Annual tuition fees on Jewish Day schools around New York and New Jersey area are quite costly nowadays, here are some suggestions on how to cope up with the high rates.
Sending children to Jewish Day schools
The cost of sending a child into a Jewish Day school around the New York and New Jersey area ranges at $30,000 for high school and around $20,000 for elementary schools annually.
Tuition fee cost is the most common problem of Jewish parents when seeking quality Jewish education for their kids. Jewish education around the Big Apple and Jersey is quite costly for a lot of Jewish parents, and not everyone qualifies for financial aid.
To cope up with the high cost, schools and communities are finding innovative ways to make Jewish education available, here are three examples to significantly reduce tuition fees on Jewish Day schools.
Capping out tuition fees
Parents are only asked an amount for tuition based on a percentage of their income and the number of children they send to school. At Westchester Day School in New York, they have a school website where parents can input their adjusted gross income and computations will show how much they’d have to pay. The calculator will also consider the number of children to be enrolled and if any other child in the family is enrolled in a high school program.
Cut the tuition to half, gain more enrollees
At San Diego Jewish Academy, they used a basic economic theory approach in their enrollment program. Cutting the tuition cost into half resulted in a surge in enrollees. The school expects the surge in demand will cover the offset in revenue from the tuition discount.
In their first year, kindergarten enrollment increased an impressive 80 percent, while ninth-grade enrollment jumped 50 percent up. Also, due to reduced tuition, some parents voluntarily handed out contributions to the welfare and improvement of the school.
Ask for state support
State scholarship programs in Pennsylvania funnels millions of dollars each year to help fund Jewish Day schools in the state. The state offers corporations to get up to 90 percent of their scholarship expenses to be returned to them in forms of tax exemptions. A win-win situation for both the corporations and the schools provided with scholarship grants.
Money from scholarship grants enabled the school to provide quality Jewish education to any Jewish child who wants one, regardless if they can pay or not.
– Scott Rubin, Silver Academy Treasurer
State tax incentives provide a huge chunk of fund that helps provide quality education for thousands of interested scholars. The federal legislation will also create an incentive program where more states can get involved to benefit a larger number of dependents.
