Tuition Pricing

Good thoughts, but most of us do not know how the committees work. Presumably, those who are closer to the school, either as family, by hashkafa, by teaching there, etc will get a better deal. I am all for making the system more transparent, but practically speaking we are using the approach that we saw several of older “working” friends were using:

do not submit any financial forms, simply come to school and suggest that you’ll pay X $$$ or X%. The number should be fair, depending on your circumstances, number of children in school. your dependency on the school and how much markup the price is over the true cost. Do this number yourself, do not leave it to them. Generally, it would be 50%-70% of published price. This presumably covers your own children, excluding paying for the “non-working” families. If, say, general studies are so bad that you will have to teach them separately, then maybe 40%.

How do I know this is a good number? I once started conversation with a new financier, saying “I would like 30%” (meaning I am asking for 30% off). He thought that I am asking to pay 30% and almost had a heart attack. I quickly finished the sentence and we immediately shook hands.

Bottom line is that we need to have good Jewish education affordable to normal jews who work. Without that, we will continue having social distortions. parents consider staying in chinuch to afford education for their kids, schools using the tuition powers to dictate all rules, kids seeing their parents in constant financial distress despite working hard..

I do not have the answers to the tuition crisis. But please understand, as someone who works in Yeshiva administration and does not recieve an automatic tuition reduction, I do not know of a Yeshiva/Day School who is able to remotely cover their budget with the tuitions collected. Actually, the general formula is that they hope to cover payroll with tuitions. I agree that perhaps some administrators could use a brushiup on thei interpersonal communications skills,some of this comes form the fact that they are tired of getting the runaround from parents. Parents want Caddilac service at Yugo (for those that remember what that was) pices. They aren’t willing to give up on any amenities to save money. The answer “just fundraise” is rediculous.
There is an expression, “it is easy to be amartyr, when someone else is doing the dying”.

Chiam,

1) Not every schools offers free tuition, many don’t. Often only a reduction.
2) You are making an assumption that the tuition committee works competitively, pitting one family vs another when determining tuition. That is not what is done. Certainly not with any of the Yeshivas I am familiar with. Working with one parent on tuition does not mean that another who is deserving will not get the similar consideration.
3) $60,000 for a Rebbi in lakewood is well paid, an accountant at $90,000 is being paid well below market in Lakewood. I know that accountants with several years experience get paid well more than $90k in Lakewood. Not touch, but they make a multiple of what rabbeim get. You are not comparing apples to apples.

4) Someone making $90k with several children is not paying anything near 25%. And parsonage is taxed as SECA.
5) even with your flawed example, the rebbi after tuition has $53,000 net of whatever taxes. The accountant, if you gross up the tuition even at 25% which is a very flawed assumption, is left with $81,250 (90,000- 7,000(1.25)). Obviously pretax. But that is still $28,000 or more than 50% higher than the Rebbi.
6) For some reason you think that rabbeim should be complete paupers. So you cannot fathom any benefit that might have working as a Rebbi. Who says they have to be the worst paid people? Why is that your attitude?
7) You heard the word Paraonage and you bandy it about, but it is not what you think it is and it’s not used to pay tuition. There is a separate non taxable benefit available for people who work in schools that many yeshivas and schools make available. Many non Jewish schools and colleges do so as well.

nisht, I think Chaim is presuming way more than one child in schools, Bh. Update your computation for 6 kids:
rebbe – 3 free (the gender he is teaching), 7kx3=21K pretax. Left 60-21=39K
accountant – 6x7x1.2 (tax) = 50K, left with 90-50=40k

btw, I am not 100% sure that taking low salary and tuition reduction is really kosher in terms of “savings” on taxes. I did not hear of people arrested/fined for that, so it must be mostly legal.

Tuition is extremely expensive for everyone, but let’s recognize that this is also a test from Hashem.
Mori v’Rebbe, R’ Yaakov Bender shlita, wrote that he compares it to the Jews in the US in the early 20th century who were moser nefesh for Shabbos.
R’ Moshe Feinstein zt”l notably said that most of the children of these people did not stay frum because the fathers would come home and say “es is shver tzu zein a Yid.” That had a huge impact on the children.
I was always taught that the money for our kids tuition is separate from the money that we’re allocated on Rosh Hashanah. On a personal note, I can say that there have been plenty of times where I didn’t think I’d be able to pay my tuition costs, but somehow, the money always ended up being available. Sometimes it means borrowing, sometimes I got an unexpected income, but somehow, it always showed up.
The one thing that I’m always extremely careful of is to never let my kids hear me complain about it – and I try not to complain at all, even not in front of my kids! When my daughter once asked me about it, because she heard someone else complaining about it, I told her, “My biggest priority is to make sure that my children get a good Jewish education. If that means I don’t go on vacations, and don’t have a fancy car, that’s fine. It’s my greatest pleasure to pay tuition so that you can learn how to be a good Jew!”
I hope that my children get that same view, and then one day pass it along to the families that they will IY”H build.