Seminary prices rising. When do we say enough?!

ive always had the idea of using the OG bais yakov building in Krakow and have seminary be a gap month instead of a year so that 12 groups of 50 girls can go a year. such a program would be affordable. or even in israel they should only come for 2 weeks straight of touring and all the studying in america

Why en masse? Why can’t those who can’t afford it choose to say no to his individual child?

The solution to any issue that has become a social norm can only be solved if the majority decide that they will change together. It is very easy for an outsider to say, “What’s the big deal? If you can’t afford it, just don’t send your kid.” It’s a whole different story when it’s YOUR kid who comes to youand she does not want to be the only kid in her class not going. What do you tell her? “Just tell all your friends that we can’t afford it”? Yeah, and have your kid hate you for the rest of her life!

It’s the same for all the other insane things that become the norm of our society. Shiddichim, wedding expenses, gashmiyus standards, age of boys dating, etc. Once something becomes the “but everybody is doing it,” there is no small group that can reverse the change. Puk chazi. How much effort has gone into these issues, and where have they gone? How many Roshei Yeshiva and Rabbonim meetings have there been about getting bochurim to go to EY a year earlier? How many Roshei Yeshiva followed it? Four or five?

Say no?how can you say “no”. The horror of obbsesive conformity to fake virtue signaling so you can “married”
Like we aren’t accepted for ourselves
That our sense of self worth is contingent upon how righteous we look on the outside not our character of who we are.
The illness of a socioty who’s norms are impossible for reach, how every person refuses to look past norms and treat others with decency, consistently preventing a new era of free agency and self worth to shine through how each individual perpetuates the senseless control, generation after generation. People will never say no, until we all individually learn to forgive ourselves for imperfections and not measuring up to impossible norms so the collective can start doing what it’s supposed to do, live individual lives in individual circumstances. Guess it’s starts from oursleves first

Rocky, you misunderstand how currency values work.
Because Sems collect their tuition revenue in US dollars, (which are losing value vs the Shekel) but have their expenses in Shekels (food, rent, utilities, etc all must be paid in Shekels), they need to charge more tuition in Dollars to make up for the deficit caused by the currency depreciation of dollars against shekels. As the USD weakens, the revenue they took in loses value and does not cover their expenses that need to be paid in Shekels.
If parents paid tuition in shekels, this would not be an issue, but they don’t.
Of course, a few years ago when the USD was very strong vs the shekel (over 4:1) they were in an inverse position to now, and no Seminaries offered US parents a refund or lower tuition accordingly – they just pocketed the difference….

TLIK> a myth that a girl who doesn’t go to seminary is somehow less frum, and not an option for a serious learning boy to consider.

this maybe part of the story. R Kotler and numerous other Rabonim credit BY system (american, not polish one by Ms Shreiner, name was appropriated) for being able to convince american meidelach to marry learners without a steady profession.

So, maybe with yeridas hadoros, girls need an extra dose of frumkeit, delivered in inpatient environment outside of hurtful common sense of biological parents? And then they are fully ready to accept the level of learners shadchanim are preparing for them.

Some reasonable meidelach actually know not to go into shidduchim for several months after sem to make sure they do not MUI – marry under influence.

No they need an extra dose of brainwash to sacrfice themselves to an ideal lifestyle that they “want” despite the fact that you can’t control reality towards an ideal you can only live within what is given to you by God and what is good for you as an individual
Many people say “but I wasn’t this lifestyle”
Then sacrifice everything for it including themselves. That’s delusional,
God decides what lifestyle you will live based off what circumstances you are given, you don’t get to decide that.
People need to live in reality

This must stop. It has gone too far. I am seriously considering reprioritizing my tzedakah donations for there may be families claiming poverty who are sending their sons and daughters to Eretz Yisroel. You cannot collect tzedakah to fund your child’s Funtime in Eretz Yisroel. When I come up with a viable strategy to bypass such tzedakah causes, I will share it with the oilam.

pekak, it is an interesting question. I am not denying role of Mrs. Schenirer. There were orthodox girl schools before her in Germany and Ponevezh rav opened a school with both Torah and secular subjects and was able to compete with non-religious schools. But her role was immense as she was able to introduce a model acceptable within the non-modern community. But differences – her motivation was based on Yakkishe model. When she was a refugee in Vienna during WW1, her non-Jewish landlord asked her why she had to shlep for an hour to Beltzer shul when there is one one block away. Turns out she did not recognize Yakkish R Frisch in his modernishe jacket. She became his talmida and then invited Yakkish ladies with PhDs to develop curriculum and train teachers. And her ultimate goal was to teach basics to illiterate Jewish women so that they stay Jewish …

As R Dovid Soloveitchik says, quoted by R Mintz, his father encouraged BY in Brisk – in earlier times, women learned from mothers and did not need no schools but then fathers and sons would go to admorim and mothers and daughters – to theaters .. then HaRav switched to yeshivish problems – in generation before him, normal girls would not consider a shidduch with an unemlpoyable yeshiva bochur, so they had to marry uglier and older ones but in his generation even those girls refused even real talmidei chachomim of Mir… this is pre-WW2.
and BY solved the problem (and R Kotler more pointedly gives credit to Kaplan, and I dont recall whether Rav or Rebetzin).

So, with your correction, I would say that yes, mission of original BY has changed from general education to shidduchim for bochrim, but it already started before WW2. It will be interesting to look at original curriculum and compare with modern BYs.

The American seminaries in Eretz Yisrael today have very little if anything to do with Bais Yaakov in Poland. At first, the BY in Poland trained women to be teachers (hence the name (teachers seminary) and then morphed into schools for younger students whose objective was to keep girls from (i.e shomer shabbos).

The seminaries in EY first started also as teachers’ seminaries, but hardly any of them still claim to do that (except perhaps Meor). The objective of seminaries in EY is to give the girls a taste of life in EY, to encourage them to marry a kollel guy, and to fill in the few things they may have missed in the first K-12 of school. Many of them try to train their girls to become talmidot chachamot by giving very rigorous academics so that they can claim the title of a “top seminary”.

In my opinion, giving the taste of life in EY is a worthy goal, but it could also be accomplished in half the time. It would be nice if many of them would focus on practical topics that will prepare them for life (halacha, mussar, hashkafa), but I would assume that most fail in this regard and instead focus on learning more meforshim.

Rocky> giving the taste of life in EY is a worthy goal, but it could also be accomplished in half the time.

agree, this would be at least half a solution 🙂 There are actually sems who do that. There is a lot to say for EY etc, but
(1) for those who can afford it and not getting 3rd mortgage (2nd went for high school)
(2) maybe sent them 1-2 year earlier skipping some of high school – who insist that girls need a sem, that is they are not able to teach girls themselves.
dont tell me that 12 years of schooling are still not enough to keep girls frum.
(3) careful that sem is not taking girls away from your personal derech. (For some, there are sems that fit exactly, great). In high school, you see them every day and can influence. Here it is a triple bomb of madrichos, chaveros and rehovos ….

In regards to r Kotler, one of his early students writes that once he noticed rav fasting, when he refused the coffee. He asked why and rav explained that one of his former unsuccessful students had hard time finding a shidduch and now he was expecting a call from girl’s father and he was davening… that the father would not call…..as he didn’t know what to say

I find it ironic as the problem was presumably caused by the guy who was unsuccessful learner but didn’t get a profession also, so rav had a hand in that.