Baltimore Tuition Rebate Initiative!! Hug from Hashem!

amother

↑ Mulberry ↓

Tue, Sep 10 2024, 10:01 pm

amother Wandflower wrote:

The schools have agreed not to raise tuition more than their historical norms based on this initiative.

Bnos does even better - the past couple of years you can opt for a set increase and don't even have to fill out a scholarship request form so the annual increases are pretty much set already (example - kid staying within same division is $300 annual increase; kid going up a division $600 annual increase).

Every school is like that. That sounds like the typical increase.

amother

↑ Wandflower ↓

Tue, Sep 10 2024, 10:53 pm

Which other school says you don't have to fill out a scholarship reduction form each year and can just accept off the bat your last year's tuition plus the set increase of $300, $400 or $600?

amother

↑ Mint ↓

Tue, Sep 10 2024, 10:56 pm

it would be nice not to have to fill out the forms. I think there is a requirement that your income didn't increase more than 30k in order to continue with the past tuition assistance rate (minus annual increase mentioned above).

amother

↑ Mulberry ↓

Tue, Sep 10 2024, 11:00 pm

amother Wandflower wrote:

Which other school says you don't have to fill out a scholarship reduction form each year and can just accept off the bat your last year's tuition plus the set increase of $300, $400 or $600?

I really think most schools raise tuition by that much each year. BH I’ve never filled out a tuition reduction form, we pay the increases as they come. I assume schools don’t want to bother having everyone filling out the forms every year, they’re probably overwhelmed and happy to not have to sort through more than they have to.

amother

Buttercup ↓

Tue, Sep 10 2024, 11:05 pm

amother Wandflower wrote:

Which other school says you don't have to fill out a scholarship reduction form each year and can just accept off the bat your last year's tuition plus the set increase of $300, $400 or $600?

I don't really see the big value. Every year I fill out the application for all my kids schools, offer the max I can afford, the schools come back around $2000 more than I can afford and we settle at $1000 more than I offered. The set increase thing is not even relevant.

amother

↑ Wandflower

Tue, Sep 10 2024, 11:37 pm

My siblings and neighbors find it a pain to fill out the form each year and see the value in not having to do it. I do also, but I'm not here to debate the point (and if the set increase per kid is too much for you you can fill out the form and request less of an increase). Basically parents have a choice and I think that's nice.

But I really just brought it up to respond to the poster on the first page who said that what's the big benefit, schools will just raise tuition by 3.5 percent+. I responded no, that schools who are a part of this committed not to do that (in other words they will keep to their historical increases) and added about Bnos to show how transparent it is. I expect the chart with the set increases per kid that you can choose to accept not to be affected by the 3.5 percent tuition initiative. That is all!

amother

↑ Begonia ↓

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 12:03 am

amother Sand wrote:

What is this? I have one tuition-elementary boy in TA.
Pay full.

It's strange then that you don't know about it. there have been multiple emails giving information about this over the past couple of months. and articles on baltimorejewishlife.com.
Emails were sent to all tuition-paying parents at most of Baltimore's frum schools, including TA. You didn't need to sign up for anything. To get the emails and the rebate, all you needed to do was pay tuition.
Call Mrs mandel in the tuition office to discuss it tomorrow.
You should be receiving a rebate of 3.5% on every dollar you paid in tuition last school year.

amother

↑ Catmint ↓

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 10:33 am

I got an email from one of the schools I send to about the rebate-- if I want it or if I want to donate. The wording was interesting. It said the rebate is on tuition money only. Based on the wording I'm guessing it doesn't include all the fees lumped into tuition like building fee, etc. Truth is, any money back is very appreciated.

amother

↑ Begonia

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 11:25 am

amother Catmint wrote:

correct. LIke from Ner Israel I didn't get back any rebate for the portion of money that I paid for room and board, only for tuition. so it was less than I had hoped it would be.
Also, I get BOOST, and you don't get back a rebate for that, only for what money I actually paid the schools.

lanag

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 1:55 pm

amother Mulberry wrote:

Every school is like that. That sounds like the typical increase.

I was never offered this with Bais Yaakov.

amother

↑ Catmint ↓

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 3:52 pm

lanag wrote:

I was never offered this with Bais Yaakov.

I send to a few local schools. Bnos is the only one that offered an automatic continued break with a rate of a few hundred dollars more than last year as long as you don't have a huge difference in income. It helps not having to fill out the form when you know and they know you'll get around the same break as last year. It doesn't help if you have kids in other schools and still have to fill out the form for those schools.

amother

↑ OP

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 4:01 pm

I also want to say how much I love that the four big schools have one tuition assistance form for all, so you only have to fill it out once. I lived in NY with stepkids in Monsey and there was a time when we had to fill out so many forms it was crazy and they all wanted different information.

amother

↑ Mintgreen

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 4:10 pm

Question: do all the schools have the rebate information coming from the menahel? Our information about the rebate came from the menahel and it seems like we have to send it back to the menhal as well.

I feel like it's odd for financial information to be going through the menahel when tuition money and scholarships has always been separate from them in the past. FACTS is separate and there's a separate tuition committee we've reached out to when we were facing hardships with tuition payments. Or maybe I've just been naive in thinking these things are private?

↑ Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Sep 11 2024, 4:35 pm

amother Catmint wrote:

My son's bais medrash in Baltimore also does this and I don't have to fill out a financial aid application every year. They do raise it a bit as tuition rises as well.

amother

↑ Catmint ↓

Thu, Sep 12 2024, 7:34 am

Quote:

No. Bnos' came from Mrs Heyman. She's an administrator in the school, but not the principal, but also not the tuition department. I think they just need one central person in the school to be the point of contact.

amother

Tomato ↓

Thu, Sep 12 2024, 12:00 pm

amother Mintgreen wrote:

Bais Yaakov's didn't. The email was signed by three people: the President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Operations.

amother

Lemonlime

Thu, Sep 12 2024, 8:48 pm

Toras Simcha was signed by the principal but he is not actually dealing with it. The email came from the main office and the reply to was the office. I didn't read into it at all.

amother

↑ Buttercup

Thu, Sep 12 2024, 8:53 pm

amother OP wrote:

I think Bnos spit off to their own form.

Mrs. Haymen spoke about it on the kosher money podcast.

Optione

Thu, Sep 12 2024, 9:02 pm

amother Firethorn wrote:

Still don’t get this. Don’t tuition committees settle on a number based on ability to pay? If a family was only able to afford 50k tuition for their 5 kids last year based on income and assets, they can now afford 52k. The school will simply ignore the additional 3.5% in assets that the family now has when negotiating the new years tuition?

If I paid $10k in tuition last year, they'll see be me a rebate check worth $350.
1. This was not money I was counting on and therefore did not include it in my "what can you afford. "
2. Just because I say I can afford $8k for example, doesn't mean they'll agree. I can tell a school that I can only afford $8k, and they can still send me a tuition book for $10k that I'm obligated to pay.

amother

Apricot ↓

Thu, Sep 12 2024, 9:06 pm

Wow! Thanks to this post I opened my emails! Lol I thought it was just another email about the rebate didn't realize it was something I needed to do!

I'm pretty sure TA also has that you don't need to fill out form every year only if your income has significantly changed