems like the sort of thing they might have in place.


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