Tuition--The State of Yeshiva Education Today--part #3

I've mentioned before that being frum costs more than not being frum. One of the contributing factors is the cost of tuition at yeshivot. I went to do some checking on what private schools--secular ones--charge in tuition. Yeshiva tuition equals and sometimes surpasses the cost of these private schools. Why is the cost so high?

Okay, let's be fair. A school has certain expenses that must be met. You need to pay for utilities and for insurance. You need to pay for people to maintain the building. There are supplies that a school needs, such as office equipment and office supplies. Books need to be purchased. Note: NYSTL--the New York State Textbook Loan program--only provides English books on their approved list for free to schools in the state. Seforim and the "alternate" books that are replacing state-recognized readers are not covered. And you need to pay for teachers and administrative staff.

Ask a yeshiva administrator how these costs are paid and he will tell you "Not by tuition alone. Tuition does not cover all of a school's expenses." Fund raising is key to maintaining a yeshiva. Individuals with "some money to spare" are targeted for donations. "Building fund" assessments are added in addition to tuition. "Required" dinner contributions are also tacked on. But why is tuition not enough to cover the expenses?

Asking around I discovered that a nursery/kindergarten tuition is in the $6500 to $10,000 range per student per year on average. And the price is only going up. For the regular grades there is a sliding scale so that a third grader could be paying $12,000 or more per year and an eighth grader could be paying much more. High schools are not cheaper: many are more expensive. Bruriah High School for Girls in New Jersey "only" charges $18,000 per year. Flatbush Yeshiva in Brooklyn "only" charges $23,000 per year. The other yeshiva high schools are less, but not by a whole lot.

Now I was not a math major but I can add and multiply. Let's take a fairly representative yeshiva in a large frum community. A nursery class has 25 to 29 children in it. Each child is charged $10,000 in tuition per year. This nursery class produces in income $250,000 to $290,00 per year. Let us even assume that the yeshiva is paying a " super high" salary to the teacher of this class--maybe $25,000 per year. (Please note: yeshivas with lower tuition also pay their teachers less.) At a minimum this would leave the yeshiva with $225,000 to use for covering its general expenses. Now let's say, which is typical, that there are two nursery classes. The yeshiva now has $450,000 to use for general expenses. Now let's even say that tuition will remain steady for all grades and that there are two classes on every grade level. Nursery, kindergarten, Pre-IA and first through eighth grade. We have a total of 22 classes. Expected income should be $5,500,000 (it's actually more because of the higher tuition in the older grades). Rational people would look at this figure and say "That is more than enough money to pay for any and all expenses that a yeshiva has." But yeshivas say that it doesn't. Why?

Here is why. Everyone in the yeshiva is not paying the tuition asked for. Some people pay only partial tuition; some people pay no tuition. It does not take a math genius to do the figuring. Yeshivas who cannot cover their basic expenses through tuition have a majority of their students who do not pay full tuition. 22 classes times 25 students per class gives you 550 students in the school. Let's say that the school is fairly "generous" with salaries and needs $1,000,000 to cover salaries. Let's give them another million to cover other expenses, and yes, I am being generous. So they need two million dollars for expenses and they can't cover that from tuition. That means that, rounding the figures, less than 200 of their 550 students are paying full tuition and the rest are paying nothing. Adjust for parents that pay partial tuition and you may raise the figure to about half of the students paying some type of tuition while the rest pay nothing.

What is the yeshivas' answer when expenses go up? They raise tuition, knowing full well that only part of their parent body is going to be paying this tuition anyway. The idea seems to be "let those with money support those without." The more they raise tuition, the fewer the parents who can afford to pay the higher tuition, the more parents getting "scholarships." It's a truly vicious cycle.

This should raise in people's minds that a truly large portion of Klal Yisroel is poor or living in poverty. Are they? Yes, some people, despite working, just don't earn very much. They have trouble maintaining their family with the basic expenses of food, rent and clothing. Tuition is way beyond their means. And then there are the "non-working" families, the ones where the men are sitting and learning and the family is being supported by someone else, someone who just can't manage yeshiva tuition in addition to all the other expenses. Frankly, this is "planned poverty." And there is the very real expectation that yeshivot will take in their children regardless of their ability to pay, and the yeshivot do.

Notice that I have not mentioned the cost of yeshiva and seminary in Israel, something that is becoming somewhat of a "requirement." You truly don't want to have to deal with those monetary figures.

Tuition is a very real problem for Klal. The answer is clearly not to raise tuition every year--this only shrinks the number of "paying customers." So what is the answer? How do we provide "learning" for all of our children without bankrupting Jewish families? Input from everyone might result in some workable solutions. What do you think?