Tuition is killing us. what are the alternatives?

Dolly Welsh

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 2:26 am

(Now we can get to Home Marrying and all will be well. Who's doing a website about that? But that's for a different thread.)

chavamom

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 2:32 am

amother wrote:

ok so I just looked at k-12. its $30 a month per subject. it could easily equal the cost of BY tuition. I'm sunk.

Wait - I'm doing the math here. 5-6 subjects x $30 is nowhere near $5K.

leomom

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 2:36 am

amother wrote:

YY ....yet .

Its being worked on as we speak.. My website will blow you away when its finished..

PM me!

amother

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 3:07 am

It is still in the development phase, when I am ready to publicize it, I will PM you

Culturedpearls

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 9:35 am

amother wrote:

Chocolate as I said, I am not a supermom. you are fortunate to have the energy and stamina to handle college, work and home, but I barely juggle things as it is. I am not making excuses. I know very well that I do the best that I can and I cannot make myself a shmattah or I would be useless to everyone. I can handle mornings and weekend work, but unfortunately can't find any. As for hubby, he does have a job, but its a dead end job and he hasn't been able to find anything better. raises are few, far between and his income barely covers half our living expenses. he would like to start his own business, but has been struggling to get a location and start up money, and since he doesn't have a degree he can't find a regular job that will pay more than he's getting now. he has considered going back to school but he current job have him working into the evenings and on weekends so there was never when to take classes. We just keep davening that a suitable location for his business will come through so he can begin to work on getting funding. I would love to start my own business and have made several attempts at starting a home business but they never got off the ground. I'm willing to give it another go but I feel like I need a business crash course or something before I try again so I can find out where I've been going wrong.

I will be honest I never intended to work. I grew up with my father working and my mother always at home and the values of a mother belonging at home with her kids were drummed into me from the earliest age. it was always my plan and my dream to be a stay at home mother and thats what I geared myself towards. life didn't work out that way, but my attempts at earning an income have met with varying degrees of success, none of them very good. I understand that it is neccessary and I cannot give up and I must find a way to make it work, but working full time, putting my kids by babysitters, while also trying to juggle at home, is something that is against my nature and frankly I have no clue how to handle.

however mornings, weekends, or from home, I am willing to try just about anything at this point. just havent found it.

More women need to start business's selling online through eBay & amazon. I have mentioned it in other threads & I'll say it here again. There's a lot of money to be made through eBay & amazon . I have helped many women earn as little as $20k per year to myself who makes close to $100k on the side (I run a regular business full time). It's not quick & easy, but it's flexible & home based.
Additionally I did home school one if my sons for 5 years. I did it for learning difficulty reasons . I had a homeschooling curriculum & had a teacher come 2 days a week for an hour . I brought my son to work with me & supervised mainly. It was an awesome choice. My son learned & thrived & we became very close emotionally.
I'd do for all my kids if I could, but it's not for everyone.
If anyone else needs parnossa please consider eBay & amazon it's a real option & a real business . You're welcome to PM me for more info.

Culturedpearls

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 9:51 am

chocolate moose wrote:

I'm not supermom. I'm not saying that I did everything with dignity and aplomb. I just did what I had to do. And I think it boded well with my own kids who saw a good work ethic and emulated it.

Tuition costs are not likely to change. Don't our schools say that tuition only covers a certain percentage of what it actually costs to educate our kids anyway? They are forever fundraising for teachers' salaries and our expenses. I think our rebbies and morahs deserve a decent wage, and I think our kids need a hot lunch and buses and modern textbooks. None of that stuff is free.

This may come as a suprise to you but kids don't need hot lunches & you don't need a school bus.
I take the kids to & from school & make their lunches (sandwiches etc) myself & the kids are in school till 4pm or longer. No one is malnourished or neglected. Where I live that's the norm & noone expects or could afford otherwise.

abby1776

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 2:40 pm

Its not the busing or the hot lunch that costs the schools money. Most of that stuff is subsidized by the government and paid with your tax dollars. In monsey Rockland country provides free busing to private schools because that is one service they can provide without getting into church and state separate issues.

farm

Mon, Dec 05 2011, 2:45 pm

Just want to point out to amother complaining about hot lunch and smartboards- from my understanding, the schools make money on the food programs through gov't grants for poor children at risk of bad nutrition. The smartboards at our local highschool were obtained via a technology grant as well, no cost to the school. Fancy frills don't necessarily bump up tuition, they can actually help keep it stable.

amother

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 10:08 am

amother wrote:

We homeschooled our children and threatening calls from concerned neighbors wanting to report us to ACS even though we filled out all the proper paperwork with the local school district. But when a kid is busy being a bully and hurting other kids, no one threatens to report him to ACS because he is in school and conforming.

are you in brooklyn?

