in response to simcha613 who stated: “I heard a story of someone with a $150,000 a year salary applying for scholarship”
a family of 7, after taxes your $150,000 becomes about $100,000. you have 4 kids in yeshiva, each one asks for $11,000 meaning you pay $44,000 in tuition. You have rent of about $2500 a month and student loans and credit card debts of about $1000 a month. thats $42,000 a year right there. Car payments and car insurance cuts another $500 a month. there goes another $6,000. 4 shabboses a week cost you another $1000 a month, and there goes another $12,000. and now youre $4000 in the hole. and you have nothing to save so youll never buy a house. you cant afford a babysitter, yet alone a night out so you never go out. we havent even discussed summer camps.
dude, a person making $150,000 may need a scholarship.
i have heard from a number of yeshiva executives that they expect a high earner to set aside 25% of his income to yeshiva tuition. a person making $150,000, thus, should pay $37,500 in tuition. if that person has 4 kids in yeshiva, thats $9,350 per kid which means he needs a scholarship.
i believe the problem does not lie with the high earners. it sometimes lies with those kollel folks who have had their parents/inlaws pay for their homes, supplement their income, pay for their vacations, pay for their cars and end up having a better standard of living than the high earners but then come to the yeshivos expecting to pay nothing for tuition because they are in “klei kodesh.”