Ḥeshbon → Where to start
You sit on a school board, or fund one
Almost every school spends more than tuition brings in, which is what fundraising is for. The questions worth asking are which schools are actually in trouble, where the money goes, and whether scale ever saves anything.
Read these six first
Short, and each one answers a question you already have.
School finance · 3 min read
Which Jewish day schools are actually in financial trouble?
Almost every private school spends more than tuition brings in, which is what fundraising exists to cover. The question is who still runs short once the appeal is in. Comparison schools do in 37% of years and Orthodox day schools in 65%, and those Orthodox schools carry 0.7 months of reserve against a comparison median of 6.4.
65%of Orthodox school-years run a deficit
Tuition · 7 min read
How much of a posted tuition dollar actually arrives?
Financial aid, sibling discounts, staff remission, and unpaid balances take the other 26. The median school posts $26,215 and books $18,688, and the gap barely moves across cohorts and years.
74¢collected, per posted tuition dollar
Tuition · 3 min read
Day school tuition rises about 4% a year. Does it track inflation?
Over nine years consumer prices swung across 8.4 points while the median school's annual increase moved across only 1.5. Tuition never really tracked inflation. Two large misses in opposite directions happened to cancel out.
1.5 ptstotal range of tuition growth, nine years
School finance · 6 min read
Growth stops saving most schools money at about 150 students. Does it stop saving these?
For a typical independent school, growing past about 150 students stops lowering the cost per child. Jewish day schools appear to keep saving well beyond that, which turns enrollment growth into a cost strategy available almost nowhere else.
600+students, where these schools still save
School finance · 6 min read
Five schools hold nearly 40% of the endowment. Does that buy their families more aid?
Five schools hold about 40% of all reported endowment wealth, which looks like the core problem. Their tax filings show tuition aid running at nearly the same level everywhere. What separates schools is whether they have any cushion at all.
40%of endowment held by five schools
Tuition · 5 min read
Jewish day schools teach two curricula. Who pays for the second one?
The second curriculum costs about a fifth more per student, and across 887 schools almost none of that shows up in tuition. Net tuition stays essentially flat. The extra cost lands on fundraising instead.
+161%fundraising per studentThen the rest of it
Longer, more technical, and worth it once the shape is familiar.
- How do Orthodox schools run the most expensive kind of school day for a third less money? Research brief 8 min read
- Ten schools hold more than half the endowment. Does the aid follow the money? Essay 3 min read
- Revenue at these schools grew about 8% a year. Did executive pay follow? Essay 3 min read
- Boards benchmark head-of-school pay against tuition. Does tuition predict the pay? Essay 3 min read
- Which Jewish communities prioritize their day schools? Essay 8 min read
Put your own numbers in
These answer rather than argue.