There is a new kind of captive in the making, but do not expect to see any pidyon shvuyim effort on his or her behalf. This new prisoner is a sad by-product of the tuition crisis, and has not yet impressed people as worthy of inclusion on the short list of the most serious problems over which we agonize. Yet it is pitting whole groups of frum Jews against others, and threatens a dynamic of cooperation that has worked for as long as people can remember. The working professional increasingly feels frustrated and alienated by the “system” – at least insofar as it relates to the finances of mosdos of chinuch.
We all know that schools are growing more desperate in addressing shortfalls in revenue brought on by escalating costs and a prolonged ailing economy. Schools have little control over external funding like donations, so they push where they can, which increasingly means the portion of the parent body that they perceive to have some wiggle room. They can’t squeeze those who simply don’t have, so they raise tuition year after year. They know that the poor and the underemployed won’t produce more, but they are all on tuition assistance. Where there are no sugar-daddies available, it is the middle class that is asked to cough up more each year, subsidizing those who are in far more desperate financial straits.
Actually, they are not asked. They are told. The money is demanded, and they have no choice but to comply. In many communities, there are no alternative schools that will meet their expectations of Torah chinuch. They can be made to dance like puppets on a string. They are trapped by the “system:” they cannot deny Torah education to their children, so they have no choice but to sign over a progressively part of their income to their schools. They are trapped, as surely as is the shavui.
The reader will marvel at how selfish and uncharitable these people are! They should be grateful to the Ribbono Shel Olam that they are in a position to be able to give more, and not among those who have to take more!
Not so fast. This is not about money alone.
There are very few among the bulk of the working middle class who are earning so much that they can afford to pay tuition levies for multiple children without belt tightening, even with a spouse working part- or full-time. Day-school tuitions can commonly run 12-25K per child, and even higher. Non-commuter high schools take an even bigger bite. Do the arithmetic, and calculate what that means for a family with four, five, or more children in Torah schools – but translate the figures into the pre-tax dollars that are necessary to generate those sums.
Here is where it gets ugly. I wouldn’t write about this so openly if this were not already the dirty secret that everybody knows. The changed realities of the New Economy mean that people are having fewer children. I have no idea whether they are asking shaylos, or paskening for themselves. I am speaking of people who are medakdek b’halacha, people with years of yeshiva and seminary training. They would like to have more children; they are not electing otherwise because they want summer homes, new cars, and Pesach in Italy. Those are not part of the equation. They are limiting family size because they cannot see how, bederech hateva, they can fork over those tuition checks for another child.
Here is where it gets really ugly. This equation is creating class warfare, of the kind that we may not have seen since people with means bought replacements for their children drafted during the dark days of the Cantonist decrees. The poor were victimized by the “khappers” who seized their children to replace those of the rich. Today, the unborn children of the more well to-do are being seized by tuition policies of day schools. And the resentment of the middle class is focused not only on the school board, but on the less affluent.
The middle class parent, already strapped for cash, notes that his school offers tuition assistance to a wide group of recipients. He cannot and does object to tuition reduction to the unemployed, or the family struck by illness, or the family headed by a single parent. He also notes, however, that ten community rabbonim get tuition breaks, as well as twenty kollel yungerleit. Fifteen rabbeim on the faculty get tuition breaks, and keep having more children. He fully recognizes that free or reduced tuition is not a perk, but a cost-efficient way for the school to compensate for the inadequate salary offered to faculty. He does not question that. But he knows that there is a cost associated with every child. Should there be no limit to the number of faculty children whose tuition is excused? He asks himself whether it is fair that those who can afford more children least seem to have them without limit, while he and his wife have had to limit the size of their family.
This is not to say that having children must or should be a financial decision. For most frum Jews, having additional children is a question of bitachon. The irony is that in many instances when klei kodesh have more children, they needen’t have bitachon that HKBH will provide for them – they have bitachon that HKBH will provide for the baal habos down the block who is de facto going to bear the tuition burden for that additional child (typically, the single biggest cost associated with an additional child). When that same baal habos – the one who is actually footing the bill, working long hours, having a spouse work, not being able to spend as much time in the beis medrash as he would like – is going through his own bitachon issues over whether to have another child, while the klei kodesh needn’t struggle with the same issue, resentment builds.
If a shul hires a new rov, why should his four children be entitled to any tuition assistance, when it translates into a demand on the baal habos who does not even daven in his shul? Should it not be the responsibility of the shul to pay salaries that will allow the rov to pay his tuition obligation without thrusting him upon a small group from whom it is demanded that they foot the bill? Some people want to bring a kollel to town? Wonderful! Our middle class workers learned in kollel themselves years ago. But let the sponsors of the kollel do the fund raising, rather than have their kollel members deposit their children on the school house steps, and expect a large tuition break.
What the system lacks is an understanding that when a tuition break is given, that money is not “free;” someone pays for it. By granting tuition breaks to those employed by mosdos, the system has simply shifted the burden of raising those necessary funds from the mosod to the school, and by extension, to the middle-class parents who have no choice but to pay the resulting increased “full” tuition amount in the most tax-inefficient way imaginable. Were the system not shifting tuition burdens in this way, each mosod would have to raise tution dollars for its employees and balei battim would have a choice as to whether or not to donate to the mosdos. If they chose to – and many would if tuition burdens were relaxed – their donations would be tax deductible. Instead, balei baatim are forced to subsidize mosdos through a chinuch “tax.” often at the cost of increased working hours and/or spouses working who might not otherwise. Many balei baatim would willingly support local mosdos but few would have their spouse take a job solely to do so. Our current burden-shifting system often leaves them no choice.
Please, dear reader, do not shoot the messenger. I am conveying facts and feelings, not a halachic analysis nor hashkafic advice. There is a groundswell of resentment of the kind I described above. Getting angry at me will not make it go away. I am reporting reality, not taking sides.
The middle class feels played and extorted. They realize that the kollel families struggle; they are not blind to that. They don’t want to be told that they must underwrite every case of need in their school community. Some of those cases are optional to the school. The burden could be shifted elsewhere. Instead, it is placed on them. They are angry.
The school, in fact, if pressured enough, may go back to the board of the kollel and try to play hardball. The kollel’s board pushes back, and influence peddlers get involved. Now the conflict escalates, and those who used to see themselves as supporters of the kollel see it as part of the problem. This is a tragic wrinkle to the overall tuition crisis and a new source of in-house dissension in our midst.
The problem spirals out of control. Why, asks the middle class, should we hire a new rebbi with six children to fill a vacancy, when it means providing free tuition to six kids? (No one questions that the rebbi is underpaid, no matter how many or how few children he has.) With a surplus of rebbis available, hire one with only two children! Or stipulate with all personnel who benefit from contractually stipulated tuition reduction that the break is limited to two children, after which it is up to them to figure out how to support them – just like the middle class is having to deal with it. Should it be the payers of full tuition who have to limit their family size, while others do not? (Again, I am reporting feelings, not validating responses.) In some cases, it simply does not pay for a professional to work any harder and generate more income, because a large part (and in some cases 100%) of anything more her or she earns will be set upon by the school. (I recently spoke to a 10-year rebbi with 6 children who, after years of struggling with the financial stress of making $60,000 a year – albeit paying virtually no tuition – was considering going to law school. He was advised that should he go and do well, he could expect a starting salary of $160,000. However he was also advised that he should not expect to have a dime more in his pocket when he started working then he had as a rebbi. The entirety of his increased earning would go to Uncle Sam and school tuition.) Should not those who toil longer hours be able to do so for the benefit of their own families first, and not have their money and labor seized by an enforced socialism so severe in its effect, that it makes Obamacare look like a Republican project?
