Question on High Tuition…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But why is the case tuition is very similar across private schools in dc. Same average cost. Not sure.

Have you ever noticed that Mercedes BMW and Lexus all have cars in a very similar price range.? Why is it that Honda Toyota and Nissan are all in the same price category? Is this legal?

When you buy a Mercedes you don’t pay over 12 years and at the third year the price starts rising like crazy. Again. Private education is not like buying blue jeans.

On the contrary, what your jeans and your Mercedes and your private school have in common is they are all subject to the free market, and they are also subject to the very real cost of providing that product. In the case of a school, they all have to pay approximately the same salary to each of their teachers that a competing school will have to pay. There is a cost per square foot for real estate that is fairly consistent. And when school A wants to raise their tuition to 58k to cover their expenses, but they notice that school B is getting the job done for 54k, school A just might think twice and go to 56k which appears really close to the tuition from the other school. This is all free market stuff.

Yes. They are in the free market except that they don’t pay taxes like any normal corporation and they could pass those savings to the parents via lower tuition. Am I missing something?

You are missing a great many things. Too many to enumerate.

Such as?…..

NP here.

Every independent school sets tuition lower than the actual cost to educate each child

Independent schools receive no funding from the government. Older schools have a huge leg up because they have more alumni and more generations of family wealth to draw from. Just for example:

Sidwell, founded in 1883 $81.1 million
Maret, founded in 1911, $50 million
NCS, founded in 1900, $40 million

That's not the situation at most schools. Most are trying to balance a budget, meet the significant expectations of parents, and retain faculty. And all of this while jobs are disappearing and we're in a global trade war.

Agree. The schools you mentioned have an unlimited appretite for diollars, that’s why they keep raising tuition above their costs.

Nobody is agreeing with you. Everyone is trying to explain this to you. So here’s another try: There is a business model supporting every independent school so that they can stay solvent. They have to raise their revenue to meet their expenses. Revenue is tuition. However, it’s proven that the tuition revenue does not cover the expenses so they also fundraise.

The truth about endowments: they have to be hundreds of millions of dollars before they can truly ensure the viability of a school/business with a $40millon budget. Most endowment prohibit the use of principle so you have to have a huge production of interest. So the year to year business model/budget is everything. And even if your endowment was large enough to cover all of your operating expenses, that still is no way to run a business, and there is no school or not for profit that would do that. There is no value to anything that is given for free.

To begin with, I don’t agree with you. Second, yes you can always design budget that is higher than tuition. Revenue. That doesn’t prove anything. For any school you could also choose a budget that is consistent with tuition revenue. Third, private schools receive an obscene amount of subsidies from government via tax exemptions on a lot of things plus endowments. Fourth. A school can be expensive and that’s understandable. What is hard to understand is that school tuition grows faster than wages or household income. Yes there is demand for private schools, but there should be check and balances to ensure there are no inflated budget at schools. Is a 1 million salary justified in a school for 600 kids? Maybe but sounds off to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But why is the case tuition is very similar across private schools in dc. Same average cost. Not sure.

Have you ever noticed that Mercedes BMW and Lexus all have cars in a very similar price range.? Why is it that Honda Toyota and Nissan are all in the same price category? Is this legal?

When you buy a Mercedes you don’t pay over 12 years and at the third year the price starts rising like crazy. Again. Private education is not like buying blue jeans.

On the contrary, what your jeans and your Mercedes and your private school have in common is they are all subject to the free market, and they are also subject to the very real cost of providing that product. In the case of a school, they all have to pay approximately the same salary to each of their teachers that a competing school will have to pay. There is a cost per square foot for real estate that is fairly consistent. And when school A wants to raise their tuition to 58k to cover their expenses, but they notice that school B is getting the job done for 54k, school A just might think twice and go to 56k which appears really close to the tuition from the other school. This is all free market stuff.

Yes. They are in the free market except that they don’t pay taxes like any normal corporation and they could pass those savings to the parents via lower tuition. Am I missing something?

You are missing a great many things. Too many to enumerate.

Such as?…..

NP here.

Every independent school sets tuition lower than the actual cost to educate each child

Independent schools receive no funding from the government. Older schools have a huge leg up because they have more alumni and more generations of family wealth to draw from. Just for example:

Sidwell, founded in 1883 $81.1 million
Maret, founded in 1911, $50 million
NCS, founded in 1900, $40 million

That's not the situation at most schools. Most are trying to balance a budget, meet the significant expectations of parents, and retain faculty. And all of this while jobs are disappearing and we're in a global trade war.

