At what point would you consider the tuition crisis solved?

mummiedearest

Mon, Dec 30 2013, 10:26 pm

ok, I haven't read all the replies. I won't give a set number, either, because I think that this is caused by more than tuition price.

1) the yeshiva administrations need to treat their schools as businesses. that means expecting everyone to pay or have someone cover the cost. it also means taking constructive criticism, trying to improve their services and marketing.

2) there need to be more options for parents. I don't mean more schools. how about an option to send your child for just hebrew or just english? this would cut the cost for parents who feel they can't pay full tuition. parents can find other ways to supplement.

3) cut sunday school. that costs more money and doesn't serve much purpose, imo. while we're at it, cut regular hours. offer a late stay option (for younger grades, at least) for parents who want to pay extra. this time can be used to deal with advanced topics/extracurricular activities.

4) rent out the school during those now-free sunday hours for extracurricular activities.

5) some schools may want to stop offering school lunch. there can be a lot of waste in school lunch.

I don't think the solution is to set a goal for $5000/year. the solution is to learn to manage money better and charge what is needed to cover costs. once the parents who get breaks without really needing it start to pay, those who do need the break may have better options open to them (such as bartering services).

amother

Mon, Dec 30 2013, 11:20 pm

I think $5000 for elementary school is reasonable.
however times an average of 5 kids, $25,000 a year for tuition is not reasonable at all!

I think the first child should be 5000, the second 4000, the third 3000 the fourth 2000 and the last 1000, which comes out to 14,000 which is still a lot, but manageable.

and if the kids are all in different schools, the tuition should be equally discounted. as in 2800 each.

that would work perfectly for an income of roughly 75k after taxes. maybe for a higher income you can start the first child's tuition higher.

offering deeper discounts for additional kids also eases the burden of not being able to have more kids when you want to have more just because you cant afford it. maybe people would finally be free to have as many children as they WANT instead of limiting their family according to how many kids they can afford tuition for.

notshanarishona

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 12:01 am

amother wrote:

how would that be sustainable? it doesn't cost the school less to educate children from big families. it is a nice idea in theory but not at all practical.

seeker

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 12:25 am

notshanarishona wrote:

how would that be sustainable? it doesn't cost the school less to educate children from big families. it is a nice idea in theory but not at all practical.

I think it could work, but with a higher base price, which might be worth it to us as a community for the sake of having a sustainable education system. While it doesn't cost the school less to educated children from big families, I bet most of their current requests for assistance come from large families that would buckle under multiple tuitions, so why not plan to build it into the system?

The increments might have to be smaller than what was originally suggested (1000 less per kid) because our communities tend towards larger families, so if the second child were always that much less, the system would indeed go broke. But I could see something LIKE this working out in a way that could save face for a lot of people. And I also think that by building these cuts into the system and making it easier for more people to afford tuition, we can build an attitude that tuition is something you pay - I think currently many people are quick to look for discounts because they feel so hopeless about being able to pay in the long run so why not just start out with a mentality to avoid it. By making it easier for an average family to pay standard tuition, paying standard tuition will become more of a given in our culture. Hence more of it will be paid, even if it's a lesser amount per person the total paid to the schools will possibly end up being more, PLUS it will be done with much more dignity than the person who needs to feel like a beggar because he has four kids to educate at 10k per year each.

bamamama

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 1:25 am

greenfire wrote:

when the tax monies will be allotted to private schools alongside public schools

But how many here would want their taxes going to fund madrassas in the Muslim community or Roman Catholic schools? Or Baptist schools where they learn to convert the Jews? I think there would have to be big oversight for this. Govt money = a govt finger in the pot. No more separate but equal. FTR, this bothers me not a bit but I can see how it would bother some.

m in Israel

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 3:58 am

amother wrote:

Fox- in defense. We want tuition to only cover are own kids because if we make a "donation" we get a tax deduction, for tuition we don't. Lets say 5 kids multiply it by 2-thats $10,000-that's not something to sneeze it.

I agree with the amother who made the comment about the percentage system ending up being just another way to burden the working people more then the kollel people, AND like her we aren't against people sitting and learning- just the way the system is set up right now.

