Private Schools Innovate to Help Parents Pay Fees

Last month, administrators at the small, private Golda Meir School in Van Nuys came up with an idea that they hope will boost enrollment and help parents who find it difficult to pay the $5,000 annual tuition.

The plan slices $1,000 off a student’s tuition if his parents can encourage another family to enroll a child in the Jewish secondary school that has about 100 students.

The Meir plan is just one example of the innovative techniques that area private and parochial schools have initiated to help middle-income parents afford private education, with tuition costing as much as $11,800 a year.

“There is a new demand for private education, and it is coming from middle-class families who, 20 years ago, would not have considered this kind of education alternative,” said Sue Badger, director of the California Assn. of Independent Schools.

“But, as the cost of private education increases every year, sometimes these families cannot keep up. A school can’t ask a family to sell a car or take a second mortgage out on their home so they can pay tuition. And it would be foolhardy to ask a child to leave because the family’s financial situation has changed.”

To meet the middle-class demand for private education, many private schools have initiated creative financing techniques to help families afford alternatives to public education.

Various Payment Plans

There are low-interest loan programs and deferred payment plans by which parents of high school students do not have to pay the school until their children graduate from college.

Tuition reduction plans that allow students or parents to pay part of the tuition by working for the school have become popular.

Some church congregations set aside part of their tithes to subsidize church schools. Additionally, congregation members who send their children to church schools often receive discounts on tuition.

And, as financial aid requests from single parents have increased, many schools have had to establish a “divorce policy” to make sure that both natural parents and their new spouses understand who must accept financial responsibility for a private school student’s tuition.

Workshops in Washington

Finding a way to finance private education has become such a tangled and weighty problem for private schools that, at the recent annual meeting in Washington of the National Assn. for Independent Schools, 12 workshops on financial aid topics were held. The association represents about 900 of the nation’s private elementary and secondary schools.

“Financial aid, and how independent schools are going to meet the needs of the middle-income student, is the most compelling issue we, as the leaders of independent schools, are going to face over the long haul,” said Agnes Underwood, headmistress of the Garrison Forest School in Baltimore.

Added Msgr. John Mihan, superintendent of elementary schools for the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles: “At the moment, the greatest struggle within Catholic schools is to make sure that parents of moderate incomes are able to send their children to Catholic schools.”

During the 1983-84 school year, 104,912 students living within the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified School District attended private schools. There were 50,901 students enrolled in 148 parochial schools. Another 54,011 students were enrolled in 469 private schools.

Enrollment Up 11.7%

According to the state Board of Education, private school enrollment in Los Angeles County has increased steadily to 11.7% of the school-age population in the 1983-84 school year.

Most private school officials say they believe that parents should be willing to foot as much of the bill as possible.

However, these same officials quickly add that they understand that all families go through economic good times and bad times, and, if a family is struggling economically, many private schools prefer to work with the parents on a one-on-one basis to work out some kind of grant or loan program.

“Some schools make individual deals with parents and try to keep the fact that deals can be made on tuition costs quiet so other parents won’t ask,” Underwood said.

Still, a growing number of private schools have established detailed financial aid programs so that they can diversify the racial and socioeconomic background of the student body. The programs at the same time provide middle-income students with help they might need to meet rising tuition costs.

Several Levels of Aid

At Harvard School--the prestigious, all-male Studio City prep school where tuition is $5,200 a year--there are several levels of financial aid, all based on a family’s need and, in some cases, the family’s future ability to pay for private education.

Harvard has always had outright grants, which pay all or part of a student’s tuition and do not have to be repaid. These grants or scholarships are given only to students whose family incomes fall below a certain level. Some of the scholarship students are recruited by Harvard and other private schools in an attempt to create a better mixture of students on the campus.

The next level of financial aid at Harvard is a combination grant-loan program. Called a “tuition loan,” it is a long-term, low-interest loan that is extended in tandem with a straight grant. The loan must be repaid soon after the student has completed his Harvard School education.

Four years ago, Harvard School started a special program that it calls “parent loans,” funded by a $77,000 grant from the Independence Foundation. The foundation is a Philadelphia-based philanthropic organization that gives money to independent secondary schools to establish loan programs.

“We make decisions on what kind of financial aid package we can offer a family on a case-by-case basis,” said Elliot McGrew, director of admissions at Harvard School. He said that 11.6% of the school’s 790 students receive some kind of financial aid, and the percentage increases by one or more points a year.

At Cate School, a boys’ boarding and day school in Carpinteria, 20% of the 240 students receive some help to pay the $11,800 tuition that boarders pay, or the $8,300 tuition for day students.