Agree. The schools you mentioned have an unlimited appretite for diollars, that’s why they keep raising tuition above their costs.

Nobody is agreeing with you. Everyone is trying to explain this to you. So here’s another try: There is a business model supporting every independent school so that they can stay solvent. They have to raise their revenue to meet their expenses. Revenue is tuition. However, it’s proven that the tuition revenue does not cover the expenses so they also fundraise.

The truth about endowments: they have to be hundreds of millions of dollars before they can truly ensure the viability of a school/business with a $40millon budget. Most endowment prohibit the use of principle so you have to have a huge production of interest. So the year to year business model/budget is everything. And even if your endowment was large enough to cover all of your operating expenses, that still is no way to run a business, and there is no school or not for profit that would do that. There is no value to anything that is given for free.

To begin with, I don’t agree with you. Second, yes you can always design budget that is higher than tuition. Revenue. That doesn’t prove anything. For any school you could also choose a budget that is consistent with tuition revenue. Third, private schools receive an obscene amount of subsidies from government via tax exemptions on a lot of things plus endowments. Fourth. A school can be expensive and that’s understandable. What is hard to understand is that school tuition grows faster than wages or household income. Yes there is demand for private schools, but there should be check and balances to ensure there are no inflated budget at schools. Is a 1 million salary justified in a school for 600 kids? Maybe but sounds off to me.

The opposite can also happen where you underpay your teachers, increase class size, let facilities run down, and cut programming. Then you’re no different than a public and your enrollment will decrease thus your costs go up and you’re in a death spiral. Read the SSFS thread.

Luckily, most private school administrators disagree with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But why is the case tuition is very similar across private schools in dc. Same average cost. Not sure.

Have you ever noticed that Mercedes BMW and Lexus all have cars in a very similar price range.? Why is it that Honda Toyota and Nissan are all in the same price category? Is this legal?

When you buy a Mercedes you don’t pay over 12 years and at the third year the price starts rising like crazy. Again. Private education is not like buying blue jeans.

On the contrary, what your jeans and your Mercedes and your private school have in common is they are all subject to the free market, and they are also subject to the very real cost of providing that product. In the case of a school, they all have to pay approximately the same salary to each of their teachers that a competing school will have to pay. There is a cost per square foot for real estate that is fairly consistent. And when school A wants to raise their tuition to 58k to cover their expenses, but they notice that school B is getting the job done for 54k, school A just might think twice and go to 56k which appears really close to the tuition from the other school. This is all free market stuff.

Yes. They are in the free market except that they don’t pay taxes like any normal corporation and they could pass those savings to the parents via lower tuition. Am I missing something?

You are missing a great many things. Too many to enumerate.

Such as?…..

NP here.

Every independent school sets tuition lower than the actual cost to educate each child

Independent schools receive no funding from the government. Older schools have a huge leg up because they have more alumni and more generations of family wealth to draw from. Just for example:

Sidwell, founded in 1883 $81.1 million
Maret, founded in 1911, $50 million
NCS, founded in 1900, $40 million

That's not the situation at most schools. Most are trying to balance a budget, meet the significant expectations of parents, and retain faculty. And all of this while jobs are disappearing and we're in a global trade war.

Agree. The schools you mentioned have an unlimited appretite for diollars, that’s why they keep raising tuition above their costs.

Nobody is agreeing with you. Everyone is trying to explain this to you. So here’s another try: There is a business model supporting every independent school so that they can stay solvent. They have to raise their revenue to meet their expenses. Revenue is tuition. However, it’s proven that the tuition revenue does not cover the expenses so they also fundraise.

The truth about endowments: they have to be hundreds of millions of dollars before they can truly ensure the viability of a school/business with a $40millon budget. Most endowment prohibit the use of principle so you have to have a huge production of interest. So the year to year business model/budget is everything. And even if your endowment was large enough to cover all of your operating expenses, that still is no way to run a business, and there is no school or not for profit that would do that. There is no value to anything that is given for free.

To begin with, I don’t agree with you. Second, yes you can always design budget that is higher than tuition. Revenue. That doesn’t prove anything. For any school you could also choose a budget that is consistent with tuition revenue. Third, private schools receive an obscene amount of subsidies from government via tax exemptions on a lot of things plus endowments. Fourth. A school can be expensive and that’s understandable. What is hard to understand is that school tuition grows faster than wages or household income. Yes there is demand for private schools, but there should be check and balances to ensure there are no inflated budget at schools. Is a 1 million salary justified in a school for 600 kids? Maybe but sounds off to me.

The opposite can also happen where you underpay your teachers, increase class size, let facilities run down, and cut programming. Then you’re no different than a public and your enrollment will decrease thus your costs go up and you’re in a death spiral. Read the SSFS thread.

Luckily, most private school administrators disagree with you.

Of course they disagree. No admin staff wants a wage cut.

But just to be clear. Also an alternative scenario could happen. The board could raise tuition 20 percent to buy a field no one wants. The board hires an unprofessional HOS for 1 million. The same person starts hiring his friends without any recruitment process. The biggest donors get access to the board and approve budgets based on their preferenced with disregard to the education of the kids.

Unfortunately these things happen because of passive parents like you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a quick question.

Normally if there are monopolistic practices that are detrimental to consumers you could file a claim at the federal trade commission or the office of consumer protection in dc. Is there anything similar for schools, or in essence they are free to charge anything they want. This is genuine question. Thank you.

One way or another (unless you have diplomatic status), you already are paying for your kid’s education in the public school system, so if you are sending your kid to private school, you are voluntarily paying extra for that. You don’t have to. You also “buy” private school education by the year. No one is required to buy 13, 7 or 4 (or even 2) years of it. Your kid’s private school isn’t committing to sell it to you next year, either. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kids switch schools every year. Your kid can do that, too, if you don’t like next year’s price. Anyone surprised by increases in tuition every single year hasn’t been paying attention.

You don’t need to rely on some seemingly unmotivated government agency if you think private schools are engaged anticompetitive practices. Find a good plaintiffs law firm willing to file a private antitrust class action. You might be able to get treble damages or at least enough from a settlement as the named plaintiff to pay for your kid’s college tuition and your retirement.

First of all. The vast majority of kids stay in the same school most of their education if they can because it is costly to find a school that is a god match for the kid. So yes, it desirable to have a tuition that is predictable over time and not increasing consistently above let’s say wage inflation (which is higher than cpi inflation) .

Second, the lawsuit is not a bad idea but a bit expensive. If had the money I rather bribe the rest of the board members of the schools to pass budgets based on needs not wants.

The question I would ask is the following: If we need to invest one extra dollar that would request a higher tuition, is that dollar going to objectively improve the quality of education of the kids such that the investment is worthwhile or it’s just something that would improve the reputation of the board?

There is something about schools corporate governance that is off.

Your kid can leave or you can get involved in how the school is run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But why is the case tuition is very similar across private schools in dc. Same average cost. Not sure.

Have you ever noticed that Mercedes BMW and Lexus all have cars in a very similar price range.? Why is it that Honda Toyota and Nissan are all in the same price category? Is this legal?

When you buy a Mercedes you don’t pay over 12 years and at the third year the price starts rising like crazy. Again. Private education is not like buying blue jeans.

On the contrary, what your jeans and your Mercedes and your private school have in common is they are all subject to the free market, and they are also subject to the very real cost of providing that product. In the case of a school, they all have to pay approximately the same salary to each of their teachers that a competing school will have to pay. There is a cost per square foot for real estate that is fairly consistent. And when school A wants to raise their tuition to 58k to cover their expenses, but they notice that school B is getting the job done for 54k, school A just might think twice and go to 56k which appears really close to the tuition from the other school. This is all free market stuff.

Yes. They are in the free market except that they don’t pay taxes like any normal corporation and they could pass those savings to the parents via lower tuition. Am I missing something?

You are missing a great many things. Too many to enumerate.

Such as?…..

NP here.

Every independent school sets tuition lower than the actual cost to educate each child

Independent schools receive no funding from the government. Older schools have a huge leg up because they have more alumni and more generations of family wealth to draw from. Just for example:

Sidwell, founded in 1883 $81.1 million
Maret, founded in 1911, $50 million
NCS, founded in 1900, $40 million

That's not the situation at most schools. Most are trying to balance a budget, meet the significant expectations of parents, and retain faculty. And all of this while jobs are disappearing and we're in a global trade war.

Agree. The schools you mentioned have an unlimited appretite for diollars, that’s why they keep raising tuition above their costs.