The questions are good ones; there are real equity issues here. Some schools wing it, and simply allow need to dictate increasing pressure on the middle class, asking the haves to subsidize more of the have-nots each year. Other schools will ask a shaylah, which doesn’t always work much better. Whatever the answer, some who are not happy with it will blame it on the alleged incompetence of posek X, who should have been bypassed in favor of posek Y. Much better would be policy agreed upon by a large group of poskim and gedolim, but we have not seen that kind of reaction in quite a while.
Is this a new problem? Yes! The gemara solved it, in earlier times. Mi-dina d’gemara, the entire community, not just the parent body of a particular school, pays for the chinuch of local children. The entire community can be assessed and made to pay for essential services. According to teshuvos over centuries, the some assessments are spread equally, and some are graduated according to income. In many cases, a compromise was implemented whereby half of it was a head tax, and the other half graduated.) The disappearance of the kehillah system, however, means that what should be happening according to halacha is not an option. We have no way of taxing the rich.
A generation ago, the problem was not as ubiquitous as it is today. Schools lived with the reality that fundraising would account for a large part, if not the majority, of the yearly budget. Much has changed since then. The numbers of children in schools was a fraction of what it is today, and a smaller number of gevirim (particularly Holocaust survivors who had done extremely well on American shores, and understood the need to support new mosdos of Torah) gave generously. Non-Orthodox Jews were approachable as donors for heimishe tzedakos; today, secular Jewish donors direct most of their money to non-Jewish projects. People did not question as much the “entitlement” of underpaid klei kodesh to subsidized tuition for their children.
I propose no solutions to this problem, no more than I can to the overall tuition crisis. I have proposed a contribution to a solution, however, and I will reiterate it. Our tzedaka giving is governed by nothing by hefkerus, while it should be guided by halacha. We need to educate – and, yes, enforce – the destination of tzedakah funds. Some poskim feel that 2/3 or more of our charitable funds stay local. Let’s be liberal, for the sake of argument, and only ask for half, as Baltimore did a few years ago on a voluntary basis. Schools, perhaps, cannot live with voluntarism. Part of granting tuition assistance should be an examination of charitable giving. Schools could stipulate (assuming poskim would agree with such a proposal) that they are entitled to a given (large) percentage of the 50% of the portion earmarked for local need. (Yes, there would have to be some way to accommodate families sending children to multiple schools.) It won’t balance the budget, but it could ease the escalating burden now placed on the successfully employed.
If no one does anything about this problem, we are going to see class warfare within our ranks.
A Real Workable Solution (that does not involve moving to Eretz Yisroel or a “communal fund”): Myriad comments provide much hand wringing but little in the way of solutions. Let me take a stab at one:
First, the root cause of the problem, IMHO, is that, as a community, we are living beyond our means – and I don’t mean in terms of our standard of living (although that may be true as well), I mean in terms of the number of mosdos we have and their sizes. There are a lot of wonderful mosdos out there, but there are simply more than we Klal Yisroel can afford to support at the moment (at least without people being forced to work extra jobs, longer hours, etc). The problem has always seemed to be that there was no central clearing house for determining which mosdos survive or are necessary and which don’t, and accordingly, no way to break the cycle. Any three balei battim can get together and start a Kollel and there is no one to stop them.
However, the reality is that there IS one central clearing house in each community which does subsidize every mosod – the local yeshiva day school. When 3 wealthy balei battim get together and decide to start a 4th Kollel in a city or a 15th shul, the dollars they have to raise to do so are necessarily lessened by the knowledge that their staff members will receive reduced (read: S-U-B-S-I-D-I-Z-E-D tuition, thus lessening their fund-raising burden). Absent this subsidy, they would have to pay a living wage and would either not open their Kollel or would open with fewer, but better paid yungeleit – i.e., the market – namely their fund-raising base, would decide whether the Kollel was worthy of support or not. By schools granting a de facto subsidy to every mosod, the choice over which mosod to support ceases to be a communal decision (made by writing checks to the institutions we support) and instead becomes a communal “tax” imposed from on high. Instead of deciding to support a mosod, we are forced to, our wives are forced to.
Elementary economics tells us that when those incurring costs are not those paying for the costs, waste and economic inefficiency results (think health insurance: if one has a low-deductible PPO, it’s easy to order a bevy of tests . . . because someone else pays for it). We cannot fix the problem unless the costs (including the implied costs inherent in educating the children of new klie kodesh hired for a new or expanded mosod) are paid by those incurring them (i.e., the mosod and those who support it).
How do we do this? Schools must stop granting discounts to employees of mosdos (obviously this needs to be done over time, not all at once) and lower tuition across the board. Balei battim will be free to use the money they save to support the mosdos they CHOSE to support (rather than being told de facto, they MUST support them through a tuition “tax”). Yes, mosdos will need to raise more money to pay their employees higher salaries. In some instances, mosdos will shrink or even disappear. I’m not championing the disappearance of mosdos but, returning to my original premise that we have more mosdos that we can afford as a community, we need to let the market decide which survive, and at which staffing levels. The de facto subsidy granted by schools takes all market forces out of that equation because those generating the costs (the mosdos) are divorced from those paying them (the schools/full-tuition-paying parents).
As Reb Dr. R pointed out “No one in our generation or socioeconomic class begrudges the truly needy any tuition assistance. The problem is that “needy” used to mean families who were recent immigrants, families torn asunder by loss or illness of a parent, unfortunate people who found themselves unexpectedly unemployed, those in menial jobs.” That class of the needy deserve our communal support (through higher tuition), in obtaining education for their children because we are a nation of rachmanim and gomlei chasadim and a school’s job is to EDUCATE. However, the mosdos, needn’t be supported through schools – a school’s job is not to be a kollel or a shul. To the extent mosdos they are worthy of our support (and many, or even most, are), they need to start paying a better wage and raising the funds necessary to do so THEMSELVES instead of through schools. If the mosod subsidy decreases, tuition can go down and more dollars are available for mosdos. This lets those ultimately supporting mosdos have a say in which they support and at what levels.
The justice in this system is that no one is “forced” to support a mosod or take a second job to do so.
However you want to define the problem it remains a question of budgets. Be it government or business the solution to shortfalls is either raise revenue or cut expenses. Shuffling money around might create some tax advantages that could help a bit in the short term it is not in itself a solution. The only solution I see going forward for the Jewish community is doing some sort of public school online for secular studies, which is free, and hiring a Rebbe for kodesh. I foresee facilities where all the students work in front of their computers and few administrators would be there to make sure students stay on task and help direct them to online services for support. This would probably slash costs by 2/3, provide kids with a better secular education than they are getting now (if we are going to be honest with ourselves) and use our money where we really want it to go, towards JEWISH education. This is not going to be a popular idea because it will cause a lot of schools to close and create job loss for lots of teacher but I believe it is inevitable.
DF Says: It is unthinkable to me that some are suggesting a family where the mother remains home should somehow be “penalized” in the tutition system, however that would work. That IS the traditional way of life, and that IS what the Prophets and the Gemara describe as ideal.
But the ‘traditional way of life’ also includes a higher participation in the labor force (generally from early teenage-hood, in an agrarian society if you go far enough back), full time-learning reserved for elites, smaller families due to infant and maternal mortality and malnutrition-related infertility, and lifespans did not generally necessitate funding decades-long retirements. Be careful picking and choosing what parts of tradition you choose to place on the pedestal.
“And by the way, you know who is paying the public school costs? Those taxes are crippling as well. ”
Not true. Here in NYC we pay quite low property taxes. In fact, despite the fact that I’m a medical school professor and my wife is a doctor, it is STILL less expensive for us to live in NYC and pay double city income taxes than pay property taxes in most of Westchester County. (I personally know people there who pay over $30k/year in property taxes on their homes, and we aren’t talking about mansions.)
“The size of the schools has very little to do with the costs. You’re a statistician, prove it. You can’t because the facts do not support your hypothesis. ”
Just compare our property taxes here in NYC — and our per pupil education costs — to, say, Westchester County. There are entire school districts in Westchester County with fewer students than single high schools in NYC and their per pupil costs are much, much higher. Here is a link with data:
http://www.metroprofiles.com/NewYorkCityWelcome.html
“But even in public schools there are different schools. We are not a communist society.”
In most school districts in America you kids much attend the school in which they are zoned. Note that in many small school districts there is not even the possibility of choice because there is only one option at a particular grade level. NYC is one of the few public school districts where transfers are routine and there is a lot of choice for high schools.
And the comparison of a lack of choice of schools to communism is so far beyond the pale that I’m surprised it got past the moderators.
Quick math on what a kehilla tax might look like:
For an mean family size of 5 kids and $15,000 in constant-value actual tuition costs for 12 years per child over a 42 year career (enter workforce at 23, retire at 65) would require an annual kehilla tax of $21,400/year per family not factoring in any cost-of-capital timing issues. There would likely be a tax advantage over tuition in the US.
An ever-growing population will create a shidduch crisis-like situation where the dollars required to educate today’s students cannot be met cash-to-cash (because there is an insufficient number non-current-parent taxpayer from the previous generation). Financing charges related to this issue could up the required tax rate significantly.
“Charlie, You mention the catholic schools as a model. For a time, they were sustaining themselves because they had almost free labor because of nuns who got paid a pittance with no long term commitment from the Church in supporting them in old age. Priests had much better perks. Schools had less priests than nuns. Now, they are scrambling to keep Catholic schools open as their source of cheap labor has dried up. ”
Most dioceses close schools that get below a certain size. That almost never happens to Jewish schools. And while the religious orders are dying out, the schools somehow manage to pay union benefits to their faculty and staff.
FWIW, the Archdiocese of New York has 76,024 students in 246 schools — a bit more than 300 per school. Most (not all) Jewish schools seem to be quite a bit smaller than that.
“You also mention how public high schools have 4,000 students and elementary schools have 1-2000. From the research I have seen, schools that size are unwieldy and ineffective. High schools that are so big are divided up into mini-schools within a school. The savings are not that huge as more administrators need to be hired to manage the infrastructure and curriculum.”
Not if you have a common curriculum. And in any case, public school administrators make much less than Jewish Day School principals, at least in NYC.
To Tzeitel and Tired:
To clarify, I didn’t say every woman should have a job and no one should stay at home. I said that wives of men who wants to make their careers in kollel or a low paying rabinical position need to be able to earn a substantial income to avoid unfairly causing resentment against Torah. I also said that those men should spend more time in the evenings being an abba to their children to help make up for their wives working. For women who are married to men whose salaries can support a full-time stay at home mom (and still pay tuition), there are definitly plenty of family benefits to being able to afford to do that.
For a lot of families, both parents working to at least some extent is simply an economic necessity, and exempting a few select families from that reality is going to cause a huge amount of resentment for exactly the reasons you’re describing. A working mother who hardly sees her kids is going to deeply resent a kollel mom who is both getting to stay home with her kids and essentially living off of the working mom’s tremendous sacrifice of not seeing her children.
“Imagine 50 more young Lakewoods, Monseys, Waterburys, etc. ”
Indeed there are at least 50 nice safe rust belt cities with inexpensive housing — I can probably name two dozen just in New York and New England! As their public school population declines you can also pick up white elephant public buildings for a song. (The Waterbury yeshiva bought an old University of Connecticut building that they might never have sold otherwise, thus saving Connecticut taxpayers some money.)
On the women working issue:
Let’s keep in mind that a significant number of the women who stay at home have limited skills, training, or experience. Obviously, this varies by community, but let’s take a ‘typical yeshivish’ stay at home mom who got married at 19 while working as a Morah or secretary until the birth of her first child. At that point, her minimum-wage salary doesn’t go very far after child care. As her family size increases, and there are two or three children who need day care, it truly may not make much sense for her to work. Yes, I am aware that with ambition, experience, and a hefty dose of Siyata D’Shmaya many women with minimal training can work their way up to well-paying jobs. However, the assumption that women can go out and bring in more money needs to take into account the earning power of women in various segments of our society.
I think there needs to be more emphasis on forcing schools to open their books – really open them, in detail – and let everyone see where their tuition and tzedaka dollars are going, and to allow financial experts to mandate money-saving measures.
I am quite sure that if the public would be able to see how much money goes on inflated salaries for certain personnel and on other wasteful items, the outcry would force changes and tuition could be lowered appreciably.
As an outsider looking in at the American community, I find this talk of not having enough money bemusing. Firstly, a change of attitude is needed to determine what is essential and what is a luxury. From my two week stay in Flatbush I came back absolutely astounded by the standards that must be kept up to. The Kiddushim in shuls, the weddings, the quantity of toys that the kids have, the outfits the women wear. It brought me back to my time in seminary, the first time I had contact with Americans. Whilst those of us from England easily managed with one suitcase, yes, all my worldly possessions fit into one case, I do not recall an American with only three pairs of shoes. And then the yearbooks, I fail to recall exactly how much money was spent producing proper books with professional photos whilst we English managed with a black and white cheap version that cost next to nothing. And summer camps, is it really a necessity and if it is, does each one have to try and outdo each other, adding additional expenses, not to talk about the adverts for Pesach vacations that get more ostentatious year after year. In short, the money seems to be there, just not always directed to the best causes. Of course, their are Americans who are a lot poorer and don’t have such luxuries but when you live within a culture where more is always better you will be influenced and lose your objectivity of what is a luxury and necessity. Things will only get harder, Moshiach is on the way and with it will be a complete financial collapse to wean us of olam haza. Unfortunately England is beginning to learn from America and so I have moved to Israel where salaries are a lot lower but at least your kids will learn how to cope with less. Good luck
Have we, the ostensibly traditional Jews, managed to set up an economic system that systematically delegates daytime childcare to outsiders less fit to do it? Under such circumstances, how can the basic value and typical atmosphere of a Jewish home not deteriorate?
Quick math on what a kehilla tax might look like:
For an mean family size of 5 kids and $15,000 in constant-value actual tuition costs for 12 years per child over a 42 year career (enter workforce at 23, retire at 65) would require an annual kehilla tax of $21,400/year per family not factoring in any cost-of-capital timing issues. There would likely be a tax advantage over tuition in the US.
Z: Do you mean this INSTEAD of paying tuition, or IN ADDITION. If you mean instead, then that is lower than many of us pay in tuition. If you mean in addition, then forget it, there is no way we could afford that in addition to the burden of tuition.]
On the assumption that you mean instead, here are some questions:
1. What is the enforcement mechanism? Suppose someone does not want to pay? Clearly, if someone has children in the school, then it will be worth it to pay the kehillah tax instead of tuition. Others may balk. Does this mean they don’t get aliyos in shul? COunted in a minyan?
2. What about those who don’t have children, or whose children are now grown beyond the schools in the kehillah (some only go to 8th grade, others to high school)? Someone with single boys in yeshiva gedolah or single girls in seminary? Married children in kollel?
3. What about someone from outside the kehillah who wants to send their child there?
4. Is this kehillah tax assessed per family, per capita, based on income, or what?
5. Is the kehillah tax also used for other communal needs — shuls, mikvaos, batei midrash, tseddakah for aniyyim, etc.?
As far as tax deductions, I am not sure. If I pay $20,000 a year to the kehillah, and get services in return (my children are educated, I provided with a shul to daven in, a mikvah for my wife to go to), then I doubt that it is deductible.
Some people mentioned that there shouldn’t be a tuition break if the mother isn’t working. Well, when my children were little, I wanted to go back to work because I needed the money. Then I did the math: $12/hour for me starting when I got to work. $4/hour per child for childcare starting when I dropped the kids off. 3 children needing a baby sitter. Money to Uncle Sam…Babysitter’s clock starting before mine and ending afterwards…working so I would no longer have the time to run to which ever supermarket had sales…better clothing for work… IT DIDN’T PAY.
You can’t make a blanket statment about working mother’s without taking in the cost of childcare.
I don’t know what the answer is. The economy is so bad that the people who used to be big donnors are now begging for tuition breaks. I think if EVERYONE suddenly came into the public schools to register, the goverment would realize that they can’t handle all those new children and would have to give the schools SOMETHING. This, of course, would only work if everyone would do it.
Here is the solution for the tution crisis in North/ Central Jersey.
Rent and renovate a building for a new school in an industrial park off the NJ Turnpike or GS Parkway halfway between Lakewood and Teaneck. Rents there are very cheap due to the economic downturn. Teachers from Lakewood commute north, students from North Jersey take a school bus south and meet at the school in between. Teachers in Lakewood will work for half the salary of teachers in other comunities in North and Central Jersey. The school will be viable at a tuition of ~$7K/ student.
Do not be concerned about the inequity of paying a Lakewood teacher so little. A new seven bedroom home in Lakewood costs $400K. The equivalent home in North Jersey costs >$1M . More importantly, the Lakewood home has a rentable basement which can fetch $850-950/ month, covering 3/4 of the mortgage. In addition, tuition in Lakewood is $3-5K. The cost of living in Lakewood is one third that of Teaneck.
I have been told that this solution will never work. Parents in Teaneck would prefer sending their kids to public school rather than have them spend 50 minutes on a bus each way. In addition, they would never send their kids to a school without extra curricular sports, or where Zionism is not a central part of the curriculum.
If true, there is no tuition crisis. Instead, we have a Jewish commitment crisis.
This discussion really has two separate but important topics.
1) The economic infertility imposed on the working middle class by our educational system that uses tuition benefits rather than cash to pay its Jewish educators. Ironically, this is structurally similar to the US healthcare system where most users are insulated from the actual cost of delivery the service, and that cost is shifted to others. For this, the answer is to eliminate or severely reduce the benefits to teachers, raise compensation to what should be market (i.e., closer to what local public and private schools pay) and let the chips fall where they may.
Of course this raises significant issue #2 – can many American Jewish communities actually sustain full time jewish day school education for their children. It seems to me that, sadly, the answer is no. Like most of our fellow Americans, we have grown into living a lifestyle – larger families, bigger houses, more comforts, nicer shuls, more shuls, more schools, bigger gyms, bigger libraries etc – that is not viable in the current economic environment. Yes, Dorothy, we have assimilated the American mindset. But now we can’t afford it, and our kids will absolutely have to bear the burden.
One solution to the financial challenge – send all our (the oppressed middle class’) kids to public school for secular studies and set up after-school Jewish programs with the best of the klei kodesh that still would be teaching the kids of the rich and the kollel who would still be doing full-time JDS with its Daas Torah mandated Jewish in the morning classes. We could even have daily minyanim geared to these kids – set up to coincide with their school schedules. Moreover, the mass influx of Orthodox kids into public schools would make them more socially safe (though not perfect) and probably more accomodating.
On this front, I woudl
I have not read any of the comments. I just want to say thank you so, so much for this post. My husband and I faced just this situation.
When we had two children in private Jewish day school, we could afford the full tuition, as hard as it was. But when I found myself unexpectedly pregnant for a third time, we realized we would have to apply for financial aid. We received some–not much–and our belts grew tighter. We realized then it would be foolish for us to have any more children, and came to the decision that was it.
Yet the Rabbis of the school, the teachers, were having six, seven, eight, nine children. It was a well known fact all their children were attending the school for free.
I cannot begin to describe to you the resentment I began to feel. I had wanted more children–yet understood I could not afford them. But there I was, paying for the tuition of these other children, children who were somehow more special than mine because their parents were teachers and Rabbis.
My children no longer attend that school. I cannot say this was the only reason; there were other issues going on, too. But this was definitely a factor.
In a democratic society the way governement functions is by taxes. Thus we receive police , fire and sanitation services and we pay property taxes . the same is true of our public schools. These schools are supported through various taxes.
In East europe many kehillo services were supported by various taxes . Thus there was like it or not a tax on kosher slaughter , there was a”tax” on the purchase of karka after 120. There was a heafty tax on Passover Matzo. After all, communal institutions needed to be supported.Rabbis needed to be paid . A shul sold shdat that is permanent seats to supprot the shuls.
In the US the orthodox communtiy as a whole has no tax system. Shuls support themselves through mebership fees. But communal institutions have no such vehicle of support.
The obvious way is to provide for a tax on kashrus. Inded in amny instances this already exists. Except for the fact thta most of the organizations taxing us for their hechsher are private groups run by individual families. At least 2 of the big 4 kashrus organizatiosn reaping huge profits from kashruth are private groups controlled by individual fmailies.Many if not most of the smaller groups are also in private hands. And with all due respect the OU, it seems to keep its income from kashrus supervision as top secret. The question begs itself how much money does the oU contribute to local day schools ?
Imagine a communal kashruth system where the profits from hashgachoth would go to support local day schools Maikvaot and other communal organiations rather than into the pockets of private people. If our local governemnts were run the same way all localities would be bankrupt too. If the cities did not collect taxes but it was paid to private people , who would support the public
schools?
We need to demand some form of disclosure form the so called public kosher groups and pressure the private group to do more much more to help our yeshivoth.
There has been a fair amount of discussion as to where a wife’s income fits into the tuition contribution equation. Let’s assume that most of the readers here will agree that in 2012, whether one has 3 or 10 kids, in 99% of cases, there is a shared income burden across both spouses.
I would argue that there are definitely mixed messages relating to the woman’s role which have been communicated in Bais Yaakov circles (explicitly or implicitly) for the past 20 years. It starts with an “academic” high school experience that often takes the form of straight memorization and little critical thinking. They are often given opportunities to receive college credit while still in high school to eventually matriculate towards an online degree (in the hopes of either using that or getting into a graduate program, somewhere) Then they are off to “BY teacher’s seminaries” in Israel. Then, they are told of the virtues of being a wife and mother and (after 10 months in seminary) being a “teacher” as a vocation. Then it’s back to America to finish their “degree”, date, get married, and try to get into graduate school. Then, they will need to get a paycheck to support their husband in Kollel and small child(ren) for whom they must also shop, cook, and clean. [Don’t worry, I’m getting dizzy too, just typing this.] Some BY’s stipulate that they now have come to the realization that women need to get the training to earn a secondary income; but, the real expectations 3 years later are that they need to earn both a primary AND a secondary income. Yet, the only fields which are available to them (based on their credentials, availability, and Hashkafa) are lower paying or part-time. They are also more comfortable working for a frum employer who “understands” them and provides for a kosher environment, narrowing the window even more). They are further challenged by the fact that there intellectual styles have been skewed towards memorization and lack of critical or creative thought.) They are also discouraged from any managerial or leadership positions as that might stigmatize them as a “career woman” or professional, when the only heter is doing what is absolutely necessary for a paycheck. Because after all, it WOULD be better if they stayed at home, but nebach they have to do this and feel guilty going beyond the minimum. (Not to mention that their spiritual and intellectual engagement has been reduced to an occasional Tehillim gathering and doing Beresihis homework with a 7 year old.)
All in all, this cholent has not led to very viable and guilt-free income participation by young women. Then again, they are doing exactly as they have been told.
“Let’s assume that most of the readers here will agree that in 2012, whether one has 3 or 10 kids, in 99% of cases, there is a shared income burden across both spouses.”
That’s your own assumption. I’ve seen more comments here from readers opposing that notion than supporting it. In the kesubah you signed YOU assumed the responsibility of earninig an income, not your wife.
There is another side of the story here that should not be forgotten. Without responding to the real, true and difficult realities recognized by the author, I’d like to mention that a careful review of the 15th and 16th chapters of Sefer Nidchei Yisroel [authored by the Chofetz Chaim]will perhaps give some of us the chizuk to carry on, despite the status-quo.
In response to Silky’s comment on July 10:
It is great that you did the math and came up with the conclusion that it doesn’t pay to work for $12/hr when you have childcare to consider. I am just wondering why you didn’t do the math years ago during the years when should have been thinking about the future. Did you fail to get guidance from parents? teachers? mentors? Were you told not to worry and trust in Hashem, or better yet, that you will marry a wealthy man? Did you think your parents were going to keep you on the dole forever? Or were you a typical teen/young adult who was more interested in make up than in making a living? Were you afraid or discouraged from getting training in a lucrative (or at least more lucrative than $12/hr) field? I am wondering where the failure in personal finance and financial planning originated.
My husband and I mentor over a dozen young people each year, both yungerleit, post-seminary girls and college students seeking career guidance or asking for informational interviews as we both are involved in highly dynamic fields. They come to us through our yeshiva, shul, community, social, professional and family connections. No one leaves here without a thorough understanding of “the math.” You don’t need a PhD to do this. More of us out there need to educate those young people around us that a middle class Jewish lifestyle with tuition obligation requires not insignificant resources. Of course we talk to them about careers or industries they may be interested in but it only comes if they are willing to listen to the numbers. I am sure many of you wonder how things would be different for you, if only your mentors, teachers, parents or rebbeim would have done this for you.
One of our daughters presented the facts as an accounting lesson to her 11th grade Bais Yaakov economics class. On one side of the ledger was our income (accounts receivable). On the other side was expenses, including taxes (accounts payable). She made a pie chart of a typical month’s expenses, then an annual accounting straight from our last ledger. Two enlightening results came of this excercises for the girls and one was for us:
1. yeshiva/BY tuition was the biggest slice of the pie – they never knew this before!
2. the sheer numbers of what it takes to balance the books, when you are making an honest living. Nobody told them this either!
Our lesson was in the class’ reaction: nobody believed her. They thought the numbers were all fictional. They didn’t believe the tuition expense until the teacher confirmed their school’s list price. They still could not believe it was an actual expense as stated: “Oh, tuition, well NOBODY pays full tuition!” This is current data. We are talking about an event that happened in spring of 2011 in a typical jewish community outside NYC.
Why are we hiding this from our young folk? Are we the only ones telling young adults as they make their career plans and choices (and we should be so lucky if they are doing so) that they need to be thinking about covering not only basic necessities or lifestyle choices but also the full cost of education? The challenge is doing it in a way that doesn’t freak them out to consider that 5 children will cost them $50-75K, or whatever it is in your community, in after tax dollars. Add the basic cost for other expenses and that is what you should be aiming for in earnings in 10 yrs from now. The last thing we want to hear is another story like Silky’s where the calculation was made too many years too late. It is both to her detriment and to ours.
Mo – A rabbi in Toronto came up with a great idea–use the capital in all those charitable funds, and have the parents take out life insurance policies to replenish the funding.
Life insurance isn’t free because life insurance companies aren’t in the business of handing money out to people. Over a population, you will put in more paying for the life insurance policies than you will get out of them – that’s how life insurance companies work. So you may as well have those people send the money to “kehilla funds” instead of to the life insurance companies and you will come out ahead by about 10% (or whatever the average life insurance company profit is nowadays).
I give my good friend Rabbi Adlerstein the benefit of the doubt, that he did not realize how much “sinah” this post would engender, or he would not have subbmitted it.
A few thoughts and comments. I dont know which alternate reality some of the commenters are living in – to make a claim of school menahalim making 300k plus salaries!! -really. the teachers i know make a minimum salary compared to what they could earn in the open market; and do it because they love teaching. please dont fool yourself into thinking that teachers do it b/c they cant do anything else; if they didnt love & believe in what they do -they wouldnt put up with the abuse and treatment from people like you. realize as well, that this complaint of not paying teachers what they deserve isnt limited to the frum or even jews; its the price of living in a capitalistic society.
Additionally it not really about the kollel guys or rabbeim, its about the fact that middle class cant afford the cost of being frum. There really arent that many jobs out there that pay an annual salary in excess of 100 or 150k that allow 50k a year or more in tuition fees. As someone who works very hard for the klal, the cost of my kids tuition IS being subsidized by the klal. Fair?- i think so. – would i prefer to make enough to pay my own way -ABSOLUTELY. But then you would lose the benefit of the work that my wife and i contribute in doing something that is of a service to the klal. could i earn far more in the secular market, no question, but i put up with the lack of pay and other indignities of klal work b/c i beleive in it.
this idea that the schools are being poorly run is a red herring. yes -there are economies of scale in large mosdos, and i am sure there are some mismanaged ones, but for most -after all the board memebers and all the experts come in to look at your purchasing and budgeting-the end result for most mosdos is the expected one -we need more money!! what a surprise
As to the “middle class” paying for the poor -there may be some instances of that occuring , but like some of the comments above -when you spend 250 on shabbos dresses, thousands on pesach hotels, etc etc-please dont insult my intelligence by claiming that i am “costing” you money. our life styles in general are out of hand.
best solution by far -VOUCHERS. it should be the mantra of all Jews.
a personal report: I moved to Israel!
Housing costs here in Ashdod (in a very frum community) are a fraction of NY. My kids go to an excellent private school (cost per year: 680$), kosher food costs, health care, and city taxes are all much lower. My economic situation has improved enormously since Aliya. Did I mention that unemployment here is lower and that is easyer to find a job here?
@Benshaul:
People’s emotions definitely do run high when it comes to this topic. I believe that is exactly the point Rabbi Adlerstein is highlighting.
Day school leaders certainly can earn in excess of 300k. Perhaps a menahel in a yeshivish cheder doesn’t earn that kind of money. A head of school in a day school can. And I am speaking of salaries, not ‘packages’ that include free tuition for children.
Many teachers do earn very little money. A full-time teacher in a well-paying school can easily be earning 70k.
People like to talk about what they can earn in the open market. I don’t know how realistic that is. I’m not saying that our teachers aren’t capable of excelling in other professions. But the reality is that a rebbe with no secular training isn’t in high demand for lucrative jobs in the open market.