No. I don't want to state where I live because it will give me away to people who know the situation.

Alef Bais

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 11:44 am

Public schools get government funding for each student. We don't get any funding for our kids because we send to yeshivas and get stuck with tuition that many of us can't afford. We need to change this system. If each school-age child received funding towards the school of his/her choice, then the child's family can choose where to send the kid. The amount can cover the entire public school fee or a partial private school fee, but it would still definitely help us out. We have to stage a protest with thousands and thousands of kids to get this system to change.

There is a Facebook group called Tuition: It's Time We Act! Everyone's ideas help.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/158944750857247/

AztecQueen2000

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 3:35 pm

I wouldn't be so quick to jump on the government subsidy idea. Government subsidies often come with government strings delineating curriculum and staff qualifications. There is no such thing as free government money.

mirror

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 4:06 pm

AztecQueen2000 wrote:

With the Separation of Church and State, the goverment would have to dictate that no religion be taught, and that we cannot discriminate.

For example, colleges that accept goverment funding must accept all persons regardless of race.

Alef Bais

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 7:49 pm

NY State requires that every child must have an education. If a parent does not provide an education, the state will come and take your kids and prosecute. Therefore, every yeshiva MUST offer an English education under this law. If our education has been good until now, then we can request some aid. Some aid that would cover the English department, as opposed to no aid at all. Did you know that NYC pays $21,000 per student in public school? The help that we are seeking is having the option to CHOOSE our schools, not pay for public schools as taxes and then pay additional private schools because we do not agree with the public school philosophy and teachings.

gold21

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 9:14 pm

Alef Bais wrote:

yes, I agree that we should get government subsidies for frum schools.
even families where both parents are successful professionals, tuition is not affordable.

emhabanim

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 11:17 pm

While I don't have any solution, I feel your pain. Tuition is prohibitive, but it is also a zchus... you have children BH and they are BH able to enter a mainstream classroom. How many people cry for this blessing? (Hope I don't sound too preachy).

If you decide to homeschool, good luck. I am sure you will do a phenomenal job as they are your kids and nobody will ever give them what a mother can and does - even if she isn't "supermon."

Perhaps the bigger issue here is trying to ensure our children don't have these problems when they are parents. Maybe we as a community need to revamp our thinking and make sure our sons get degrees and can get out into the workforce and secure jobs that have growth potential, frequent raises , medical insurance etc. We need to have our sons do this before they wake up and find two to three kids, living expenses and tuition, and no time to go back to school because they need to work in a dead end job. Maybe we are handicapping the next generation.

nylon

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 11:26 pm

The government is providing an education. We choose not to avail ourselves of it. The government does not have an obligation to provide us with an education on our terms.

saw50st8

Tue, Dec 06 2011, 11:32 pm

I'm with nylon.

amother

Wed, Dec 07 2011, 8:48 am

Getting a degree is not the solution. I think they're necessarily but the tuition problem doesn't go away automatically with a degree. How many great jobs "only" pay $100K; that doesn't go very far when even OOT day school is $13K per kid. Dual income is usually the only way to pay and then we have kids who are raised in daycare and after school programs and stressed out parents. Not every family can function healthily with two working parents.

We can pay for our 2 kids at this point and it leaves me resentful. All those yrs of training, all the long hrs working now, and we live at a very average level, paying all our "extra" income to a less than stellar day school.

Alef Bais

Wed, Dec 07 2011, 12:38 pm

emhabanim wrote:

justcallmeima

Wed, Dec 07 2011, 1:04 pm

AztecQueen2000 wrote:

Yes. Wouldn't it be horrific if our teachers actually had to be screened to see if they have a criminal record? Worse than that, imagine if chas ve shalom the government required that they would have to take a course about pedagogy or chalilah psychology? Perish the thought!!!