Nobody is agreeing with you. Everyone is trying to explain this to you. So here’s another try: There is a business model supporting every independent school so that they can stay solvent. They have to raise their revenue to meet their expenses. Revenue is tuition. However, it’s proven that the tuition revenue does not cover the expenses so they also fundraise.

The truth about endowments: they have to be hundreds of millions of dollars before they can truly ensure the viability of a school/business with a $40millon budget. Most endowment prohibit the use of principle so you have to have a huge production of interest. So the year to year business model/budget is everything. And even if your endowment was large enough to cover all of your operating expenses, that still is no way to run a business, and there is no school or not for profit that would do that. There is no value to anything that is given for free.

To begin with, I don’t agree with you. Second, yes you can always design budget that is higher than tuition. Revenue. That doesn’t prove anything. For any school you could also choose a budget that is consistent with tuition revenue. Third, private schools receive an obscene amount of subsidies from government via tax exemptions on a lot of things plus endowments. Fourth. A school can be expensive and that’s understandable. What is hard to understand is that school tuition grows faster than wages or household income. Yes there is demand for private schools, but there should be check and balances to ensure there are no inflated budget at schools. Is a 1 million salary justified in a school for 600 kids? Maybe but sounds off to me.

The opposite can also happen where you underpay your teachers, increase class size, let facilities run down, and cut programming. Then you’re no different than a public and your enrollment will decrease thus your costs go up and you’re in a death spiral. Read the SSFS thread.

Luckily, most private school administrators disagree with you.

Of course they disagree. No admin staff wants a wage cut.

But just to be clear. Also an alternative scenario could happen. The board could raise tuition 20 percent to buy a field no one wants. The board hires an unprofessional HOS for 1 million. The same person starts hiring his friends without any recruitment process. The biggest donors get access to the board and approve budgets based on their preferenced with disregard to the education of the kids.

Unfortunately these things happen because of passive parents like you.

I wouldn’t be on here monitoring what’s going on in the DMV private school scene if I were a passive parent. My school board has not raised tuition by 20%, the HOS does not make $1M a year, and I wished they would buy a field to expand the school, but alas.

Keep tilting at the windmills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a quick question.

Normally if there are monopolistic practices that are detrimental to consumers you could file a claim at the federal trade commission or the office of consumer protection in dc. Is there anything similar for schools, or in essence they are free to charge anything they want. This is genuine question. Thank you.

One way or another (unless you have diplomatic status), you already are paying for your kid’s education in the public school system, so if you are sending your kid to private school, you are voluntarily paying extra for that. You don’t have to. You also “buy” private school education by the year. No one is required to buy 13, 7 or 4 (or even 2) years of it. Your kid’s private school isn’t committing to sell it to you next year, either. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kids switch schools every year. Your kid can do that, too, if you don’t like next year’s price. Anyone surprised by increases in tuition every single year hasn’t been paying attention.

You don’t need to rely on some seemingly unmotivated government agency if you think private schools are engaged anticompetitive practices. Find a good plaintiffs law firm willing to file a private antitrust class action. You might be able to get treble damages or at least enough from a settlement as the named plaintiff to pay for your kid’s college tuition and your retirement.

First of all. The vast majority of kids stay in the same school most of their education if they can because it is costly to find a school that is a god match for the kid. So yes, it desirable to have a tuition that is predictable over time and not increasing consistently above let’s say wage inflation (which is higher than cpi inflation) .

Second, the lawsuit is not a bad idea but a bit expensive. If had the money I rather bribe the rest of the board members of the schools to pass budgets based on needs not wants.

The question I would ask is the following: If we need to invest one extra dollar that would request a higher tuition, is that dollar going to objectively improve the quality of education of the kids such that the investment is worthwhile or it’s just something that would improve the reputation of the board?

There is something about schools corporate governance that is off.

Your kid can leave or you can get involved in how the school is run.

Sure. But it’s harder when corruption is involved. That’s why I posed the original question if there is a regulatory agency that could help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But why is the case tuition is very similar across private schools in dc. Same average cost. Not sure.

Have you ever noticed that Mercedes BMW and Lexus all have cars in a very similar price range.? Why is it that Honda Toyota and Nissan are all in the same price category? Is this legal?

When you buy a Mercedes you don’t pay over 12 years and at the third year the price starts rising like crazy. Again. Private education is not like buying blue jeans.

