The Day School Ledger
Eleven stories about what a Jewish day school costs, who pays for it, and where the money goes once it is inside the building.
A Jewish day school is the most expensive kind of school to run, because it teaches two curricula in one day. Tuition never covers it, so the rest comes from somewhere, and the tax filings say where.
This series walks through the building one room at a time. Every room has a number, and every number comes from a public filing.
One school, two floors
Every story in this series happens in one of these rooms. Classrooms are red, offices blue, corridors green, the library and gathering rooms orange. Keep scrolling and the frame will move from room to room, starting at reception, where the tuition bill is paid.
A school posts $26,215 in tuition and collects $18,688 per student.
Every school publishes a price. Then financial aid, sibling discounts, staff discounts and unpaid bills go to work on it. At the typical school, 74 cents of each posted tuition dollar actually arrives. That comes from 47 schools over two years, and the gap was the same in both years.
Orthodox day schools lose money in 65 percent of their school years.
We rebuilt income against spending for 887 schools over four years. Orthodox schools ended 65 percent of those years in deficit, against 37 percent for similar private schools. When the shortfall hits, an Orthodox school has less than a month of expenses in reserve, and a comparison school has more than six.
Jewish day schools teach two curricula, and donors pay for the second one, not families.
Running two faculties costs about 20 percent more per student than a comparable private school. Families pay none of that difference, since net tuition at Jewish day schools runs 4 percent lower than at similar private schools. The gap is covered by fundraising, which brings in 161 percent more per student.
Orthodox schools run the most expensive kind of school day for about a third less money.
Orthodox day schools spend 32 percent less per student on operations than other Jewish day schools, after adjusting for size, region and year. They do it with bigger classes, 19 students in the early grades against 14, fewer staff per student, and endowments a third the size. They also charge about 25 percent less.
Most private schools stop saving money at about 150 students. Jewish day schools keep saving.
At an ordinary private school, each added student lowers the cost per student until about 150, and then the savings run out. Jewish day schools keep getting cheaper per student as they grow. At 400 students, growth cuts costs 2.2 percent at a Jewish school and raises them 2.7 percent at a comparison school.
Tuition goes up about 4 percent a year, no matter what inflation does.
We rebuilt the posted price at 165 schools over nine years. The median increase stayed between 3 and 4.5 percent every year, while inflation swung from under 1 percent to over 9. In the 2021 spike, tuition rose 3.5 percent and prices rose 9 percent, so the real price of a year of school fell. Over the whole period, 41 percent of schools ended up cheaper in real terms than they started.
Five schools hold nearly 40 percent of all day school endowment.
Endowment is the pot of money a school invests and spends only the earnings from. Across 107 schools it adds up to $484.7 million, and five schools hold 39.1 percent of it. Forty-three schools have no endowment at all. Having one does not make a school more generous, since the ten richest give 18.5 percent of revenue as aid and everyone else gives 19.4.
The schools with the biggest endowments do not give more financial aid.
The ten most-endowed schools hold 54.4 percent of the money and give 18.5 percent of their revenue as tuition aid. The other schools give 19.4 percent. Orthodox and Chareidi schools, which hold the least endowment, give the most, at 24.7 percent. Forty-three schools give aid with no endowment behind it at all, which means their aid depends on what they can raise each year.
School revenue grew about 8 percent a year. Top pay grew about 1 percent.
At 140 schools over seven years, the money coming in grew fastest at Orthodox and Chareidi schools, about 8 percent a year. Pay for the top earner at those schools grew about 1 percent a year, the slowest of any group. Across all schools, top pay grew about 3 percent a year, less than inflation, and fell from 2.4 percent of revenue to 1.7.
Boards set the head of school's pay by looking at tuition, and tuition barely predicts it.
Across 134 heads at 97 schools, posted tuition predicts the head's pay at 0.15 on a scale where 1 is a perfect match. Total revenue predicts it at 0.60, four times better. Tuition runs from $10,600 in Quebec to $33,207 in California, mostly because of local costs, and it says little about what the head is paid.
Small Jewish communities put four times as much per person into their day schools as big ones.
We read ten years of federation grant lists for 35 communities. Almost every federation sends its day schools something. In communities under 50,000 Jews, the federation spends about $46 a year per Jewish resident on the schools, and in communities over 150,000 it spends about $12. In a few small towns, the federation check still decides whether the school has a good year or a bad one.
And the one bill these plans don't show
Every room above has a number from a tax filing. The guard at the door is the exception. What it costs to keep a school building safe is a Season 3 story, and day schools turn out to be nearly half of that bill.
Read the security storyFour things the filings can't tell you
Every number above comes from a public document. These four do not, and anyone who gives you a confident number for them is guessing.
What a family actually pays
The 74-cent figure is a school-wide average. The filings never show what any one family paid after aid.
What happens inside the classroom
The filings put a price on the second curriculum. They say nothing about what it teaches or how well.
Which schools will close
Deficits are common and closures are rare, and nothing in the filings says which deficit is the last one.
What the endowment is for
A school reports the size of its endowment, not the rules its board has set for spending it.
All eleven stories, and two tools
Grouped four ways, in the order the money moves through the building.