will St Albans tuition continue to rise 3K every year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Socialist administrators want to control you!!! If tuition is high enough, they can force you onto financial aid and tell you what you are allowed to spend.

When will you say the Emperor wears no clothes?

Socialst private-school administrators?

Hopefully that poster is a troll. If not, it may be one of the dumbest DCUM comments ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

At the same rate? No. But in every school with which I've been connected teacher salaries go up by at least 2-3% every year, as they have to in order to remain competitive with public schools (whose salary increases usually include and annual COL increase as well as a step system where teachers move up a step every year). And then there's benefits costs - the rate of growth has come down quite a bit from it's peak, but they're still growing faster than inflation.

Let's say, as a hypothetical, that a school spends 700,000 on salaries and 300,000 on benefits (as benefits are, on average, 30% of total compensation). Then assume that for the next year salaries go up 3% and benefits costs go up 6% (both pretty conservative estimates).

Year 1: 700,000 + 300,000 = 1,000,000 total compensation

Year 2: 721,000 + 318,000 = 1,039,000 total compensation

You'd need at least a 3.9% tuition increase to keep up with total compensation for employees, which is what most schools spend the most money on every year. Then include the fact that anything else they might spend money on (food, supplies, maintenance) is going up every year as well. It can become challenging to schools to keep tuition in check while also maintaining the quality of their programs. The steadily increasing minimum sage (on its way to $15) is likely a factor as well, as that is raising costs of support staff (janitors, kitchen staff, etc.).

All that said, I'm not sure why STA would have a 10% annual tuition increase - if I were a parent there I'd be asking a lot of questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

At the same rate? No. But in every school with which I've been connected teacher salaries go up by at least 2-3% every year, as they have to in order to remain competitive with public schools (whose salary increases usually include and annual COL increase as well as a step system where teachers move up a step every year). And then there's benefits costs - the rate of growth has come down quite a bit from it's peak, but they're still growing faster than inflation.

Let's say, as a hypothetical, that a school spends 700,000 on salaries and 300,000 on benefits (as benefits are, on average, 30% of total compensation). Then assume that for the next year salaries go up 3% and benefits costs go up 6% (both pretty conservative estimates).

Year 1: 700,000 + 300,000 = 1,000,000 total compensation

Year 2: 721,000 + 318,000 = 1,039,000 total compensation

You'd need at least a 3.9% tuition increase to keep up with total compensation for employees, which is what most schools spend the most money on every year. Then include the fact that anything else they might spend money on (food, supplies, maintenance) is going up every year as well. It can become challenging to schools to keep tuition in check while also maintaining the quality of their programs. The steadily increasing minimum sage (on its way to $15) is likely a factor as well, as that is raising costs of support staff (janitors, kitchen staff, etc.).

All that said, I'm not sure why STA would have a 10% annual tuition increase - if I were a parent there I'd be asking a lot of questions.

So, teachers won't be able to keep sending their own kids to the school where they work, unless other parent is a high earner. Even with FA, if tuition increases at such a different rate than their salary, they won't be able to keep up financially. Unless - which is usually the case - some random rich grandparent pays tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

At the same rate? No. But in every school with which I've been connected teacher salaries go up by at least 2-3% every year, as they have to in order to remain competitive with public schools (whose salary increases usually include and annual COL increase as well as a step system where teachers move up a step every year). And then there's benefits costs - the rate of growth has come down quite a bit from it's peak, but they're still growing faster than inflation.

Let's say, as a hypothetical, that a school spends 700,000 on salaries and 300,000 on benefits (as benefits are, on average, 30% of total compensation). Then assume that for the next year salaries go up 3% and benefits costs go up 6% (both pretty conservative estimates).

Year 1: 700,000 + 300,000 = 1,000,000 total compensation

Year 2: 721,000 + 318,000 = 1,039,000 total compensation

You'd need at least a 3.9% tuition increase to keep up with total compensation for employees, which is what most schools spend the most money on every year. Then include the fact that anything else they might spend money on (food, supplies, maintenance) is going up every year as well. It can become challenging to schools to keep tuition in check while also maintaining the quality of their programs. The steadily increasing minimum sage (on its way to $15) is likely a factor as well, as that is raising costs of support staff (janitors, kitchen staff, etc.).

All that said, I'm not sure why STA would have a 10% annual tuition increase - if I were a parent there I'd be asking a lot of questions.

So, teachers won't be able to keep sending their own kids to the school where they work, unless other parent is a high earner. Even with FA, if tuition increases at such a different rate than their salary, they won't be able to keep up financially. Unless - which is usually the case - some random rich grandparent pays tuition.

That is a sad side effect. In my experience their total compensation tracks tuition increases pretty well, but their salary does not. No easy solution to this as long as benefit cost if rising faster than inflation, though, as that's really what's eating up the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

At the same rate? No. But in every school with which I've been connected teacher salaries go up by at least 2-3% every year, as they have to in order to remain competitive with public schools (whose salary increases usually include and annual COL increase as well as a step system where teachers move up a step every year). And then there's benefits costs - the rate of growth has come down quite a bit from it's peak, but they're still growing faster than inflation.

Let's say, as a hypothetical, that a school spends 700,000 on salaries and 300,000 on benefits (as benefits are, on average, 30% of total compensation). Then assume that for the next year salaries go up 3% and benefits costs go up 6% (both pretty conservative estimates).

Year 1: 700,000 + 300,000 = 1,000,000 total compensation

Year 2: 721,000 + 318,000 = 1,039,000 total compensation

You'd need at least a 3.9% tuition increase to keep up with total compensation for employees, which is what most schools spend the most money on every year. Then include the fact that anything else they might spend money on (food, supplies, maintenance) is going up every year as well. It can become challenging to schools to keep tuition in check while also maintaining the quality of their programs. The steadily increasing minimum sage (on its way to $15) is likely a factor as well, as that is raising costs of support staff (janitors, kitchen staff, etc.).

All that said, I'm not sure why STA would have a 10% annual tuition increase - if I were a parent there I'd be asking a lot of questions.

So, teachers won't be able to keep sending their own kids to the school where they work, unless other parent is a high earner. Even with FA, if tuition increases at such a different rate than their salary, they won't be able to keep up financially. Unless - which is usually the case - some random rich grandparent pays tuition.

Tuition for faculty kids at our school is a fraction of the full freight. You?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

At the same rate? No. But in every school with which I've been connected teacher salaries go up by at least 2-3% every year, as they have to in order to remain competitive with public schools (whose salary increases usually include and annual COL increase as well as a step system where teachers move up a step every year). And then there's benefits costs - the rate of growth has come down quite a bit from it's peak, but they're still growing faster than inflation.

Let's say, as a hypothetical, that a school spends 700,000 on salaries and 300,000 on benefits (as benefits are, on average, 30% of total compensation). Then assume that for the next year salaries go up 3% and benefits costs go up 6% (both pretty conservative estimates).

Year 1: 700,000 + 300,000 = 1,000,000 total compensation

Year 2: 721,000 + 318,000 = 1,039,000 total compensation

You'd need at least a 3.9% tuition increase to keep up with total compensation for employees, which is what most schools spend the most money on every year. Then include the fact that anything else they might spend money on (food, supplies, maintenance) is going up every year as well. It can become challenging to schools to keep tuition in check while also maintaining the quality of their programs. The steadily increasing minimum sage (on its way to $15) is likely a factor as well, as that is raising costs of support staff (janitors, kitchen staff, etc.).

All that said, I'm not sure why STA would have a 10% annual tuition increase - if I were a parent there I'd be asking a lot of questions.

You have hit two major points that underly the cost pressure on these institutions. The great facilities "arms war" is another significant contributor, although the schools would argue that the cost of this is borne by capital campaigns and not the operating budget. This is not entirely true as the expanded facilities put direct cost pressure on the operating budget through higher utility costs, maintenance budgets and facilities personnel. The other unavoidable cost pressure on education is a productivity inflator. Most of the other component of CPI (food, housing, services, hard goods, energy) benefit from a natural productivity deflator that allows costs to increase at a slower rate than the unit cost of labor - technology being the biggest driver of this phenomenon. Private school education continues to hold onto the orthodoxy of student-teacher ratio as the singular measure of intensity and quality of teaching. Until people are willing to live with either higher student-teacher ratios or entirely different modalities of eduction that leverage technology, the human cost input to education is going to continue to grow at 0.5 to 1.0% faster than inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

At the same rate? No. But in every school with which I've been connected teacher salaries go up by at least 2-3% every year, as they have to in order to remain competitive with public schools (whose salary increases usually include and annual COL increase as well as a step system where teachers move up a step every year). And then there's benefits costs - the rate of growth has come down quite a bit from it's peak, but they're still growing faster than inflation.

Let's say, as a hypothetical, that a school spends 700,000 on salaries and 300,000 on benefits (as benefits are, on average, 30% of total compensation). Then assume that for the next year salaries go up 3% and benefits costs go up 6% (both pretty conservative estimates).

Year 1: 700,000 + 300,000 = 1,000,000 total compensation

Year 2: 721,000 + 318,000 = 1,039,000 total compensation

You'd need at least a 3.9% tuition increase to keep up with total compensation for employees, which is what most schools spend the most money on every year. Then include the fact that anything else they might spend money on (food, supplies, maintenance) is going up every year as well. It can become challenging to schools to keep tuition in check while also maintaining the quality of their programs. The steadily increasing minimum sage (on its way to $15) is likely a factor as well, as that is raising costs of support staff (janitors, kitchen staff, etc.).

All that said, I'm not sure why STA would have a 10% annual tuition increase - if I were a parent there I'd be asking a lot of questions.

You have hit two major points that underly the cost pressure on these institutions. The great facilities "arms war" is another significant contributor, although the schools would argue that the cost of this is borne by capital campaigns and not the operating budget. This is not entirely true as the expanded facilities put direct cost pressure on the operating budget through higher utility costs, maintenance budgets and facilities personnel. The other unavoidable cost pressure on education is a productivity inflator. Most of the other component of CPI (food, housing, services, hard goods, energy) benefit from a natural productivity deflator that allows costs to increase at a slower rate than the unit cost of labor - technology being the biggest driver of this phenomenon. Private school education continues to hold onto the orthodoxy of student-teacher ratio as the singular measure of intensity and quality of teaching. Until people are willing to live with either higher student-teacher ratios or entirely different modalities of eduction that leverage technology, the human cost input to education is going to continue to grow at 0.5 to 1.0% faster than inflation.

That’s right but the challenge is that if private schools increase the student teacher ratio or reduce the facilities they become undifferentiated from public schools. If the public schools are a good option, as many in this area are, it’s harder to compete with free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they raise teacher salaries at the same rate of tuition? not,

At the same rate? No. But in every school with which I've been connected teacher salaries go up by at least 2-3% every year, as they have to in order to remain competitive with public schools (whose salary increases usually include and annual COL increase as well as a step system where teachers move up a step every year). And then there's benefits costs - the rate of growth has come down quite a bit from it's peak, but they're still growing faster than inflation.

Let's say, as a hypothetical, that a school spends 700,000 on salaries and 300,000 on benefits (as benefits are, on average, 30% of total compensation). Then assume that for the next year salaries go up 3% and benefits costs go up 6% (both pretty conservative estimates).

Year 1: 700,000 + 300,000 = 1,000,000 total compensation

Year 2: 721,000 + 318,000 = 1,039,000 total compensation

You'd need at least a 3.9% tuition increase to keep up with total compensation for employees, which is what most schools spend the most money on every year. Then include the fact that anything else they might spend money on (food, supplies, maintenance) is going up every year as well. It can become challenging to schools to keep tuition in check while also maintaining the quality of their programs. The steadily increasing minimum sage (on its way to $15) is likely a factor as well, as that is raising costs of support staff (janitors, kitchen staff, etc.).

All that said, I'm not sure why STA would have a 10% annual tuition increase - if I were a parent there I'd be asking a lot of questions.

You have hit two major points that underly the cost pressure on these institutions. The great facilities "arms war" is another significant contributor, although the schools would argue that the cost of this is borne by capital campaigns and not the operating budget. This is not entirely true as the expanded facilities put direct cost pressure on the operating budget through higher utility costs, maintenance budgets and facilities personnel. The other unavoidable cost pressure on education is a productivity inflator. Most of the other component of CPI (food, housing, services, hard goods, energy) benefit from a natural productivity deflator that allows costs to increase at a slower rate than the unit cost of labor - technology being the biggest driver of this phenomenon. Private school education continues to hold onto the orthodoxy of student-teacher ratio as the singular measure of intensity and quality of teaching. Until people are willing to live with either higher student-teacher ratios or entirely different modalities of eduction that leverage technology, the human cost input to education is going to continue to grow at 0.5 to 1.0% faster than inflation.

That’s right but the challenge is that if private schools increase the student teacher ratio or reduce the facilities they become undifferentiated from public schools. If the public schools are a good option, as many in this area are, it’s harder to compete with free.

You are right, friend.

[Anonymous]

Adding, these schools need to focus intensively on the cost drivers within their control: non-teaching labor and administrative costs, program creep, resisting "me-too" facilities mentality (can't have the best athletic facilities, music / arts space, LEEDs certification on every building) as a few example. It is still a losing game, however.

[Anonymous]

Exec/admin staff costs have been increasing faster than teacher costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exec/admin staff costs have been increasing faster than teacher costs.

Data?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes - this is the trend and its been the trend to increase about 1% or just under 1% per year.

but St Albans has been increasing roughly 10% a year. Not 1%.

Am i missing something?

It's been more like between 3 - 5% probably for the past ten years. School tuitions are driven by personnel costs most of all. Google "the Baumol effect" -- technology in some industries does not increase productivity, in the sense that although teachers use computers they don't now have class sections of 40 instead of 15-20. So in private schools technology increases costs (paying for the tech and for the employees to support the tech). As things like health care rise, costs for salary and benefits go up as well.

There are no easy answers for private schools when it comes to finances unless they are really lucky and have a massive endowment. They can either (a) cut financial aid; (b) bump up class sizes; (c) stop giving teachers raises at a certain point; or (d) raise tuition. The first three are all fraught with issues, so the fourth option -- raise tuition each year to cover the rising costs -- is what is done.

[Anonymous]

Do they recognize they are creating a have/have nots, upstairs/downstairs environment? Do they recognize they are eliminating the largest portion of the socio-economic population? Do they just not care? Filling their pockets with total disregard for a balanced and natural environment? What a warped view of the world they are creating for those boys - so sad!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
This is really worrisome.

We're a 2 income professional family--HHI $400k. Again we can swing the $44K but $50K in 2 years and $65K in 6 gets crazy.
This prices out us and everyone like us---you know all everyone but the richest of the rich. My husband is a doctor and I'd say this prices out 95% of physicians. All lawyers except equity partners.
I'm worried that if we go down this road my kid will be in school with only the children of hedge fund managers.

That said, he loved the school and we loved a lot about the school.

Of course you can afford these increases. Let's assume you have to earn $100k to get $50k in after tax dollars. Are you saying your family cannot live on $300k/per year? If so, you are doing something very wrong.