On the contrary, what your jeans and your Mercedes and your private school have in common is they are all subject to the free market, and they are also subject to the very real cost of providing that product. In the case of a school, they all have to pay approximately the same salary to each of their teachers that a competing school will have to pay. There is a cost per square foot for real estate that is fairly consistent. And when school A wants to raise their tuition to 58k to cover their expenses, but they notice that school B is getting the job done for 54k, school A just might think twice and go to 56k which appears really close to the tuition from the other school. This is all free market stuff.

Yes. They are in the free market except that they don’t pay taxes like any normal corporation and they could pass those savings to the parents via lower tuition. Am I missing something?

You are missing a great many things. Too many to enumerate.

Such as?…..

NP here.

Every independent school sets tuition lower than the actual cost to educate each child

Independent schools receive no funding from the government. Older schools have a huge leg up because they have more alumni and more generations of family wealth to draw from. Just for example:

Sidwell, founded in 1883 $81.1 million
Maret, founded in 1911, $50 million
NCS, founded in 1900, $40 million

That's not the situation at most schools. Most are trying to balance a budget, meet the significant expectations of parents, and retain faculty. And all of this while jobs are disappearing and we're in a global trade war.

Agree. The schools you mentioned have an unlimited appretite for diollars, that’s why they keep raising tuition above their costs.

Nobody is agreeing with you. Everyone is trying to explain this to you. So here’s another try: There is a business model supporting every independent school so that they can stay solvent. They have to raise their revenue to meet their expenses. Revenue is tuition. However, it’s proven that the tuition revenue does not cover the expenses so they also fundraise.

The truth about endowments: they have to be hundreds of millions of dollars before they can truly ensure the viability of a school/business with a $40millon budget. Most endowment prohibit the use of principle so you have to have a huge production of interest. So the year to year business model/budget is everything. And even if your endowment was large enough to cover all of your operating expenses, that still is no way to run a business, and there is no school or not for profit that would do that. There is no value to anything that is given for free.

To begin with, I don’t agree with you. Second, yes you can always design budget that is higher than tuition. Revenue. That doesn’t prove anything. For any school you could also choose a budget that is consistent with tuition revenue. Third, private schools receive an obscene amount of subsidies from government via tax exemptions on a lot of things plus endowments. Fourth. A school can be expensive and that’s understandable. What is hard to understand is that school tuition grows faster than wages or household income. Yes there is demand for private schools, but there should be check and balances to ensure there are no inflated budget at schools. Is a 1 million salary justified in a school for 600 kids? Maybe but sounds off to me.

The opposite can also happen where you underpay your teachers, increase class size, let facilities run down, and cut programming. Then you’re no different than a public and your enrollment will decrease thus your costs go up and you’re in a death spiral. Read the SSFS thread.

Luckily, most private school administrators disagree with you.

Of course they disagree. No admin staff wants a wage cut.

But just to be clear. Also an alternative scenario could happen. The board could raise tuition 20 percent to buy a field no one wants. The board hires an unprofessional HOS for 1 million. The same person starts hiring his friends without any recruitment process. The biggest donors get access to the board and approve budgets based on their preferenced with disregard to the education of the kids.

Unfortunately these things happen because of passive parents like you.

Oh Lordy, it’s the Maret person. 🤦‍♂️
You don’t know anything about private school governance or administration. As a previous poster just said if you want to cut all the budgets to bring tuition to something you feel is right, there’s no point in having the private school because you’re just gonna have big classes, rundown building buildings and no programming.

[Anonymous]

Please stop engaging with this OP. They have started a bunch of polemical threads and posters keep trying to argue reason with a brick wall. It's tedious and maddening and the OP is is not going to change their mind based on your very well argued or rational response. This isn't a real discussion you are engaging with. The only way to deal with someone with this type of personality is to disengage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a quick question.

Normally if there are monopolistic practices that are detrimental to consumers you could file a claim at the federal trade commission or the office of consumer protection in dc. Is there anything similar for schools, or in essence they are free to charge anything they want. This is genuine question. Thank you.

One way or another (unless you have diplomatic status), you already are paying for your kid’s education in the public school system, so if you are sending your kid to private school, you are voluntarily paying extra for that. You don’t have to. You also “buy” private school education by the year. No one is required to buy 13, 7 or 4 (or even 2) years of it. Your kid’s private school isn’t committing to sell it to you next year, either. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kids switch schools every year. Your kid can do that, too, if you don’t like next year’s price. Anyone surprised by increases in tuition every single year hasn’t been paying attention.

