Moq,
I didn’t resent the klai kodesh or their lifestyle. As long as I was able to work, I truly felt great pride in being able to provide for my children’s education by paying full tuition. I mentioned details about our lifestyle to illustrate that, despite our best efforts, there was nothing we could trim in our budget that would allow us to continue to pay full tuition on my husband’s salary alone (which was about 80% of the base salary kollel members and rebbeim received).
What I did resent was that when I asked for a tuition break after losing my job, my kids were threatened with expulsion. In my opinion, kids should not be kicked out of school because their parent lost a job.
I mentioned that klai kodesh did not pay tuition because this increased financial pressure on the school. Since 2/3 of students paid no tuition, the operating costs of the school had to be paid by the parents of the other 1/3 of the students, along with community donations. Because the school was so small, they could not benefit from the same economies of scale as larger schools. Nor did they have the same access to quality teachers as schools in larger communities do.
These financial pressures are unique to small Jewish communities, and can make tuition there an even larger burden than in mid-size communities.