When discussing the current economic woes as they relate to Jewish education, it is important to note that there are two distinct crises, and that each of them requires its own strategy for solution.
One crisis, which began relatively recently, affects the yeshiva day schools’ ability to meet their monetary obligations such as mortgage, utilities, and salary payments in a timely manner, and it affects the schools’ ability to budget for new or expanding necessary programs.
The other crisis, which has been discussed for quite a few years now, affects the yeshiva day school parents, and has been commonly referred to as the tuition crisis.
The Department of Day School & Educational Services at the Orthodox Union has initiated a number of ongoing programs to help toward alleviating the first crisis. These programs include a nationwide health insurance plan for yeshiva day schools, funding assistance through the OU Education Toolbar project, the Kehillah Fund in various communities, low rate tax-exempt bonds for capital expansion, and cost-cutting measures in the areas of energy and printing expenses.
(In addition, we are working diligently to effectuate legislative changes in the federal and local government that would be favorable to parents who pay tuition to private schools. This, however, is not a short-term solution; success, realistically, is years away).
Yet, with all of these programs, as successful as they may be, it is unlikely that the result will be a significant reduction of tuition for parents. By way of example, in order to reduce the average tuition in Bergen County, New Jersey, to $10,000 still a significant tuition cost for parents it would take an infusion of approximately 13.6 million dollars of “new” money, which would then need to continue annually.
That’s just for Bergen County alone, and that assumes a freeze of tuition levels indefinitely. Our programs were designed to help schools meet their needs; they were not designed to lower tuition. I write this article, therefore, in the hopes of addressing the second crisis, the crushing burden of tuition costs on parents.
It is not an exaggeration to state that the effects of the tuition crisis can sometimes be horrific. Young married couples speak of having fewer children because of mounting yeshiva tuition costs; many couples speak of escalating tension and arguments, and in some cases couples even report about marriages in jeopardy due to extreme financial pressures in the home. The stakes here are very high, and ought not to be underestimated, and the problem does not seem to be going away any time soon.
Perhaps even worse, the current system of yeshiva day school education will not be sustainable as it is for too much longer. A survey of tuition costs in the greater New York area over the past five years reveals an average tuition increase of 7% per year. This is nearly double the rate of inflation and double the rate of parents’ salary increases.
At this rate, within five more years, an upper-middle income family with three children will not be able to afford yeshiva day-school education. As a result, families that a few years ago would never have entertained alternative solutions such as Hebrew immersion public school programs, are now willing to think about such options; in fact there already is a small number of families that have begun to send their children to public school for no other reason than economic considerations. As a community, we must consider serious, viable solutions for this crisis. Imposed family planning, serious marital tension, and public school enrollment are absolutely unacceptable.
By definition, there are only three possible approaches to solving the tuition crisis: (1) increase revenues to the schools at such a high rate as to allow for a significant reduction of tuition; (2) cut spending at the schools at such a rate as to allow for a significant reduction of tuition; and (3) a combination of the first two approaches. Increased revenues at a high enough rate to slash tuition costs do not seem to be forthcoming, at least for the foreseeable future. Schools report a struggle just to keep up with revenue rates of past years – a major increase seems to be out of the realm of possibility.