You don’t need to rely on some seemingly unmotivated government agency if you think private schools are engaged anticompetitive practices. Find a good plaintiffs law firm willing to file a private antitrust class action. You might be able to get treble damages or at least enough from a settlement as the named plaintiff to pay for your kid’s college tuition and your retirement.

First of all. The vast majority of kids stay in the same school most of their education if they can because it is costly to find a school that is a god match for the kid. So yes, it desirable to have a tuition that is predictable over time and not increasing consistently above let’s say wage inflation (which is higher than cpi inflation) .

Second, the lawsuit is not a bad idea but a bit expensive. If had the money I rather bribe the rest of the board members of the schools to pass budgets based on needs not wants.

The question I would ask is the following: If we need to invest one extra dollar that would request a higher tuition, is that dollar going to objectively improve the quality of education of the kids such that the investment is worthwhile or it’s just something that would improve the reputation of the board?

There is something about schools corporate governance that is off.

Your kid can leave or you can get involved in how the school is run.

Sure. But it’s harder when corruption is involved. That’s why I posed the original question if there is a regulatory agency that could help.

The only corruption involved is in your head.

Add another regulatory agency? You mean like the US Dept of Education? Or the State Board of Education? Or maybe the County Board of Education? What about educational accreditation agencies? How have all those agencies improve public schools’ governance? And you want that for privates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop engaging with this OP. They have started a bunch of polemical threads and posters keep trying to argue reason with a brick wall. It's tedious and maddening and the OP is is not going to change their mind based on your very well argued or rational response. This isn't a real discussion you are engaging with. The only way to deal with someone with this type of personality is to disengage.

+1. It’s enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop engaging with this OP. They have started a bunch of polemical threads and posters keep trying to argue reason with a brick wall. It's tedious and maddening and the OP is is not going to change their mind based on your very well argued or rational response. This isn't a real discussion you are engaging with. The only way to deal with someone with this type of personality is to disengage.

+1. It’s enough.

Easy. Don’t Read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a quick question.

Normally if there are monopolistic practices that are detrimental to consumers you could file a claim at the federal trade commission or the office of consumer protection in dc. Is there anything similar for schools, or in essence they are free to charge anything they want. Oi This is genuine question. Thank you.

One way or another (unless you have diplomatic status), you already are paying for your kid’s education in the public school system, so if you are sending your kid to private school, you are voluntarily paying extra for that. You don’t have to. You also “buy” private school education by the year. No one is required to buy 13, 7 or 4 (or even 2) years of it. Your kid’s private school isn’t committing to sell it to you next year, either. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kids switch schools every year. Your kid can do that, too, if you don’t like next year’s price. Anyone surprised by increases in tuition every single year hasn’t been paying attention.

You don’t need to rely on some seemingly unmotivated government agency if you think private schools are engaged anticompetitive practices. Find a good plaintiffs law firm willing to file a private antitrust class action. You might be able to get treble damages or at least enough from a settlement as the named plaintiff to pay for your kid’s college tuition and your retirement.

First of all. The vast majority of kids stay in the same school most of their education if they can because it is costly to find a school that is a god match for the kid. So yes, it desirable to have a tuition that is predictable over time and not increasing consistently above let’s say wage inflation (which is higher than cpi inflation) .

Second, the lawsuit is not a bad idea but a bit expensive. If had the money I rather bribe the rest of the board members of the schools to pass budgets based on needs not wants.

The question I would ask is the following: If we need to invest one extra dollar that would request a higher tuition, is that dollar going to objectively improve the quality of education of the kids such that the investment is worthwhile or it’s just something that would improve the reputation of the board?

There is something about schools corporate governance that is off.

Your kid can leave or you can get involved in how the school is run.

Sure. But it’s harder when corruption is involved. That’s why I posed the original question if there is a regulatory agency that could help.

The only corruption involved is in your head.

Add another regulatory agency? You mean like the US Dept of Education? Or the State Board of Education? Or maybe the County Board of Education? What about educational accreditation agencies? How have all those agencies improve public schools’ governance? And you want that for privates?

