Reply To: Tuition Thoughts

we can do whatever we want. or we can whine about it instead.

I don’t think anyone is whining here…I think the point is for discussion. Discussion may or may not lead to new ideas which can help.

Squeak, JEC is already is large institution. They cover an elementary school, two high schools and basically the entire Elizabeth Jewish community, shuls etc. They sort of already ARE doing that, albeit not on as large a scale as the Catholic schools.

Jothar, JEC is basically a MO school. You don’t have many long term learning parents. You do however have a contingency of immigrants that the school allows to come for free as kiruv. There are generally a few in every grade. I would NOT want to cut that. Its some people’s only chance at a glimpse of Judaism.

I don’t think having teachers who can teach special ed kids are the solution. Sure, a great teacher can teach a spectrum of students, but if your students are too far apart from each other (some too smart, some too challenged), someone is going to fall by the wayside. That’s not a good solution either.

Lets say we cut the teachers raises (keeping in mind at JEC the children of the teachers do not get reduced tuition, a perk at most jobs). That saves $450 per student, with an average of 4 kids per family which yields an $1800 savings per family. Sounds nice, but remember – cost per student is around $12,000 – so $48,000. Generally, if you can afford $48,000, you can afford $49,800.

To me the bigger problem is automatically adding in the factor for the scholarship students. If the tuition itself was reduced by 20%, that would reduce it to $9,600 per child. With 4 kids, thats an almost $10,000 savings.