Why are private schools constantly raising money when they clearly have a surplus?

[Anonymous]

We’ve been in private for a few years and we get asked to contribute to the annual fund every year because “ tuition alone doesn’t cover expenses”

I recently went on ProPublica.com, to check on our school as well as many other private schools in the area. The non religious schools that are structured as non profits all have to publicly report earnings, expenses, assets and liabilities, along with their executives salaries.
All prominent private schools in our area that I checked have a surplus ranging from $2 Million to $15 Million , and assets that are well over their liabilities, according to their 2024 tax filings.

Why are we constantly guilted into donating on top of a $50K tuition and being told that our tuition doesn’t cover expenses, when it clearly does, and more?

[Anonymous]

They want to build a giant endowment.

More philosophically, there's not a huge distinction between the incentives of for-profits and non-profits. They all want to make lots and lots of money.

[Anonymous]

Excessive fundraising and overspending at these schools is grotesque. Particularly so in the ones with religious affiliations. It was always bad, but it wasn't always this bad.

[Anonymous]

In fund raising, cash is king. The best example are universities. The endowment is so big that they can decide to do anything they want. Also keep in mind that capital investment cannot be financed with yearly revenue and schools might need to rely on the endowments.

In any case don’t donate if you don’t feel is right. I donate the minimum.

[Anonymous]

It irks me, too, OP.

[Anonymous]

It’s the “ tuition alone isn’t enough to cover our expenses” part that really bothers me! I’ve always felt guilted into paying so the school can keep its door open! That’s clearly not the case when you are operating at a few millions of profit each year!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been in private for a few years and we get asked to contribute to the annual fund every year because “ tuition alone doesn’t cover expenses”

I recently went on ProPublica.com, to check on our school as well as many other private schools in the area. The non religious schools that are structured as non profits all have to publicly report earnings, expenses, assets and liabilities, along with their executives salaries.
All prominent private schools in our area that I checked have a surplus ranging from $2 Million to $15 Million , and assets that are well over their liabilities, according to their 2024 tax filings.

Why are we constantly guilted into donating on top of a $50K tuition and being told that our tuition doesn’t cover expenses, when it clearly does, and more?

And yet they pay teachers $60k, like hrs, based ok Glassdoor data. Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been in private for a few years and we get asked to contribute to the annual fund every year because “ tuition alone doesn’t cover expenses”

I recently went on ProPublica.com, to check on our school as well as many other private schools in the area. The non religious schools that are structured as non profits all have to publicly report earnings, expenses, assets and liabilities, along with their executives salaries.
All prominent private schools in our area that I checked have a surplus ranging from $2 Million to $15 Million , and assets that are well over their liabilities, according to their 2024 tax filings.

Why are we constantly guilted into donating on top of a $50K tuition and being told that our tuition doesn’t cover expenses, when it clearly does, and more?

And yet they pay teachers $60k, like hrs, based ok Glassdoor data. Why?

They pay teachers like $60k a year such as gds.

[Anonymous]

If they weren't constantly raising money, they might not have a surplus for long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been in private for a few years and we get asked to contribute to the annual fund every year because “ tuition alone doesn’t cover expenses”

I recently went on ProPublica.com, to check on our school as well as many other private schools in the area. The non religious schools that are structured as non profits all have to publicly report earnings, expenses, assets and liabilities, along with their executives salaries.
All prominent private schools in our area that I checked have a surplus ranging from $2 Million to $15 Million , and assets that are well over their liabilities, according to their 2024 tax filings.

Why are we constantly guilted into donating on top of a $50K tuition and being told that our tuition doesn’t cover expenses, when it clearly does, and more?

And yet they pay teachers $60k, like hrs, based ok Glassdoor data. Why?

Why not? That's what the market dictates. Or are we going to do the PC thing here where everyone rambles about it being "the most important job" and pretends that you have to be smart to do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In fund raising, cash is king. The best example are universities. The endowment is so big that they can decide to do anything they want. Also keep in mind that capital investment cannot be financed with yearly revenue and schools might need to rely on the endowments.

In any case don’t donate if you don’t feel is right. I donate the minimum.

This is correct.

Note, I am a major gifts officer for a hospital and used to work at a university.

[Anonymous]

Our 15K/yr private Catholic school says that too, but it’s true. Cost per student is a little more than that, but less than 20K per student. They show us all the numbers.

You can also look up the cost to educate a student in public school in every state, and it hovers around 20K per student as well.

That’s why I don’t get the 50K+ schools, and then asking for more money and saying it’s to cover the cost per student? That is really wrong. At least tell people, it’s for the endowment, it’s for scholarships, it’s for ridiculously impressive facilities, athletics and otherwise. If I paid that, I’d want to know where the money was going. And from comments on this site, it seems like it’s not teacher salaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been in private for a few years and we get asked to contribute to the annual fund every year because “ tuition alone doesn’t cover expenses”

I recently went on ProPublica.com, to check on our school as well as many other private schools in the area. The non religious schools that are structured as non profits all have to publicly report earnings, expenses, assets and liabilities, along with their executives salaries.
All prominent private schools in our area that I checked have a surplus ranging from $2 Million to $15 Million , and assets that are well over their liabilities, according to their 2024 tax filings.

Why are we constantly guilted into donating on top of a $50K tuition and being told that our tuition doesn’t cover expenses, when it clearly does, and more?

And yet they pay teachers $60k, like hrs, based ok Glassdoor data. Why?

They pay teachers like $60k a year such as gds.

And many other private school teachers (not GDS I assume) work 9 months a year and receive full tuition for their kids.

[Anonymous]

They need to cover tuition for the athletes.

No clue why.

[Anonymous]

Any school with a nice campus or facility has to budget (save) for inevitable and high expenses.

If you spent all of your annual income every year, you’d never be able to cover home maintenance expenses as they come up.

A condo that hits expenses they can’t cover issues assessments for new HVAC etc. schools can’t say: he, we need an extra $10,000 from each student this year.

Most of the small schools in this area aren’t slurping off of billion dollar endowments.

You might disagree with how they spend their cash flow or be surprised by low teacher salaries. Both areas to question.

No well-equipped school survives without a cash cushion. Most still borrow money for capital improvements.