Sure. Let’s all corrupt school admin infest schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop engaging with this OP. They have started a bunch of polemical threads and posters keep trying to argue reason with a brick wall. It's tedious and maddening and the OP is is not going to change their mind based on your very well argued or rational response. This isn't a real discussion you are engaging with. The only way to deal with someone with this type of personality is to disengage.

Agree. You don’t like it, don’t read it. Easy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:But why is the case tuition is very similar across private schools in dc. Same average cost. Not sure.

Have you ever noticed that Mercedes BMW and Lexus all have cars in a very similar price range.? Why is it that Honda Toyota and Nissan are all in the same price category? Is this legal?

When you buy a Mercedes you don’t pay over 12 years and at the third year the price starts rising like crazy. Again. Private education is not like buying blue jeans.

On the contrary, what your jeans and your Mercedes and your private school have in common is they are all subject to the free market, and they are also subject to the very real cost of providing that product. In the case of a school, they all have to pay approximately the same salary to each of their teachers that a competing school will have to pay. There is a cost per square foot for real estate that is fairly consistent. And when school A wants to raise their tuition to 58k to cover their expenses, but they notice that school B is getting the job done for 54k, school A just might think twice and go to 56k which appears really close to the tuition from the other school. This is all free market stuff.

Yes. They are in the free market except that they don’t pay taxes like any normal corporation and they could pass those savings to the parents via lower tuition. Am I missing something?

You are missing a great many things. Too many to enumerate.

Such as?…..

NP here.

Every independent school sets tuition lower than the actual cost to educate each child

Independent schools receive no funding from the government. Older schools have a huge leg up because they have more alumni and more generations of family wealth to draw from. Just for example:

Sidwell, founded in 1883 $81.1 million
Maret, founded in 1911, $50 million
NCS, founded in 1900, $40 million

That's not the situation at most schools. Most are trying to balance a budget, meet the significant expectations of parents, and retain faculty. And all of this while jobs are disappearing and we're in a global trade war.

Agree. The schools you mentioned have an unlimited appretite for diollars, that’s why they keep raising tuition above their costs.

Nobody is agreeing with you. Everyone is trying to explain this to you. So here’s another try: There is a business model supporting every independent school so that they can stay solvent. They have to raise their revenue to meet their expenses. Revenue is tuition. However, it’s proven that the tuition revenue does not cover the expenses so they also fundraise.

The truth about endowments: they have to be hundreds of millions of dollars before they can truly ensure the viability of a school/business with a $40millon budget. Most endowment prohibit the use of principle so you have to have a huge production of interest. So the year to year business model/budget is everything. And even if your endowment was large enough to cover all of your operating expenses, that still is no way to run a business, and there is no school or not for profit that would do that. There is no value to anything that is given for free.

To begin with, I don’t agree with you. Second, yes you can always design budget that is higher than tuition. Revenue. That doesn’t prove anything. For any school you could also choose a budget that is consistent with tuition revenue. Third, private schools receive an obscene amount of subsidies from government via tax exemptions on a lot of things plus endowments. Fourth. A school can be expensive and that’s understandable. What is hard to understand is that school tuition grows faster than wages or household income. Yes there is demand for private schools, but there should be check and balances to ensure there are no inflated budget at schools. Is a 1 million salary justified in a school for 600 kids? Maybe but sounds off to me.

The opposite can also happen where you underpay your teachers, increase class size, let facilities run down, and cut programming. Then you’re no different than a public and your enrollment will decrease thus your costs go up and you’re in a death spiral. Read the SSFS thread.

Luckily, most private school administrators disagree with you.

Of course they disagree. No admin staff wants a wage cut.

But just to be clear. Also an alternative scenario could happen. The board could raise tuition 20 percent to buy a field no one wants. The board hires an unprofessional HOS for 1 million. The same person starts hiring his friends without any recruitment process. The biggest donors get access to the board and approve budgets based on their preferenced with disregard to the education of the kids.

Unfortunately these things happen because of passive parents like you.

Oh Lordy, it’s the Maret person. 🤦‍♂️
You don’t know anything about private school governance or administration. As a previous poster just said if you want to cut all the budgets to bring tuition to something you feel is right, there’s no point in having the private school because you’re just gonna have big classes, rundown building buildings and no programming.

These are hypothetical. Never said it is Maret.

[Anonymous]

How come just the richest people are board members? Is there criterion for selecting the most talented, or the people that are more knowledgeable in education? No wonder tuition increases at a very fast rate.