Thursday, January 01, 2009

A School Lowers Tuition

Don't jump up and down yet. . . . . your school is more likely to raise tuition.

I have been searching for information about what private schools across the nation are doing and was surprised to find out that a Jewish Day School (non-Orthodox) has decided to lower tuition. Kadima's administration hopes that the result of this untried strategy will be an increase in donations from families who can paid, combined with an increase in enrollment. It should be interesting to see how his strategy plays out. The article mentions that such strategies have failed in the past and that the general strategy is to raise tuition while making more financial aid available. Time will only tell if this is the right move.

The school blog has lined up current tuitions with the tuitions for the coming year, and the school has committed donors ready to make up the difference according to this article. I think the fact that the school can even think to make a bold move is that the parent body is generally hesitant to ask for any type of tuition assistance. Chances are, every family still pays a significant amount.

More on what other private schools are doing as I continue to research. Comment away and happy new tax year.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This actually came up as an issue in the early-mid 2000s in Cleveland. Federation (which in Cleveland is associated with pretty much all the Jewish schools, including the Orthodox ones) helped raise tuition defraying money, which was given to each school, resulting in an increase in enrollment. Each of their day schools got 150,000 per year towards that goal (keep in mind that this was in Cleveland, which certainly had smaller enrollments than many "in town" schools).

Orthonomics said...

JLan-I believe lowering tuition at the Orthodox schools did not turn out well. Do you have any idea what happened at the Solomon Schechter school. If I didn't quote it, one article mentioned that enrollment increased by 24%. But it didn't mention if tuition has been maintained at lower rates.

FrumBusinessGuy said...

If more people actually made real money, they wouldn't have to worry about tuition.

Check out my new Blog on MAKING MONEY at http://frumandmakingmoney.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Hi SL- this comment has nothing to do with this posting... but I need your help. In an effort to cut our grocery bill, I dutifully went out in November and got a freezer. Its a stand-up freezer (as opposed to a chest) and it isn't energy start, but I distinctly remember the energy sign saying that it cost about $60/year to run the freezer. They delivered it the first week of December and set it up in our (cold) basement. Its been running at a 4 setting- which is what is suggested. Its only about 1/4 full right now (I'm still trying to fill it up) and everything is frozen solid inside. I noticed that it runs a lot. We just got our December electricity bill and it jumped from $200 to $330. I know, I know, most people would wish for a $330 bill, but $200 is typically the high end for us. We budget about $190 a month, which evens out in the Spring and Fall. Anyway out kWh jumped from 528 to 815kWh, with an average daily use was 21.6 in November and 23.3 ion December (I honestly have no idea what this means, but it may be important). Anyway- could this freezer be increasing our bill that much? BTW- I've found some great sales and really have tried to be mindful to set aside money to be able to buy food when it comes on sale.

I've been watching the comments from the former posts. We, too, are putting our oldest in public school next year (also starting kindergarten).

Thanks in advance for you help!

miriamp said...

To the previous commenter:

Sounds like it could be the freezer. This product (Kill-A-Watt) http://www.smarthome.com/9034/Kill-A-Watt-P4400/p.aspx is very useful at determining which appliances are responsible for higher electrical bills.

We've found it to be worth the $25 price tag. (More expensive options exist, but why pay more when this one will work?)

Hope that helps!

Orthonomics said...

aml-I have a ton of reader questions and will post the Q and A very soon.

On that note, your freezer should NOT be running all of the time. I only hear ours occassionally, as well as after I close the door. Perhaps the seal is defective?