Tuition Crisis- Mishpacha Magazine feature article

amother

↑ Maroon ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 10:16 am

amother Bellflower wrote:

Can someone please explain this sentence?

Around 30 to 35 years ago, tuition in town was approximately $3,500 to $5,000 per child (depending on the school). I remember this vividly because I was a teenager then. That's a lot of money.

Did people have smaller families? Did everyone make so so much that they were easily able to afford this? I mean, even six children in school would be $21,000 (on the cheaper end). How much money were people making that this was affordable?

I don't know because my husband and I both come from tiny families, and I remember that tuition was a huge struggle for both sets of parents. And they had good, middle income jobs. Both parents worked.

Are you talking Brooklyn? Because there were vouchers available for lower income families which paid a nice portion of the tuition. I know this because my parents took advantage of it.

If you're talking about Lakewood this is just not true. Aside for the fact that the town was tiny then and the cost of living was an absolute joke compared to now, tuition was definitely not $5000 a child. No way no how. I know this because it was way less than that when my first child started school here only ten years ago.

Re your other points, if anything people have smaller families today but there's no real way to know this without official statistics.

I do agree with you though that tuition was always a struggle. But it's become so much more than that. It's become something painful, a thorn in our communities that is destroying our relationships with our children's schools, our peace of mind and so much more.

amother

↑ Bellflower ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 10:23 am

amother Maroon wrote:

Brooklyn. No there were no vouchers available in Brooklyn 30 to 50 years ago. (There was ONE Lakewood girls school when I was growing up and it had ONE class. So no, not Lakewood, lol).

In Lakewood tuition was $2500 to 3000 a child, not negotiable, around 25 years ago, which was when my oldest started school. I know it was not negotiable because that's how much my kollel friends were paying. (Lakewood was always cheaper than Brooklyn).

I feel like all of us posting are talking about different things. The schools where my parents and in laws sent to were not voucher population - maybe you are talking about Chassidish schools?

There are still vouchers in Brooklyn... they started, I think, around 20 years ago.

My question still stands - how did parents of large families afford tuition in the 70's, 80's, and 90's? The math is not mathing.

Also, I don't think these articles are talking about Lakewood which is still very cheap. I don't dare post what I pay for my childrens tuition as I'm going to get ripped to shreds here lol.

ETA: we are probably talking about a different community because the post I was responding to said that all of her friends are not able to buy. Well, here in Lakewood ALL my friends children, second and third generation kollel married 3 to 10 years, have bought houses. (And they also don't dress in hand me downs etc...) Again, I feel like we are all talking about different places and different realities.

amother

↑ Stoneblue ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 10:53 am

amother Bellflower wrote:

To me, all this talk about buying houses is non-relevant. Our lifestyle shouldn't be set up that the majority can't breathe and live. Going back 30 years ago, tuition was indeed significantly lower, along with other life expenses. Even those who were just making ends meet were able to juggle and shift things around to live in a respectable manner.

The price of yiddishe life has gone up exponentially but salaries haven't. Schools have raised their rates to adapt to the rising costs, but since it's such a large expense, even greater than the mortgage for many, the increase is not able to integrated into the average budget. It's just not possible, no matter how important it is. Unless we figure out how to change up the equation, whether is lowering school costs, drastically increasing average salary potentials, eliminating other life expenses, people will NOT be able to pay it. It doesn't matter if the school threatens or acts nicely or offers incentives if you pay, it's just not within the average families reach to have such a large expense overtaking their income.