Ultimately, a yeshiva education is a very expensive proposition. The issue as I understand it is why a yeshiva education – and by extension, a sizable family – is a luxury for the middle-class, but an entitlement for the klei kodesh.
“A few thoughts and comments. I dont know which alternate reality some of the commenters are living in – to make a claim of school menahalim making 300k plus salaries!!”
Log into Guidestar.org and search for yeshiva, Hebrew Academy etc-of those who file forms 990s one will find such individuals. Sadly most Yeshivot don’t file 990s especially family controlled ones. A church is exempt from the general rule that a nonprofit institution files a 990. One can look at the list of yeshivot/day schools and see which ones claim the “church” exemption-since no tax is involved one could assume it is based on the desire for secrecy.
“when you spend 250 on shabbos dresses, thousands on pesach hotels, etc etc-please dont insult my intelligence by claiming that i am “costing” you money. our life styles in general are out of hand.”
For one I have never been to a hotel on Pesach-etc. The cost of a day school education puts Yahdus out of reach of a huge proportion of Americans. The image of mechanchim of what people do is partially based on what machers do.
Schools can’t practice economics of scale because of the need to “outfrum” everyone else. Schools keep opening that cater to smaller and smaller groups with ” better” hashkofos. We can’t afford this divisive and arrogant attitude.
Benshaul wrote, “…really. the teachers I know make a minimum salary compared to what they could earn in the open market.”
Is this what they could earn in the open market today?
Or is it what they could earn in the open market with specific work experience and education/training that they don’t now have, and a new position that is not now available?
The defense offered by Benshaul above is rather insulting. Just how many people does he think go away to Pesach hotels, anyway?
The claim of Benshaul, and I’ve seen a few other mechanchim making the same claim, is that they could have gone into the open market and have earned far more than they do, but they did not do so out of love for chinuch. No doubt that is true for some in chinuch, and lets even stipulate its true of many, at least the second half of the sentence. But there are also many others in chinuch who are only in that field because they are related to the hanhala, or because they didnt plan ahead when they were in yeshivah. Sitting in learning is the default. We need to show a lot of respect for those ballei battim who realized this was not the right way to go, and went against the grain while still in yeshivah to prepare for the future.
Moreover, who’s to say these mechanchim would have automatically been sucessful, just because they entered the working world? It’s not easy to make it out there. You have to work very hard, and as already said, you are coming in with one hand behind your back because of student loans or start up costs.
Mr. Benshaul it is the callous and arrogant attitude of people that is engendering the “sinah”. If you knew anything about day schools you would know that salaries of 200,000 or more are normal for principals and heads of school. You can see this in the forms 990 that these schools file.
And please don’t lecture me how you and your wife do so much for the klal and therefore deserve that parents subsidize your tuition. Let the machers who hired you pay your tuition – not your fellow parents who are struggling to make ends meet. You contradict yourself by saying that you could find a better paying job but are happy to help the klal and then state that there really aren’t many well paying jobs that would allow for payment of full tuition. As for red herrings, the fact that some people spend thousands on vacations and other luxuries is irrelevant. For the most part the big spenders are not ones who can barely afford to pay. I know many full paying parents who are forced to keep their children home during summer because they can’t afford to send them to summer camp while the klal workers and rabbaim are able to send theirs.
You are correct that our “life styles” are out of hand. As a klal we are overspending. Yeshivot need to cut costs by both reducing salaries and eliminating staff or the we will revert to the way thing were 60 – 70 years ago with most children going public school + talmud torah.
As for vouchers, you may as well pray for mashiach. In New York State there are approximately 500,000 private school students. Does anyone really think it is feasible to get even a $1,000 per child voucher? That would cost $500,000,000. And would $1,000 per student even help? It surely wouldn’t provide any meaningful relief to those struggling with $40,000+ tuition bills. In fact, judging by the way other government monies have been spent, it is likely that tuition would not be reduced at all. The new government money would just be used to increase salaries and staff.
Benshaul – I think you might reconsider your thinking on Rabbi Adlerstein’s comments. What he said, and what many of us feel, is that we feel we have to limit the number of children we have in order to afford to live – house, food, etc even without the vacations and fancy dresses – specifically due to tuition which is the largest expense most of us have. In contrast, you and your colleagues working in the schools are sheltered from this uniquely oppressive expense and thus can feel fiscally more comfortable having more kids.
To put it differently, if you have 5 kids at $20k/yr tuition apiece, you can add $150K to your true pay (5 x $20k benefit, with a 33% marginal tax rate). So, if you earn $50k is salary before taxes, with your 5 kids on full tuition benefit, you really are earning $250K before taxes.
Lets go back a few years. You have 3 kids in school – a $60k benefit/$90K before taxes. With your $50K base, that equates to $140K in equivalent salary. Let’s switch you over to straight cash salary of $140k, but you pay full tuition. Do you think you would feel comfortable having another kid (or 2 or more), if you were going to be stuck at that $140K? You would need $30k increase in your base just to cover the increased tuition (even before food, clothes, etc). If you needed to make $30k+ more annually for each additional child, would you keep having them?
That is the issue raised in the early part of RYA’s piece.
As to the “middle class” paying for the poor -there may be some instances of that occuring , but like some of the comments above -when you spend 250 on shabbos dresses, thousands on pesach hotels, etc etc-please dont insult my intelligence by claiming that i am “costing” you money. our life styles in general are out of hand.
Benshaul — talk about Sinah, do you realize how stereotyped and offensive this comment is?
Let me assure you, there are many struggling middle-class baalei batim (heck, on paper our esteemed President considers some of us “rich,” what a joke) who don’t go away for Pesach and who don’t buy expensive clothes for Shabbos. Some of us even can’t buy new clothes for Yom Tov because of the burden of tuition. We drive 20 year old jalopies and forego vacations, all to pay tuition. Do some abuse the tution process to maintain luxury, sure. But most don’t, and are struggling just to make ends meet.
As someone who works very hard for the klal, the cost of my kids tuition IS being subsidized by the klal. Fair?- i think so. – would i prefer to make enough to pay my own way -ABSOLUTELY. But then you would lose the benefit of the work that my wife and i contribute in doing something that is of a service to the klal.
I don’t have a problem with your kids’ tuition being subsidized up to a point. It’s part of the compensation package, and you are probably paid less than me.
The unfairness, however, comes when middle class people are forced to limit their family size to support mechanchim. Is it “fair” that baalei batim who make nice salaries (on paper) have to struggle to support, say, 5 children, and cannot afford to have any more, while mechanchim can have 8, 9, 10 or more children, and simply assume that someone else will pick up the tab? That’s the rub that R. Adlerstein is talking about.
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To Ben Shaul: I disagree with almost everything you wrote by way of analysis and suggestions. But, the above is at least half on the mark. If it were just the Mechanchim who were getting breaks, I don’t think that would break the communal bank, except in those communities which are oversaturated with Yeshvos and Chadarim—and the associated infrastructure costs.
To DF: Yes. In theory, you would be correct that the income burden falls squarely on the husband, as per the stated contract. But that also assumes that the Gemara requiring a father ensuring that his son is employable is also binding (many uncompelling terutzim have been offered as to why the Yeshiva world has essentially redacted that key line from Maseches Kidushin). If given the reality of the economy and what jobs pay in a given locale, a couple is still planning on having a large family (which is a default assumption), Kollel has to be taken off of the table, if there is to be any unsubsidized or otherwise viable frum life, without significant income contribution from the wife. Guys would have to leave Yeshiva at age 20 or 21 in order to get a college degree and enter the workforce immediately. As it stands now, the candle is being burned on both ends and the balance sheet is quite unbalanced.
