Tuition and the Number of Kids

amother

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 12:29 pm

We all know there is tuition crises in the US. I still wonder how people make ends meet with large or even semi-large family. We currently pay $7500 plus various fees for a child in kindergarden, and that is with some break. I still wonder how we are going to send the youngest in school, since my husband's salary is not magical. And then the question arises, what if we have more kids? Honestly, I am afraid to think about it.

Some people told me that the scholarship boards look at how much you can actually afford and that is how much you pay. Suppose, schools do have the money to give a break. And suppose, one's family budget allows for $800 for tuition per month. Does it mean, that if you have 2 kids, you gonna pay $400 for each, and with 3 you gonna pay $270, and only $200 with 4? And then you always gonna be at the mercy for school scholarship decisions, and we know yeshivas struggle themselves. Does it mean that no matter how much more you work, take extra work and make your life unbearably harder, you would not get any money for your other expenses, since it would count that now you can afford more for tuition, and you will just pay more for tuition? Forget it, if you need a new or larger car, or a larger house, or a renovations are due, or you want to take the family on vacation once in a while, or send kids to a summer camp or some enrichment activities. All you "extra" money will go to tuition anyway.

My husband wants more kids, and I am simply afraid. With 1 kid in school we can live comfortably more or less, with 2 in school I will have a chance to go to work and hopefully pay for both, and still hope that we still could afford other things like contributing enough to 401K. Having more kids sounds like subscribing to a lifetime of financial trouble.

I understand that we should have bitachon, and Hashem will take care of our needs, and if we are supposed to live in misery, we will no matter how many kids we have. When someone eats in a soup kitchen, that is also a way for Hashem to take care of a person's needs, but I SO don't want to eat from a soup kitchen. Of course, it is in His power to find whatever miraculous ways to supply a family, but is it right to rely on a miracle? In a normal predicable course of events it would be as described above. Is it responsible to bring more kids into this world if you are not sure you would be able to provide for them all, and the existing ones would suffer financially too?

Just wondering what you fellow mothers think about it?

amother

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 1:01 pm

I can tell with certainty that the extra money is no longer there and not all schools just increase your aid as your family grows. This may have been the case yrs ago but now it is not. I know families who can no longer send to camp and pre-school and those who homeschool out of necessity.

Many women go back to work, husbands take a second job, home repairs get neglected, there's less or no money in the bank/savings etc etc

I'm not your rav but don't be a fool. If you have $10k extra for tuition and you end up with 5 kids, very few schools will tell you, fine, pay $2K per kid. So think of ways to increase your income as your family size increases. And be realistic: do the people who need tomchei shabbos, for example, lack bitachon? Did they not daven for parnassah and food? Things don't always work out. That's life.

amother

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 1:09 pm

FYI, we are low income. my dh is a rebbi, I work part time, we have a handful of kids BH . the schools policy when they give us tuition breaks is that they charge us minimum tuition for each kid . minimum tuition is 2800 elementary, 3000 middle school, don't know about high school yet. each year minimum tuition goes up. so they will not accept less than those figures per child. btw, there are ways to reduce tuition, for example one school has a fundraiser where each family has to sell at least 360 dollars of tickets. if you sell an extra thousand dollars worth of tickets you get a $500 tuition break off your total (already reduced tuition statement). I did that last year, I t was hard work selling all of those tickets, but it was worth it for the extra tuition break.]
so no, to answer your question, if you have five kids and ten thousand available for example, I don't think they will just accept the ten thousand...

amother

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 1:30 pm

When speaking to a rav you focus on how financial distress causes you emotional distress. The financial stuff alone is not enough for limiting family stuff but the emotional stress is, along with the strain on shalom bayis. Imo, this "system" is a joke, especially since none of the big rebbeim in my community even end up paying much tuition. Kli kodesh pay close to nothing so it's not actually their problem. And young couples often foolishly think the school will not demand more money than they can pay. And how many young families want to work 50 hrs a week to live at the poverty level so that every last dime goes to tuition?

The system is very broke. And very few young marrieds think about it before they already have a few kids and are just at the start of paying tuition for more than one kid. So good for you OP that you're using your head and realizing that the schools are in debt and they're not going to give you a 75% tuition break just because.