god some of you people are so naive it's truly amazing.

Of course they don't care that they're pricing you out. There are enough UMC people with only one child or truly rich people who can easily send 3-4 kids to private school that they can continue to raise prices and still fill seats.

haven't you all noticed this happening with colleges for DECADES?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what i can tell it went from $39K in 2015-2016 to $44K this year (or an increase of $3K a year).
Will it be $47K for the fall of 2018 and $50K for the fall of 2019?
We're looking at middle school and at this rate we'll be at $62K+ by the time my son is a senior.

PLEASE, hold the snark. I'm asking for honest and or realistic thoughts.
Is this honestly what I can project to happen?
We can maybe afford $44K now but this will be $60K in 5 short years.

Financial aid is part of the budget at all of these schools. If schools are giving average awards of $25,000 to $30,000 to 20 percent of students (as is the case at one of our schools) that must get factored into the budget somewhere. I am not saying I don't support FA, because I do, but I am explaining part of the cost must be factored into tuition. You can't give %20 of students that much aid and not have it be favored into the budget somehow.

"factored" not favored...

Anonymous wrote:From what i can tell it went from $39K in 2015-2016 to $44K this year (or an increase of $3K a year).
Will it be $47K for the fall of 2018 and $50K for the fall of 2019?
We're looking at middle school and at this rate we'll be at $62K+ by the time my son is a senior.

PLEASE, hold the snark. I'm asking for honest and or realistic thoughts.
Is this honestly what I can project to happen?
We can maybe afford $44K now but this will be $60K in 5 short years.

Financial aid is part of the budget at all of these schools. If schools are giving average awards of $25,000 to $30,000 to 20 percent of students (as is the case at one of our schools) that must get factored into the budget somewhere. I am not saying I don't support FA, because I do, but I am explaining part of the cost must be factored into tuition. You can't give %20 of students that much aid and not have it be favored into the budget somehow.

Anonymous wrote:the current model is not sustainable.

Most of these independent schools are not well managed.

Any CFO should be able to manage costs to some degree. If the schools justification is to raise tuition $3K year over year and cry, the CFO should be fired and acting chairman should be asked to step down.

All privates, not just STA have invested in way too much human capital. I'm amazed how many administrative assistants these schools have or non teachers on pay roll.

It makes you really wonder how poorly run are these schools that charge an arm and a leg to attend

A certain class and type of people believe that if something is more expensive, it's better. It only takes a small subset of families having this mindset to effectively set the tuition increases at all NW DC schools. Even though the first domino in the chain could never actually be identified, hypothetically, let's say the consistently exorbitant price increases start at the Cathedral schools. When NCS has a ~4-5% tuition increase each year, Maret and Sidwell and WIS and GDS (and whatever other $$ private schools are in NW DC) MUST follow suit. No one wants to look like the cheaper option (there will always be some variation, but it will be small), because they worry that consumers would see that as a statement about the quality of their school. I'm sure this effect must have a name but I'm too unschooled myself to know what it is.

the current model is not sustainable.

Most of these independent schools are not well managed.

Any CFO should be able to manage costs to some degree. If the schools justification is to raise tuition $3K year over year and cry, the CFO should be fired and acting chairman should be asked to step down.

All privates, not just STA have invested in way too much human capital. I'm amazed how many administrative assistants these schools have or non teachers on pay roll.

It makes you really wonder how poorly run are these schools that charge an arm and a leg to attend

AI will continue to keep middle class thought worker wages stagnant.

Whether it continues going up 3K every year of if they are able to curb the costs and only raise it 2500 or 2K, it's become unaffordable for most UMC families. With great angst and heartbreak, we moved our kids to Catholic school. No, it's not as impressive, but we've been pleasantly surprised. Our kids are happy, we really like the community and two tuitions at Catholic amount to less than half of one at our private. We can breath much easier now.

Anonymous wrote: Non-law, both parents worked. Irrelevant though to the point that privates are way more out of reach for many than they used to be. It was a sacrifice for my parents but it's financially much more economically disportionate of one for our family. Really makes me wonder if it's worth it

The real issue is that wages have been stagnant for the better part of 10-15 years for most Americans.

The private school cost, adjusted for inflation, isn't that much more than it was. But middle class incomes have not gone up much since then.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is true. Private schools have never been this expensive even adjusted for inflation. Back in the day plenty of government workers sent their kids to Cathedral schools and Sidwell etc.

Back in which day?

NP: private school tuition has increased faster than inflation (and faster than government salaries). In real terms, tuition is 2x as much as it was 30 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

This is true. Private schools have never been this expensive even adjusted for inflation. Back in the day plenty of government workers sent their kids to Cathedral schools and Sidwell etc.

Back in which day?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

First, I'm not sure it's the tuition increases that are creating a have/have not environment any more than already exists from the existence of private v. public schools.

In my experience they care very much, and as others have pointed out in detail, they're not filling their pockets, they're just running up against hard financial realities and difficult choices. They're choosing to raise tuition rather than make cuts to the program. I know trustees who are very concerned about the fact they're on a path to pricing many more families out of the schools, but there's no easy solution. The best path would really be one that brought benefits costs under control such that they don't continue to rise faster than inflation and drive everything up, but we as a country don't seems likely to achieve that any time soon.

It's not all about benefit costs. Admin team costs (whether more people or more pay is not clear) and facilities have been a substantial part of the increase. Look at the study done by the team from Vanderbilt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's really sickening. We have three kids in private. Thinking about going public for my youngest. Those of us who make too much for FA but just barely enough to afford private school are getting squeezed out. Pretty soon private school will only be for the richest of the rich and lower to middle class. No room for upper middle class, or working class families. So staggering.

Privates school has almost always been for the richest of the rich.

That is not in fact true. Let's put aside the many, many private schools outside of DC that have tuition that are not nearly as high (Cost of living aside). Even so, the increase in tuition has greatly outpaced increases in average income, or even income in upper quintiles. 30 years ago middle class families could afford, albeit with some sacrifice, typical private school tuition. Now that's barely true.

This is true. Private schools have never been this expensive even adjusted for inflation. Back in the day plenty of government workers sent their kids to Cathedral schools and Sidwell etc.

Anonymous wrote: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!

First, I'm not sure it's the tuition increases that are creating a have/have not environment any more than already exists from the existence of private v. public schools.

In my experience they care very much, and as others have pointed out in detail, they're not filling their pockets, they're just running up against hard financial realities and difficult choices. They're choosing to raise tuition rather than make cuts to the program. I know trustees who are very concerned about the fact they're on a path to pricing many more families out of the schools, but there's no easy solution. The best path would really be one that brought benefits costs under control such that they don't continue to rise faster than inflation and drive everything up, but we as a country don't seems likely to achieve that any time soon.

Non-law, both parents worked. Irrelevant though to the point that privates are way more out of reach for many than they used to be. It was a sacrifice for my parents but it's financially much more economically disportionate of one for our family. Really makes me wonder if it's worth it

Anonymous wrote:Not really pp. The tuition increase rate or tuition itself was for many much more manageable in the 80's and 90's when I went to a dc private.

What did your parents do for a living?