JK Rowling Schools Everyone On What Hogwarts’ Real Cost Of Tuition Is

Kevin O’Keeffe at Mic tried to estimate the cost of attending JK Rowling’s fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the much beloved Harry Potter series.

O’Keeffe used numbers from the books, Pottermore (a gaming site that accompanies the books), and some intuition to estimate that the total cost of attendance would be $43,301.

He starts with a base of $42,000 a year for tuition, and then uses the books to estimate that supplies would be roughly $1,031. It was an impressive feat, before JK Rowling swooped in and said (almost) everything was wrong.

The article’s conclusion was brought to her attention with this tweet.

https://twitter.com/emmalineonline1/status/622116906493943813

Where she releases the bombshell:

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

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 17, 2015

Mic, while disappointed that their conclusion was incorrectly, takes the good news in stride.

.@jk_rowling Guess us Muggles need to get it together.

*waves wand over school loans*

— Mic (@mic) July 17, 2015

And would it be a JK Rowling convo without a zinger?

@micnews Far be it for me to tell you Muggles what to do – but yes. You do.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 17, 2015

And then the article’s writer himself comes onto the scene!

https://twitter.com/kevinpokeeffe/status/622134564874551296

.@kevinpokeeffe The Ministry of Magic thanks you for allow them to clear that up, Kevin.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 17, 2015

All in all, it’s a good time to be a wizard. Will the Ministry of Magic retroactively pay for muggle University debt? Maybe? Please?