I see that I have really put the foot in the mouth here, and needlessly raised the ire of so many- as opposed to my clearly failed attempt to make a general comment that wasn’t meant to attack anyone. I will endeavor to reply more cogently, specifically, and perhaps a touch defensively.
The limitations of time don’t allow for a reasoned line by line response so I will put forth a more general mea culpa in not being specific, and in making a broad statement that was misunderstood by so many.
Some quick points-
1) I am not a mechanech and have no relationship to any school, cheder etc.
2) I agree with the premise of the issue as raised by Rabbi Adlerstein, and many of the comments offered valid ideas, critiques, and suggestions.
3) I wasn’t offering a defense –rather some comments of a perspective from a different side of the fence.
4) What I objected to is some of the ad hominem attacks on salaries, capabilities and talent of klei kodesh; and the assumption of some of the comments about the easy lifestyle of klei kodesh. There may be some earning 300k salaries, I certainly cannot argue with the facts; but it is not true for the vast number of klei kodesh that I know and interact with. The ones I know live frugally, & are making real sacrifices to stay in klei kodesh work, don’t have summer vacations, new cars and an easy lifestyle. I cannot presume as to anyone’s calculations in having lots of kids- and I am not a big enough baal hashkofo to even enter that debate. What I do know is that Jonathan Rosenblum has posted on the new reality that the talented girls are no longer looking to go into chinuch b/c it doesn’t pay enough; and ALL klei kodesh still have to pay money for high school and out of town yeshivas-and while they get a scholarship in line with their income-it’s no different than that of a layman. Furthermore –to use a city like Lakewood where “everyone” is in Kollel- no one gets a discount.
5) There is more to say and to answer some of the specific attacks on my comments but I will leave it for now –hopefully I have the time to post a line by line explanation and rebuttal of them.
Again I apologize for the lack of depth and narrowness of my comments –my intent was to highlight a few of the comments that were IMHO out of line in the assumptions or attacks on klei kodesh in general.
5) I want to point out that Marvin Schick has already posted a very reasonable and cogent article that articulates my own thinking on the matter in a far more erudite manner than I could –READ IT.
Reply to Tal Benschar (July 10, 2012 at 10:48 am)
Quick math on what a kehilla tax might look like:
Z: Do you mean this INSTEAD of paying tuition, or IN ADDITION. If you mean instead, then that is lower than many of us pay in tuition. If you mean in addition, then forget it, there is no way we could afford that in addition to the burden of tuition…]
Yes, I mean instead. I was mostly curious to see what the numbers would actually look like since I have seen a Kehilla tax proposed many times, but have never actually seen a number attached to it.
Note that numbers I use/generate have to be the average across all participating/paying members so any non-contributing members would bring the average tax amount up, and any childless (contributing) members would bring the cost down. If 20% do not contribute, and have 2x as many kids as everyone else, that raises everyone else’s burden by 40%
Also the cost does not need to be flat, but could be a % on earnings (over a certain amount) but that would have to end up being the mean for that set of child count/per-student cost assumptions.
On the assumption that you mean instead, here are some questions:
1. What is the enforcement mechanism? Suppose someone does not want to pay? Clearly, if someone has children in the school, then it will be worth it to pay the kehillah tax instead of tuition. Others may balk. Does this mean they don’t get aliyos in shul? COunted in a minyan?
2….
Again my interest was purely in seeing what the number would be (for just a tuition replacement). I don’t think a tax would actually be implementable for the many reasons you touch upon, although it might be more likely to get favorable tax treatment.
It is breathtaking – and more than a little terrifying – to read the variety of strident declarations put forward regarding how everyone else ought to be living their lives for the sake of the klal. I don’t know if this is simply a variant of the adage “The one thing two Jews can agree on is how much a third Jew ought to give to Tzedakah” or a dark aberration of the concept “Kol Yisroel Areivim”. Whatever the motivation for the demand for massive societal change in the name of equity, one should be very cautious in promoting ideas that could carry with them the potential for unanticipated destructive consequences. Whether it’s the requirement that all families become dual income families, the promotion of aliyah for the sake of chinuch, or mandatory economic family planning, the long-term impact upon our future direction as a nation is impossible to predict and certainly not necessarily positive. In the past, issues effecting the Jewish People as a whole would be taken on by Gedolai Yisroel and we would follow their lead. None of the comments here offer any direct attribution to anyone of stature as to his views on the subject. Has no one ever asked? Would we listen?
There is also something rather disturbing in the collectivist formulation of the problem and the possible solutions as one that presumes resources – present and future – to be finite thereby pitting one group against another for a fair share of the limited pie. Since there is only so much to go around, says this presumption, everyone has a vested interest in seeing to it that others don’t get too much. Granted the largesse given to us by HKBH should never be squandered. Nevertheless, one can frame this dilemma as a matter of wealth creation rather than limitation and seek creative solutions (and siyata d’shamaya) to expand the resources we need. Eretz Zvi?
I also see this conversation as part of a much larger concern regarding our national character and future. Where in fact does HKBH fit into the equation? Are all of these circumstances man-made? Our financial positions, bad and good, the result of solely our productivity and hard work? A family’s size is just a matter of choice? What does Hashem expect of us and do we want to know? I think it is safe to say personal responsibilty is a Torah value. But so is the support of Torah learning and institutions. It strikes me that we have competing values at play here for each and every one of us individually, not just as a group, and the choices we make ought to be informed by those we turn to for guidance in other areas of living.
One final question: To those who opted to limit family size due to financial considerations – would you wish to trade places with the klei kodesh with nine kids and live his whole life?
“(I recently spoke to a 10-year rebbi with 6 children who, after years of struggling with the financial stress of making $60,000 a year – albeit paying virtually no tuition – was considering going to law school. He was advised that should he go and do well, he could expect a starting salary of $160,000.”
What percent of law school grads receive a starting salary of $160,000? It is even a lower percentage of those who start the practice of law around 40 “10-year rebbi” add law school years etc.
“If a shul hires a new rov, why should his four children be entitled to any tuition assistance”
Agreed-I know of Rabbis who paid full tuition for their children’s tuition.
“He fully recognizes that free or reduced tuition is not a perk, but a cost-efficient way for the school to compensate for the inadequate salary offered to faculty”
Why the assumption that there is an inadequate salary-I knew a musmach who also had a professional degree who as an adviser to students told them they were likely to earn more in chinuch than in that profession. The top 2% will earn much more but the median won’t.
“This is not to say that having children must or should be a financial decision. For most frum Jews, having additional children is a question of bitachon.”
I agree –but apparently others state that one should not bring children into the world if one can’t afford tuition-“I don’t know what shaalos people are asking to poskim, but Rav Hershel Schachter clearly states in the following shiur (12:47) that it is unfair to being children into the world with the expectation that others will foot their tuition bills:
[Go to YUTorah.org, and find the R Hershel Schacter audio of July 3, 2008]”
How about if there were a 5% kashrus tax on all local kosher products, (caterers, pizza shops burger joints) with the proceeds used to reduce tuition. This would spread the burden to the entire community, and for weddings and bar mitzvahs the Kashrus tax would be tax deductible. Ultimately, if parents would cooperate, tuition could be structured to be tax deductible as well. If tuition was recommended, rather than required, the embarassing scholarship committees could be eliminated. Every family would self assess and donate tax deductible dollars, a savings of between 30-35%. The problem of course, is too many people would take advantage and give nothing. In any event, the first Yeshiva to try this would find a lot of outside support.
