Paying Yeshiva Tuitions

jewcentral · Site Admin Joined: Oct 31, 2002 Posts: 74

The link to the Jesna site has been added to Jew Central's link section.

http://www.jewcentral.com/viewlink-142.html

Boy · Guest

meistermensh · Guest

I know families who are moving so their kids can attend P.S. 6 .
What they pay more in rent offsets by far the alternative costs for Yeshiva. And the excess money they save is being earmarked for college.
Other responses said move to Israel or work for a Yeshiva. Is that really realistic? Both involve quiting your job. That may not be a good idea
because in both senarios you are going to mostly likely end up with a lower salary. Better if someone mentioned get a better paying job.

Mort · Guest

Meistermensh,

You're not answering the question. The question is about coping with high Yeshiva Tuition, not about sending children anywhere else other than Yeshiva. The word coping relates to stress, such as would be associated with carrying high debt and struggling to pay it. That appears to be the situation confronting Soccermom.

schoolstarter · Guest

Mort I know some people wouldn't consider sending their children anywhere other than a yeshiva- meistermensh's idea wouldn't work for them. But consider this scenario- after school a bus picks up the children and brings them to an afterschool yeshiva- convering just jewish topics- it's almost the equivilant to the system that many yeshivas have: jewish subjects in the morning and secular studies in the afternoon.

I know that torah vodath doesn't start its secular studies until after 3pm, this is the equivilant.

Further if this catches on in a specific community certain courses may be worked into the corriculum ie Jewish History, Hebrew Language etc... Don't some border states offer ESL and spnish courses- so this seems feasible.

Mort · Guest

The earlier reply by soccermom, the woman who posed the question, seemed to want her children to be in an environment with other Jewish kids so this issue goes beyond merely the education question. Your solution does not provide a situation where all the other kids are Jewish during the school day (prior to 3 PM). If soccermom is still reading this board perhaps she can further elaberate on the topic so we can get more insight in order to be of help.

SoccerMom · Guest

My goal is to instill jewish values in my children as much as I can. So Mort is correct the half-day solution won't work for me, but may for others. Isn't there a school district in new square (or somewhere) that is exclusively Jewish? A situation like that (with the right community) would work.

heshy · Star Poster Joined: Sep 06, 2002 Posts: 59

The avg amout spent per public school student in NY for 2002 was $12,265, in the 5 towns it is 20,303.

Someone told me the other day that in the 5 towns the number is now ~27k (I couldn't confirm this)- makes yeshiva tuition seem cheap!

source:
http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/repcrdfall2003/overview-analysis/280215030000.pdf

Guest · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:35 am Post subject: Re: Paying Yeshiva Tuitions

Guest · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:37 am Post subject: Re: Paying Yeshiva Tuition

jewcentral · Site Admin Joined: Oct 31, 2002 Posts: 74

Guest,

The timezone on our server was set incorrectly, the problem has since been resolved (so you see the time she actually posted.

Also please use a more descriptive name (ie other than guest) so when people refer to your comments it is more clear.

NoLaw · Guest

yonah · Star Poster Joined: Jun 18, 2004 Posts: 57

Three items:

One: Interesting you mention JESNA, as there was a big issue of the New York Jewish Week back in the fall of 03' that was focused on Education - most of it reflected on the high costs and how they were driving jews out of manhattan. But there was also an article by Jonathan Woocher - JESNA's president, who suggested that teachers aren't being paid enough. I guess a $50,000 salary with another $45,000 in tuition breaks doesn't quite add up to $95K for some people then.

Two:
My suggestions were far-fetched in the sense that for those of us who will only send their children to a full-day Yeshiva there really aren't many alternatives. I also suggested some practical things that some of my friends have done or are doing. And my relocation/job suggestions only make sense for a select few.

Three:
I live in an area where taxes on the average single-family home are around $6K/year (but they are going up as of 7/1). This is because my area (White Plains) has a large corporate base. Although my neighbors in Scarsdale and New Rochelle pay much more than I do in property taxes, they have some of the best public schools in the nation - which is why I can't understand why someone sending their kids to Yeshiva would live there? That $7-10K difference in taxes is about half to 2/3 of a tuition.

Incidentally - from what I understand taxes in places like Teaneck and 5-towns are easily in the double-digits. Part of the reason I moved to white plains and not to those two places.

student · Guest

Not to be teacher bashing because they do have one of the most important jobs in society but for their salary they get 2 months off (not to mention winter, spring and oter breaks) and after 25yrs of work they can retire...

There should be some sort of teacher ranking system (like sports figures have stats) and better teachers get higher salaries. Better teachers will mean less remedial training and problem children so less money can be spent there and more back to their salaries...

yonah · Star Poster Joined: Jun 18, 2004 Posts: 57

Interesting thought. I know that several schools chancellors in NYC have tried pushing merit-based pay as a means for retaining teachers - only to be quashed by the unions. I am also sure that given the pay structures and logistics for Jewish Schools I am sure that this is some way enacted upon -or not- simply because it won't work. (For example, many 'Brooklyn' Yeshivas have their secular studies programs start at 3pm so that they can hire qualified public schools teachers who want to make some more $$$ to work in the afternoons; Merit pay wouldn't work in this situation, simply because many of these teachers will not be incentivised to work harder for their second job, and since the school hires them as a cost cutting measure, they will not be willing to offer such incentives).

But regardles of 'What' teachers should get paid, we need to consider 'how much' as in both how much the teacher gets paid and how much it costs to live in that area. In other words, if I need to make, $100, $150, $200k, etc to live in this area, than how can a teacher afford to live here as well?

Then take that back to the same example I gave before. Let's say I make $100K - $30K of which goes directly to Uncle Sam, leaving me with $70K - 3 yeshiva tuitions at $10K/each is a lot of moolah. I am not sure how these discounts work, but I am assuming (maybe wrongly) that the teacher in question might make, say $50K, let's say $15K in taxes (same pct.) but she has her three kids in the school for FREE - $30K in non-taxed benefits. Which means that at the end of the day I have $40K in my pocket, and she has $35. Considering that she is off when her kids are off, and has most of the summer off - this isn't a bad thing at all.