Will top privates ever put a cap on tuition?

[Anonymous]

Don't forget folks -- 1 in 4 kids at Sidwell, STA, NCS, Maret, GDS, receive financial aid. Avg grant is over 20K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No why would they? Thanks to Citizen's United, there is big and endless money in politics nowadays. That is partly what is funding the housing boom. There will always be people who can and do want to pay for a top private.

WTF? How can you turn a thoughtful thread about price of private school into politics about Citizen's United? Anyhow, the answer is as someone said above (and this applies to college and university hikes as well), as long as there are people willing to pay these prices, each school will follow the leader. If the Cathedral Schools or Sidwell ups its price, the others will follow. Same with universities. Right now we are in a seller's market so there is no end in sight. But, at some point, parents will say "enough!" and market forces will drive the prices down. We're starting to see some of this at the college level. Often you can barter with the financial aid department and they will meet your demand - say you are in UVA but want to go to MIT - MIT might give you in-state tuition. But you have to negotiate. Only schools with large endowments will be able to do that. Which means the second and third tier privates will fail. This cannot continue.

This will never come true. Guaranteed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They will keep raising tuition if families continue to pay it. Bottom line. And in this area, unfortunately/fortunately, that price tag has no limit...

I disagree.
I've been thinking about this today, actually.
Our tuition is going up $1K next year (not in DC). That's a big percent increase.
Where we live, there are not enough very wealthy people who will be able to continue to pay as tuition at our private school increases.
Our private, which is an excellent school which sends kids to Ivies and the like every year, has lost 10 percent of it's student body over the past 5 years. If this keeps up at this pace, the school will have no students in 40 years. Obviously, the school would close long before that happens, or something else will have to change.
Outside of DC, the upper middle class ($150-250K HHI) group has really shrunk. These are the people who used to pay private tuition without question. Now people in this income bracket are saying no to tuitions of $30-$50K per year (yes $50K in NYC suburban privates) because they can't afford it, especially if they have more than one child.
Top schools will always fill their seats, but the mid-level ones will struggle.
As a pp said, the mid-level schools must discount their pricing through financial aid or scholarships, or they will end up with too many empty seats and will have to lay off staff or close their doors.
The 1% is just that -- a very small percentage of people for whom money is no object. But they do not fill all the seats at all the top private schools.
In a very few years, top private schools will cost $100K per year. Incomes are not increasing fast enough to keep up, except for the 1%.
If the schools and the 1%-ers don't care, well that's the wave of the future.
We're moving our kids to public after MS. We have a great public high school that's not as good as our private, but it is not bad either. Many middle class parents are making the same decision, which is why our school has lost so many kids in recent years.
Private school costs too much. Private college does too, but that's a subject for another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most people on here do not seem to understand that rising tuition is directly tied to giving teachers a commensurate raise and-or cost of living adjustment each year. The tuition is also lower than the true cost per kid which is why annual fundraising is required.

So the entire staff is getting a 5-10% raise every year? No, they do not.

Now, the costs are actually increasing because of 3 things:

1) Healthcare costs for employees
2) Upkeep of the facilities and technology the school "had" to have to keep up with the other private schools
3) Increased bureaucracy designed to help manage #2

I would also add lower yields on endowment dollars to this list. Risk free and low risk returns are extremely low so you either take risk with endowment dollars (not happening), or you squeeze returns.