I also think that scholarships should be viewed more as loans- ie if you can't afford it now then we will charge you less but will expect you to pay it back once your kids graduate- personally I don't believe in parents being responsible to support all their married children.

I also think that schools should have to "open their books" make sure that they are using their money as best as possible..

I know a school that calculated how much it really cost to run per kid, and then split the tuition into two parts, the "tuition" part, which matched the actual cost, and the rest of it which they considered a "mandatory donation" and for which the parent's received a tax deductible receipt. Apparently it was completely legal -- and it actually sounded pretty fair to me. At least they were being honest about the tuition structure, and the parents benefited from the tax deduction.

m in Israel

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 4:06 am

bamamama wrote:

I would have no problem if the funding was funneled per kid by parental choice (I.e. some sort of voucher system). It happens to be that most of the benefits that yeshivas in NYC get from the government (like free transportation and textbooks) are there because the Catholic lobby in NYC was so strong for many years. If our needs match, why not pool our strength and help everyone?

BTW, this has nothing to do with "separate but equal", which was ruled unconstitutional a long time ago and involved segregation of services (I.e. separate schools for blacks and whites would be fine as long as both schools received "equal" resources -- which of course they never did). It has more to do with the separation of church and state, which is a broad application of the establishment clause in the Constitution. The Constitution actually only prevents the government from specifically supporting one religion over the others -- but historically it has been easier to just separate religion from government completely, rather than determine the fine definition of "establishing" religion.

Channeling the funding directly through the parents would help with this legal issue, as the government is not determining anything about the religion being taught in the school -- the individual parents are deciding it for their own children.

My real concern about this is what is to stop schools from simply raising tuition to offset this extra money -- or just giving less scholarships to those who would have otherwise qualified? Studies have shown, for example, that college tuitions increase in approximate proportion to increased government aid for college tuition. So the parents don't really end up benefiting much -- the schools just get more money. Which may help them pay more competitive salaries, which is great, but doesn't solve the crisis.

smiledr

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 7:44 am

m in Israel wrote:

The school tgat tried that failed miserably bec the majority of the parents only paid the mandatory part not the tax deductible part bec you can't force someone to give a donation so the school went back to regular tuition the following year. In theory it's wonderful and the honest people will do it bec well say great my tuition is now tax deductible I'm saving thousands but the majority will say great ill only pay the "x amount" if that much and not my problem to pay the additional fees.

m in Israel

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 8:20 am

smiledr wrote:

Nope, it actually worked fine for many years -- I worked there. You are obviously talking about a different school. This school I am talking about is on Long Island and it is a MO school. I have not been working there for a while, but last I heard they were still structuring it like that. There are many schools that have a "give or get" requirement -- it is not unusual to force parents to "donate" to the school, whether it is requirements to pay for a dinner seat, buy a certain amount of raffle tickets, etc. This school just applied the same structure to the tuition fees -- it was certainly mandatory, and the only way to not pay the additional fees would be to apply for a tuition discount from the scholarship committee, just as if you wanted to get out of your "building fee" or other fees the school requires.

Peanut2

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 9:22 am

Numbers: I'd like K-8 to be no more than $8000 tops. Ideally around $5000 tops for K, let's say, and no more than $8000 or so for 8th grade (or 6-8 or whatever.)

High school I'm okay with more but would expect good academics for more money. That doesn't mean just offering AP Psych to all 12th grade girls, but proper labs, certified teachers getting proper pay, course options. If they aren't offering all that, why charge more?

I have definitely seen elementary schools with that kind of tuition, but not high school so much.

Peanut2

Tue, Dec 31 2013, 9:33 am

I totally agree with Fox that endowment is a huge issue.

That and factionalism and schools that are too small. What private schools usually have going for them is lots of committed donors WITHOUT kids in the school. They have graduates and parents of graduates sending them donations, and you will have parents sending their kids to the same school they went to, and all the kids go there. From what I've seen this only exists in smaller Jewish communities where there isn't a choice, and indeed these schools seem to have lower tuition and/or more generous financial aid.