Reply to Will top privates ever put a cap on tuition?

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Will top privates ever put a cap on tuition?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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...[/quote]

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. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics