What Are Educators Saying About the Tuition Crisis? Part II

Please read part I in the prior post before reading the remainder of Rabbi Teitz's comments that make up part II of my post. This comment of Rabbi Teitz's is from the perspective of staff and my comments are once again in orange. Also an interesting trip into the minds of school administrative staff.

Post 2

My earlier comments were written from a parent's perspective, having heard almost all of what I wrote in conversations with parents over the past year or two.

Personally, I feel many teachers (and I am lucky to count many of them on my staff) are selfless in their devotion to their students. They do not know the meaning of punching a clock. Many are the graduates of JEC that still call their rebbeim and other teachers, at times even late at night, to discuss life's important decisions. There is no way to put a dollar figure to what that is worth.

But that does not mean that parents are not reaching a breaking point. And my post was intended to express that concern, from their point of view. We, as educators, must understand their perspective, because they are the purchasers of the service we provide. The consumers of our service, our students, probably do not stop to consider a cost/benefit analysis, but the purchasers certainly do. And they want to buy our product, but we might be placing it out of their reach.

So much for the parents' perspective.

There is a significant flaw in that outlook. And it is a challenge that extends to the entire spectrum of Jewish living, as well as the greater world around us.

We live in a world of entitlement. Everyone feels they have things coming to them. The sense of sacrifice has mostly been lost. Yes, there are remarkable example of the opposite, but by and large, people today expect to have without having to give up to have it. [Rabbi Teitz is certainly not the first to say that parents are unwilling to sacrifice today. Rav Schachter, RY of REITS, made the same point a few months back. But I just can't agree].

Sleep away camp has gone from being a luxury to a necessity [Guess who marketed such as a necessity? Try this post for an answer]. Pesach at a hotel. Winter vacation at Disney. Summer vacation on top of that, for those who can manage the days away. High-six and seven digit 401Ks and IRAs. A fully vested college fund. [I don't even know how 401ks and college funds can be put in the same sentence as Pesach and Disney vacations. Old age (let's stop calling it retirement) requires money and likely lots of it. Should schools give limited financial aid to those with substaintial retirement accounts? I don't believe they do, so it seems like a non-issue. If anything, we should be begging people to put away what they can while they can because if they don't it will be the next "crisis."]

With all of these absolute, indispensable necessities where is there room for tuition?

People purchase houses and calculate how they can manage their mortgage payments without taking into account that there are tuition payments as well. No one forgets to calculate the bite taxes take out of income in calculating available income for mortgage payments. But tuition, there's always a scholarship for that. [Perhaps those who bought at the top of the market can be blamed for paying too much. But you could also yell at families that did not scrimp and save to buy a home and now have rent that is double the mortgage of a similarly aged counterpart].

In past years, people worked two jobs to pay their educational obligations. Many of us took out loans to get through college. Today's parents won't hear of it. Let the day schools carry me so I can put money away for my child's college. Or, more accurately, let the day school raise tzedaka to pay for my child's college education. [Many people still work more than one job. I'm always amazed just how many members of the klal are trying to sell something on the side. As for college, student debt isn't "free" to the klal either, it is just a matter of timing].

Gone is the feeling that tuition assistance is actually a request for charity. If communal rabbis would only do one thing, it should be to stress that taking a scholarship in a situation where there was not absolute need is tantamount to stealing from tzedaka. [See where the calculation of tuition increase on a 3% tuition raise was made in Part I. This is one reason why tuition assistance is not always viewed as a request for charity. If a $300 per student salary raise translates into a $450 per student tuition increase, than those requesting a discount from $450 aren't asking for "charity" but rather equability].

The biggest difficulty with that message is that there are those who really do need the help and these very words might embarrass them into not asking, which would be criminal. For there is a real need in the community for help in paying tuition. The abusers of the system make it so much more difficult for those in true need. [True].

In the long run, though, we are reaching a tipping point. Three children in day school can, and in some communities does, cost upwards of $50,000. That is, to most families, the single largest expense in their budget. And they are collapsing under the strain. And there is no end in sight. I was at a meeting the other night where the tuition crisis was discussed. One person asked that there be some sort of formula so that he would know that with an income of $150,000 there would be some maximum bill to pay for education. It is a reasonable request. Problem is, it can't be done. Because one family earning $150,000 might be able to put away $25,000 annually into a retirement fund (I have yet to see teachers be able to put that much away regardless of their pay[why in the world not if the pay is high?]), while another family has unreimbursed medical expenses of $15,000. There is no valid basis for comparison based solely on the bottom line. So we can not give that relief.

But we have to talk to the issue. With compassion. With understanding. And, true to our calling, with education. We must find a way to open the eyes of our community to our feelings of entitlement. Without defensiveness. With warmth. The message we have to give is not an easy one to accept. But if we are to change this one aspect of the culture of our community, we must be understanding of the other's perception and concern. We must also step outside ourselves and check what our feelings of entitlement are, because rare is the person who is totally selfless. We all have needs, but are some of our needs as necessary as we might like to think they are.

But even if the lesson will be learned, it will not solve the problem. We will only delay the day when parents will not be able to pay to educate their children. Large communal funds are not the panacea they seem. A well managed endowment with $100 million in it will spin off between $5 million to $7 million annually. How many donors will it take to get to the $100 million? And how many schools will get a piece of that pie? And in the era of Madoff, who will manage the fund, and how do we know it will be properly managed?

So I leave where I left last time.
Just as much worry and just as few answers.

Eliyahu Teitz