So I don't get this blaming, shaming, finger pointing or threatening families. We need to focus on how to fix the current equation instead of locking families into financial chokeholds. If we do continue with the latter, it will eventually threaten the yiddishkeit of our future generations.

amother

↑ Eggshell ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 11:07 am

amother Bellflower wrote:

Well I’m happy for your friend’s children but as a Lakewood basement dweller who’s been married several years and can’t begin to afford a house, and whose children all wear hand me downs, I don’t appreciate you acting like they represent every young family in Lakewood. There is great financial suffering in Lakewood too.

amother

↑ Maroon ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 11:32 am

amother Bellflower wrote:

Um, I grew up in Brooklyn and was in school 30 years ago. There absolutely WERE vouchers. My parents got, and we had to attend an after school program because of it so it was no secret. Not sure why you keep saying this isn't true. ANY help with tuition makes a tremendous difference to parents, and vouchers paid a nice amount. I'd give anything to have that kind of help now!

Okay, you changed your Lkwd numbers from 3500-5000 to 250. That's very different.

And again, as I mentioned upthread, it wasn't just the numbers that made things different in those days. Of course tuition was always a struggle, what's your question? It was the hottest topic at Agudah conventions and in the Jewish Observer since forever.

But that's not what's different today. It's several factors:

1. The annual tuition raises. Back then, it went up by 10, maybe 15 dollars a month per kid. Today it can easily jump by 100 a kid each month--or a LOT more. That's a lot for parents to swallow each year.

2. The relationship with the schools. I don't know about your parents, but mine had a very warm relationship with their schools even though tuition was always a struggle (yes, even with vouchers).

As for me, while I do respect and appreciate the hanhala and rebbeim/teachers at my kids' schools very much, I can't say the same for the administrator and financial office at any school. My husband and I have so much resentment towards them for reasons you can find offered by many other posters on this thread.

Sadly, this plays out in how much we give/raise for the school. My father was always very involved in the schools' annual dinners and would help out in the weeks leading up to the dinner by making phone calls for the school. And he was a very busy man.

As for us, we've gotten so fed up with all financial matters related to our schools, that we've stopped doing any fundraising for them. We ignore the gazillion calls and messages to set up a page when they run their annual campaigns and ask their parent body to turn into fundraisers for 72 hours. We just can't.

I'm sure it's not just me.

↑ mha3484 ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 11:33 am

I send to one of the schools in the article. I agree that how you treat parents makes a huge difference. I don't pay anywhere close to full tuition and don't have easy children but the school has always been very fair to us and treat us with respect. One year my oldest was in two schools at a time and it was extremely challenging and they were extremely generous. In return I am happy to hit up my relatives when fundraising season comes along. I also choose my complaints very carefully and try to do my best to express my hakaras hatov. The texts the rabbi in the article got from parents made me want to throw up. If hashem wants to send me a large sum of money tomorrow Id be happy to pay more.

I think one thing is missing though. Where are our local chesed orgs and why are they not supporting the middle class so that its easier to pay our tuition. Where I live there is no shame in taking help. Our local chesed org sent an email saying they helped 7200 clients last year. We have food programs, gemachim, a thriving swap group on whatsapp, no one asks for your income. I read a thread on here lamenting that someone had to use the school uniform exchange and everyone I know is thrilled to use it and swap with friends to save money. I got uniforms from someone making aliyah and was not embarrassed at all. Why cant we make this the norm.

amother

↑ Fern ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 12:13 pm

amother Midnight wrote:

Can I ask what's probably a stupid/naive question? Having lived OOT most of my life (super OOT growing up, but fairly far from the NY area now with my kids in school), I never heard of a someone "owning a school". Is this something that exists only in the NY area? Even when I was living in NY and sending my kids to school there, as far as I was aware, there was no one who "owned the school".

Yes many of the right wing yeshivish schools in the tristate area are privately owned by a person, just like a store or any other business is owned by a person. It's a problem because there is generally no board,no oversight and no transparency and very often the owners are quite wealthy and live a very luxurious lifestyle which raises a lot of questions.

amother

Whitesmoke

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 12:34 pm

amother Fern wrote:

Side point about seminary but there are high schools that really pressure the girls to go.if a girl says she does not want to they will work very very hard to convince her. I remember reading on this site that there is a school in lakewood that a lot of girls opted out of going to sem in israel and the principal was furious about it

You can't complain that seminary prevents parents from paying full tuition and then pressure the girls to go

And to this point another thing that schools, Rabanim and frum society teaches is to have as "many children as Hashem will give you" and then when they have way more then they can afford we bully and harass them about not being able to to pay tuition etc......... Why hasn't anyone mentioned that in the crazy inflation world we now live in that we need to make adjustments in what we are preaching and pushing on our children that money is not a reason "not to have more children" The only long term solution (as the world financial situation is only going to get worse not better) is to slowly start changing the idea about only having children you can afford. That is just another way of looking at "as many as Hashem allows" it doesn't only mean physically!