According to Noah Hotchkiss, admissions director at the school, because of the increasing number of requests for financial aid from divorced parents, the school had to establish how much financial responsibility each parent had to assume before a scholarship could be granted.

“Both natural parents, plus the custodial stepparent, must submit financial statements,” Hotchkiss said. “We hold as firmly as possible to that policy, the theory being that, if the natural family were still together and the parents did not feel that strongly about independent education for their child, they would not be looking at Cate.”

Problem With Divorced Parents

How to decide if a child of a divorced couple needs financial aid is one of the toughest problems facing private school officials. Some schools, such as Cate, have stated policies regarding the financial responsibilities of divorced parents.

Most private school officials, however, say they handle such cases on an individual basis, and some concede that some of the aid is unnecessary.

“Unless independent schools come up with a standard procedure to assess the capabilities of divorced parents to pay for their children’s education, this money will continue to go down the tube,” said Richard Griggs, a Massachusetts-based consultant who helps private schools develop financial aid programs.

Ed Anderson, director of education for the Seventh-day Adventist School District, which includes schools in Northridge and Newbury Park, said the church has established a three-tier contribution program that includes a church subsidy to help families afford tuition.

“Parents pay one-third of the tuition, the church pays another third and the students take a job so they contribute a third of the tuition cost,” said Anderson. “So many young people are interested in getting a free ride. We aren’t interested in giving them a free ride, and this program is a means of helping them get an education while they also learn the value of hard work.”

Anderson added that tuition, which at San Fernando Valley Academy in Northridge runs about $2,000 a year, does not come close to covering all expenses of the schools.

“The central church body has always believed that the education part of our program is important, so they help with the costs,” Anderson said. “In addition, we are establishing an endowment. We are asking private groups, businesses and individuals for contributions, just like the colleges.”

Defraying Part of Tuition

Meir School also has a program in which students work to defray part of their tuition. Some work in the school office; others work at the school during the summer. Many Meir students become tutors, working with younger students.

Senior Marina Modilevsky, for example, tutors eighth-grader Shawn Adelman in math. “I like teaching, especially in a one-to-one situation,” the tutor said. “It’s nice to see the results, like when Shawn got a B on a math quiz.”

Added Deana Feldman, a senior who tutors Irina Moglivski: “Tutoring is a lot better than collating.”

Msgr. Mihan said the archdiocese does not have a single tuition rate that applies to all the students enrolled at its schools. Instead, the pastor of the church and the principal of the school work together to set a tuition that reflects the needs of the school and the community’s ability to pay.

Schedule of Costs

“Ordinarily the cost for the first child going to a Catholic elementary school runs between $75 and $85 a month,” Mihan said. “If there is more than one child from the family in the school, there is a reduction in the cost for each additional child. After the third child, each additional sibling attends the school free of charge.”

Unlike many private, nondenominational schools that require tuition payments at the beginning of each semester, parochial schools are more than likely to allow parents to pay tuition in 10 monthly installments. Some church schools also allow parents to pay on a pro-rated basis if they work in the school library or cafeteria, or serve as playground aides.

Pinecrest Schools, which educates 6,000 to 7,000 students at 11 Valley campuses, prides itself on being one of the few private schools that is not nonprofit. Because of its tax-paying status, Pinecrest’s Ed Rush, controller of the 31-year-old school, points to a different philosophy on financial aid.

“We have to pay our own way, so we hope that our students can pay their own way,” Rush said, adding that tuition runs about $2,500 a year.

“This is not to say that we will not help out a family of a student who suddenly find themselves financially strapped. We will look at the family’s circumstances and see how we can help them. But, as a policy, we don’t have an established financial aid program.”

Problem to Persist

No matter how the private school copes with financial aid requests from middle-income families, most school officials say they are preparing for even more parental calls for help.

“We would be fooling ourselves to think that a robust economy would mean an end to the financial-aid problem,” said Georgia Irvin, an independent school consultant from Chevy Chase, Md.

“Tuition costs will not slow down, even if the inflation rate remains low. If independent schools are going to survive, they are going to have to learn how to creatively finance tuitions.”

The Cost of a Private Education

School Tuition Good Shepard Lutheran School Church Members $1,060 Non-members $1,310 San Fernando Valley Academy $2,000 Golda Meir School $5,000 Pinecrest Schools $2,500 Buckley School $4,125-$6,425 Harvard School $5,200 Cate School Day students $8,300 Boarding Students $11,800