Reply to Private School for Middle Class income (middle class in DC terms)?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What the private schools has simply done is priced themselves so that only the top 5% maybe can afford to pay full freight.  The schools then raise money to fund FA programs for lower income students, which is great obviously.  These schools face 2 choices.  First, they can continue to hike tuition.  As tuition goes up, the percentage that can pay full freight gets smaller, the need for FA increases, the fundraising pressure increases on the decreasing percentage that can contribute significantly.   These schools end up with only the top 1% at most paying full freight, with a few lower income kids.  Or, second, these schools can get control of their expenses and program creep attitudes, and reduce tuition.  By doing so, maybe the top 20% can pay full freight, which broadens the full paying applicant pool.[/quote]

So basically the middle class is priced out of the 25 to 30K + schools.[/quote]

Yes. The general consensus is that with limited financial aid dollars, schools cannot provide enough financial aid for the middle class (and even the upper middle class) to send their children to the most expensive DC private schools comfortably. By comfortably, I mean, being able to save for retirement, college, etc., while sending your children to these schools. The limited financial aid available will go to the poorest of the FA applicants, which makes sense, but nonetheless leaves an unfortunate situation. This also implies that schools will only have [b]economic[/b] diversity if the middle class (including the vast majority of government employees) is willing to make questionable tradeoffs like not saving enough for retirement, and if one assumes that the poorest wouldn't have saved for retirement anyway. Very sad. I hope that schools can find a way to diversify the student body economically. [/quote]

Some at these schools argue that why change when the demand is there and when there is no perceived need to reduce tuition or keep tuition under control.  The market is the market!  Now, of course, any nonprofit educational institution that compares itself to silly overpriced cars is not an institution that should be respected.  Schools must stand for more than what the market bears!  Or, maybe, that is the problem we are facing.  The market dictates everything, and we all lose any sense of values, including our schools.  Personally, I thought one of the benefits of private schools was that they had greater leaway to stand for something.  
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