I have seen posts on here many times about "is money/finances a reason not to have another baby" and there are SO many people on here who answer that is not a good reason not to have more. It truly flabergasts me every time I see that. How with good conscience can you bring another child into the world when you can barely provide basics for the ones you already have??? I really truly don't understand it.

amother

Oldlace ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 1:32 pm

Two things people don't talk about in the tuition conversation

1) deliberately becoming house-poor to avoid tuition payments.
2) how much in programs the family makes

Let's take three families who each have 7 kids.
In Lakewood because that's my familiarity.

The Friedman's make 120k. He works ft and she works 25 hours a week. They save penny by penny for savings. But they have to submit to the tuition committee how much savings they have so they're assigned a tuition amount because they have "plenty of savings". Every year they're dipping more and more into savings and will likely never buy a house. They're also being priced out of rentals
This is the standard lower middle class family that is drowning and taking Tomchei Shabbos.

The Schwartz make the same amount. But when they're married 4 years, each of their parents gives them 75k as a down and pressures them to buy. They jump into a high mortgage payment and it's rough but every tuition meeting they're given significant breaks so while its rough, at least they have a house and aren't being forced to move from rental to rental every year.

The Steins make 75k combined. They go on every program.
CHS valued at 25k a year
Hud 25k a year
Wic, food stamps, insurance for the adults, all the tax credits and earned income credits.
Plus they make so little, they're given an automatic tuition discount.
Over 10 years, they put away and eventually buy themselves a house.

But the tuition committee is busy harassing the Friedman's, barely giving them breaks and they are drowning.

amother

Leaf ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 1:46 pm

People here keep asking what changed in the mainstream frum world since the 80’s and 90’s that makes it so much harder for families to pay tuition.

1. Most men learned 1-2-3 years max and then went to work. This gives families a major financial headstart since their income started going up BEFORE they started paying tuition and had other big expenses. This allowed them to save more in those first couple of years for a down payment and future savings. It also meant that by the time they were paying tuition for a few kids they were in a much better place financially.

2. Many women were SAHMs or worked very minimally. Many kept their children home until around age 3 or later. This meant families were able to save money on babysitters, day camp, takeout, cleaning help, a second car, etc. It also meant (like it or not) that husbands assumed the weight of being the primary breadwinner which is a big psychological component that motivates men to pursue higher earnings

3. Many things that we take for granted now were viewed as extras or luxeries. Florida/Disneyworld/Israel/etc vacations (we went to Lake George or New Hampshire for 2 days), all clothes being matching and new (hand me downs were common for everyone),
Amazon for splurge purchases, “Sunday clubs”, travel camps, huge bar mitzvahs, leasing new cars, living in a house larger than 1,800-2,500 square feet, renovating your house, etc. These were things for wealthy people not middle class families. Restaurants were for erev pesach and very special occasions. Toys were bought for birthdays and afikomens. Salmon, dips, magazines, meat for shabbos, were not “basics” like they are now.

4. Life was cheaper! The income to expenses ratio was simply much higher. Tuition, housing prices, gas, food, health insurance, etc were much more proportionate to income. A huge component of the struggle today is the crazy high mortgages.

5. We have certain expenses today that simply didn’t use to exist. Cellphone bill, wifi bill, even therapy.

6. Tuition has gone up disproportionally due to schools having much higher building costs, offering much more services and support staff, paying rebbis and Morah’s more. Each school also receives less donations overall because there are so so many more schools to support. It used to be that communities prioritized supporting their few schools. Now, schools struggle much more with outside fundraising.

7. A much larger amount of our communal tzedaka funds are routed outside of our communities. Look at the $107 million raised for Israel, a campaign like that would have been impossible without the internet. A much larger amount of our communal tzedaka is also going toward causes that don’t help struggling families in America with basic needs. Adopt a Kollel, Shas Yidden, BMG, etc. Parents are also giving tzedaka to support their own children for many more years. I’m not passing judgement on this I’m just explaining why communal support for basics like groceries and tuition hasn’t kept up with demand.

keym ↓

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 1:57 pm

amother Leaf wrote:

People here keep asking what changed in the mainstream frum world since the 80’s and 90’s that makes it so much harder for families to pay tuition.

1. Most men learned 1-2-3 years max and then went to work. This gives families a major financial headstart since their income started going up BEFORE they started paying tuition and had other big expenses. This allowed them to save more in those first couple of years for a down payment and future savings. It also meant that by the time they were paying tuition for a few kids they were in a much better place financially.

2. Many women were SAHMs or worked very minimally. Many kept their children home until around age 3 or later. This meant families were able to save money on babysitters, day camp, takeout, cleaning help, a second car, etc. It also meant (like it or not) that husbands assumed the weight of being the primary breadwinner which is a big psychological component that motivates men to pursue higher earnings

3. Many things that we take for granted now were viewed as extras or luxeries. Florida/Disneyworld/Israel/etc vacations (we went to Lake George or New Hampshire for 2 days), all clothes being matching and new (hand me downs were common for everyone),
Amazon for splurge purchases, “Sunday clubs”, travel camps, huge bar mitzvahs, leasing new cars, living in a house larger than 1,800-2,500 square feet, renovating your house, etc. These were things for wealthy people not middle class families. Toys were bought for birthdays and afikomens. Salmon, dips, magazines, meat for shabbos, were not “basics” like they are now.

4. Life was cheaper! The income to expenses ratio was simply much higher. Tuition, housing prices, gas, food, health insurance, etc were much more proportionate to income. A huge component of the struggle today is the crazy high mortgages.

5. We have certain expenses today that simply didn’t use to exist. Cellphone bill, wifi bill, even therapy.

6. Tuition had gone up disproportionally due to schools having much higher building costs, offering much more services and support staff, paying rebbis and Morah’s more. Each school also receives less donations overall because there are so so many more schools to support. It used to be that communities prioritized supporting their few schools. Now, schools struggle much more with outside fundraising.

7. A much larger amount of our communal tzedaka funds are routed outside of our communities. Look at the $107 million raised for Israel, a campaign like that would have been impossible without the internet. A much larger amount of our communal tzedaka is also going toward causes that don’t help struggling families in America with basic needs. Adopt a Kollel, Shas Yidden, BMG, etc. Parents are also giving tzedaka to support their own children for many more years. I’m not passing judgement on this I’m just explaining why communal support hasn’t kept up with demand.

Grandparents were much more local and available to help.

My husband and I (in our 40s) were both raised with retired grandparents living within a 15 minute drive.
And most of our friends had the same

So much of our budget is spent nowadays on things because we don't have family to help- babysitters, paying carpool subs, mothers helpers, takeout.

↑ keym

Thu, Sep 26 2024, 2:06 pm

mha3484 wrote:

I agree 100%. I think this is why I see so many young families moving back to my OOT community to be near either a sibling or set of parents. I dont think we were designed to live on an island away from a support system.

But even moving or living near grandparents is not helpful let alone affordable.

My grandmother never worked. When my mother had a baby or was even having a rough day, Bubby can come and help. She also had no little kids at home by the time I was born.

My mother works part time. She'd be available a little.

I work closer to full time. I see with my friends. They love their grandchildren but just can't be there practically as a help for their married kids. They're working. Still have younger kids at home.