Wow. Finally got to read this first hand (limited access to CC). Two elephants in the room: asking for heterim – you will hear many approaches on this – and supporting children.
B”H I live in an out of town community where the gashmiyus is still under control. That’s a start but not the answer as there are many people who are not living the life of Reillystein out there (not that the Reillysteins aren’t entitled to some perks, which is also a perk of living oot, most people aren’t comparing and the Reillysteins still live below their means, at least outwardly). MEGO big time when the rhetoric starts – do we really want Moshiach and leave our homes – both or more of them – cars, yada yada yada.
Regarding David Willig’s comment: We rarely go out to eat because it is just too expensive and I’ve even self-catered some small smachot, so I’m not the best example of normative. But before instituting a tax on top of a sales tax on top of a gratuity, I think we need to understand the patterns of the consumer and how increasing prices will affect businesses.
Klei Kodesh don’t have more children because they can afford it. They have more children because they rightly or wrongly have “bitachon” that they can afford them. Sadly, most of the time they can’t, and that is why the vast majority rely on government assistance and even after that can’t pay for simchas or chasunahs or cars, houses and clothing. Many rely on second hand clothing and hand me downs. If middle class earners chose to have such “bitachon” they could also have more children.
Hocker: I totally fail to see your point. Taking away a Rebbe’s tuition reduction package is tantamount to lowering his salary. Are you in favor of lowering the already depressed wages of Rabbeim? If a school gives a Rebbe a benefits package that is the school’s discretion. Perhaps a Rebbe’s Health Insurance benefit should be limited to himself and his spouse to make it more “manageable” for the school and the “middle class” wage earners.
Rabbi Adlerstein,
A kehilla system would encourage people to earn less so that they wouldn’t have to pay tuition. Only one spouse would work and they would earn just enough to pay their mortgage, food, and basic expenses.
In short, a kehilla system would encourage people to work less and have the rest of the kehilla pay for their tuition.
[YA - I don't see why. In a kehilla system, the kehilla can levy a tax on all members for essential services, including education. Everyone would pay in, including people who have no children in the schools. That was the takanah of R Yehoshua b Gamla, said to be the world's oldest system of compulsory, community education for children. Kehilos existed for hundreds of years. To be sure, there were lots of disputes about tax rates, accounting procedures, hidden income, etc. There are hundreds of teshuvos about this taxation. I am not aware of any complaints that the system disincentivized people from working harder to make more income.]
If we were blessed with a revival of the kehilla system, we would still have to be concerned about its fair governance. That is not a trivial issue! The last thing we need is an oligarchy of well-connected machers, whose empowerment was independent of their personal middos.
One example of cost shifting is where women who are either untrained or trained to do something else offer themselves as teachers at the schools. The rationale is that given that after the part-time hours of their availability and childcare costs, there are few other employment situations that would make it worthwhile. The obvious perk is tuition breaks, despite a low salary. The downside is little external wealth being stimulated by this community economy. (This also includes the fact that in contrast with jobs in the outside world A “cost” to the school is the sacrificed quality of the teaching, and that is passed onto parents in the form of a less-than-stellar educational experience.
For the record, I’m all in favor of some sort of break for qualified teachers as a way of subsidizing a low salary. But, that presumes that hiring is based on merit and qualifications, rather than nepotism, cronyism, or the above scenario. (This would require not only opening up the financial books, but an audit of how exactly staffing decisions are made.) It would also be limited to teachers of that particular school. One of the consequences of the Kollel generation and proliferation of schools, shuls, and Kollelim is that an inordinate number of Klei Kodesh are in the system, each requiring breaks in different schools within a given community and out of town. Add that to those who are unemployed or below market by choice as well as other ideological life decisions related to college and training, and we have an economic mess. And this mess is further exacerbated by the economy.
Parents who receive tuition breaks (whether Klei Kodesh or not) need to recognize that their family’s lives are being subsidized by others including the Middle Class who pay full tuition. But, they should also realize that while it is within their right to sacrifice of their own gashmiyus, all things being equal and healthy, they don’t have the right to sacrifice the gashmiyus of their children, whether born and yet to be born. We are talking about affording the within-reason basics, not things which are objectively over-the-top. There are numerous instances of kids who grow up and smell the coffee. Then, they don’t take too kindly to the idealism forced upon them and opt for a different lifestyle, with values that are inconsistent of those of their parents and their parents’ mentors.
For those considering Aliyah you need to go into it with your eyes open, it is wonderful but not perfect.
The good news is that heath care care & schools are much more affordable here, the government pays for a lot of it. The bad news is that housing is expensive! I live in Ariel 40km outside of Tel Aviv and a 4 bedroom house here sells for about 1.4million shekels. (We rent)
The other bit of good news at least for those of us in High Tech there are jobs. Right now Tel Aviv is a High tech boom town and if you have the skills you can find a job. I am a freelancer and right now I am actually turning down work because I have too much of it. Of course I am also at the very high end of web development and have published 2 books on the subject, so I am not average.
I will also say that I made aliyah from Boston 9 years ago and it was the best choice I have ever made. I met my wife about 3 weeks after I got here.
I haven’t read all 145 comments, but so far I’ve heard no one mention home-schooling. Put the social depravity aside for now, I assume home-schooling your kids with talented yungermen (who probably would love the extra cash) and education students (and yourself- if you’re able to) to teach the secular studies would be optimal. Your kid gets personalized attention and you get to keep some cash in your wallet. As for the loss of friends by your kids… I don’t know.
Sara,
Do the math. Assume 180 days of schooling per year. Now figure out your cost per day of personalized tutoring. Then multiply.
Do you think sixty dollars a day – ten dollars an hour for six hours; fifteen dollars an hour for four hours – is enough? What sort of quality educator (loving the “extra” cash or not) is that going to draw? And you’re still north of ten grand a year.
The bottom line is that tuition is as high as it is, not because of tuition breaks for klei kodesh and scholarship families, but because that’s the cost of educating a child.
This article is the absolute truth. I pay full tuition for my four kids. This article describes me and the things I resent.
If there were a school that required a minimum contribution (maybe $4000) per kid, I would send my kids there. I would still be paying full tuition, but it could be a smaller amount because the school would not be spending as much money to subsidize other kids. I realize that some parents would not be able to afford to send their kids there. I’m OK with that.
No, as the author points out, you have no way of taxing the rich (except by convincing them that your institutions are worthy of support– in this, you have generally failed).
To summarize the solutions offered:
1) We should all just suck it up, spend as much as it takes, and live on beans and noodles.
2) Communities should all pay for all education through blanket assessments.
The first is unattractive to most people who aren’t maniacal about their frumkheit; the second is impossible for reasons suggested in the article.
I’d like to offer a third: abolish day school. We’ve created a religion that is utterly dependent on indoctrination. We show no interest in being a light to the world, nor do we show any willingness to consider whether our standard way of doing things is misguided. All we ask is how to solve the tuition crisis. Well, we can’t solve it. We’ve alienated the people who are best able to pay, and we are raising people with values that lead to a lifestyle that makes it impossible for them to pay– and the prices keep going up. The system is now collapsing under its own weight. The problem is not how to fix it– it’s what should we use to replace it.
[YA - "We've created a religion that is utterly dependent on indoctrination."
Some would call it indoctrination; others would call it chinuch. The latter happens to be a halachic chiyuv, one that is not fulfilled by sending kids to a charter school and providing a bit of cultural Judaism in the afternoon. For guidance as to what the responsibility of parents is in teaching Torah to their children, study the relevant section in Shulchan Aruch BE"H]