There may be a “moral” obligation for yeshivos to pay their faculty a “living wage” (where that term varies between metropolitan areas} they are ultimately operating in a market environment where supply/demand dictates compensation. If a rebbe cannot earn a parnassah by teaching, he may want to pursue another career or marry a wealthy woman who can support the family. Likewise, we shouldn’t expect our yeshivos to function as a gemach and allow parents to pay substantially less than the actual cost of educating their children. Schools are a business, not a charity and its up to the parents to find supplemental financial assistance if they cannot afford to pay. Otherwise, you are in a downward, unsustainable spiral of schools lacking the funds to hire the best reebaim and morot because they are not recover their costs from all the students, the quality of instruction suffers and the better students leave for schools with better teachers, further worsening the schools’ financial condition.
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