Stop accusing me of not prioritizing tuition

amother

Thu, May 23 2024, 1:41 pm

I work ft, my husband works ft.
We try but don't have financial hatzlocha.
It's a personality.
We make a bit over 110k pretax.
We pay 40% of our pretax income on deducted tuition.
We don't buy shaitel. Our cars are 20 years old.
We likely will never buy and our rent is just soaring.
We don't do vacations.
I don't know how we'll ever retire.

40% of our income is called prioritizing. I'm sorry that we can't pay 60% or 70%. But we prioritize other expenses also. Like food. And health insurance. And rent

We're not the only one.
When people accuse me of not prioritizing, it doesn't "light a fire". It makes me give up

Mr administrator, the money doesn't exist. No matter how much our kids Jewish education means to us.

Stop accusing us. And people like us.

amother

Thu, May 23 2024, 2:01 pm

The personality thing is my husband.
He's steady, loyal but not ambitious and pushy.
He works ft at a lower paying job. He struggles with mental health struggles and other stuff.
He's a good man. But struggles to support us. But he's hard working and steady.
40 hour a week job making 60k.
Of course I wish he would make more. Be more ambitious. But this is the man I'm married to.

For me, I work in a daycare from 8-4 for 50k but I get my baby for free and my toddler free aftercare.
So in reality, I'm worth more.
I don't count those calculations into my tuition cheshbon.

amother

Ebony

Thu, May 23 2024, 2:09 pm

amother OP wrote:

Same. Not everyone can be a businessman. For many, my dh included, a nine-to-five salaried job is the only way.

amother

Azalea

Thu, May 23 2024, 2:58 pm

Hello!!! Not everyone in this world will be on top financially! That's how Hashem created it! It is especially so that the people that do have money have the opportunity to do tzeddakah and chesed with those less fortunate than them.
It's such a fallacy to believe, hard work = able to cover all your bills. Baloney.
I don't know why people think that it's their hard work giving them their parnossa. Hakol Bedei Shamayim.
Hashem just requests of us to do ours, the results are up to Him!

amother

Snowdrop

Thu, May 23 2024, 3:34 pm

amother OP wrote:

Who accused you???

amother

Diamond

Thu, May 23 2024, 3:41 pm

I'm with you. We in theory make 130k pretax, that's under 80k post deductions, and it's just not enough to pay full tuition once I'm also paying for housing food insurance and daycare.
I'm a teacher so there are no raises in my future, but you also don't want me to quit (and I do Hebrew and English so I'm not just working 3 hours a day) and my husband is working on his third degree while working so he can iyH get a huge raise, but until there there's just no money to pay 12k a year each for 3 kids. In case you're math challenged, that's almost half our take home pay. And we don't have a huge family.

amother

Cobalt

Thu, May 23 2024, 3:56 pm

I feel like you OP.
We just don't have "mazel" with making money. My DH and I both work FT but we both make very little. Some people just don't make it big. I don't know how other do it. But we work long and full days and make less then 110k.
And the administrator accusing us- that we don't value our children's chuinch. That tuition is not something to negotiate and we should be paying the utmost for our kids chinuch.
Hello- almost our entire salary is just tuition. We can hardly cover our rent (as it is our apartment is too small and we desperately need to move but....) and how dare they think they can charge whatever they want just because it is schar limuid and that has to go before anything else.

imaima

Thu, May 23 2024, 3:59 pm

amother OP wrote:

Don’t worry.
People with lower paying jobs should also be able to afford education.
There is nothing wrong with you.

amother

Blush

Thu, May 23 2024, 4:17 pm

Agree with you the schools get program and what not by covid they made alot of money where did the administrator put those funds? What's interesting is almost all administrator own house car Bungalow we the hard working people don't own anything and the administration has the chutzpa to tell me either don't have more kids or the yeshiva is not a public school you won't get your admission card kids can't come back to school etc

amother

Peony

Thu, May 23 2024, 4:33 pm

As someone who feels that everybody should be paying with tuition, we are not talking about people like you. If someone is working full-time and just not able to make ends meet, it's a different story than somebody who decides to work part-time, or stay home and not work, or prioritize their money to go on vacation and other elaborate stuff. There's always going to be people who can't pay who are working really hard and hopefully one day they'll get there and be able to pay fully.

Personally, and I've spoken on other threads. It's the people that I know that specifically don't work enough hours to make it work. Or, feel that the school should want to educate their children and have no interest in actually paying the tuition. It's a very different story if someone's actually paying partially or working their hardest to be able to do what they need to do.

Although, the schools need to come up with the way that makes it work for most people. I pay full tuition and I get no breaks and I was told specifically that the tuition is higher because lack of people don't pay or pay very at all. As I posted on the other thread, I am paying over 50k for four children.

amother

Hawthorn

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:04 pm

amother Peony wrote:

There is a lot of judgment in this. I understand why you're resentful, but I don't think it is justified.

Not every mother is capable of full time work. A SAHM with small children is running a small day care with no pay. People who choose high-stress jobs that pay more may have only taken it with the expectation that they will have periodic vacations so they don't break under the stress.

If everyone is always working their hardest, many of them will break under the strain. It's not sustainable.

There should absolutely be a tuition expectation based on percentage of income, but it is not fair to say that parents must sacrifice their health, sanity, and ability to function on the altar of tuition.

You're also a korban, and I'm sorry. But the other parents are not the ones at fault.

It's simply ludicrous to create a system that is built on parents being able to pay these types of astronomical sums. What would you think of a family that can afford to buy a brand new SUV in cash every year? Would you expect the average family to be able to keep up? Guess what, that's what tuition is like.

amother

Charcoal

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:06 pm

Let me join in the sorrow! We both work full time and make about $150 a year before taxes. We have marriageable age children and have no idea how we will pay for it. My husband used to have a business that did well bh, but then it failed. We lived somewhere else, but for work, we had to move and pretty much start from scratch and from the time the business went bust until he found a job, we pretty much ate our savings. We live in an apartment that’s too small for us. We would love to get another job or start a business, but it’s hard when we have the security of money coming in, albeit not much. And we have medicaid, but I’m not sure how long that will last. If we have to pay for health insurance, our salary bracket will be eligible for medicaid. A lose, lose situation. All in Hashem’s hand.