Brigham Young University is a private University in Utah that is owned by the Church of Latter Day Saints. Tuition per semester, according to the schools website, is $2,280 for LDS members and $4,560 for non-members.
At Catholic elementary schools, the average per pupil tuition is $3,383 which is approximately 62.2 % of actual costs per pupil of $5,436. That according to National Catholic Educational Association (http://www.ncea.org/news/annualdatareport.asp#tuition)
To be sure, costs for staff & many other expenses are lower in other parts of the country than they are in BC. But an enormous part of the school costs, and the resulting lower tuition, come from funding from a centralized Church body. The burden of paying for education does not fall entirely on those with school-age children. People donate enormous sums of their wealth (10% by many in LDS) to the central church which in turn funds religious schools, among other things. People in these communities also often leave significant portions of their wealth in their estates to the churches.
In Judaism, there is no central authority. At least there hasn’t been a universally recognized one for the past 2,000 years. But that is no reason why there can’t be significant voluntary donations that would help defray tuition costs. While the mandatory contributions, in the form of tuition, have to come from after-tax dollars, the voluntary contributions are tax-deductible and could be paid for with much greater ease.
Unfortunately, a culture of pettiness and selfishness engulfs our community. When schools instituted a Scholarship Fund to be paid by parents along with tuition word got out that the schools couldn’t legally require payment of it. Many people said they couldn’t afford to pay it. But sure enough, once it became mandatory, nearly everyone paid it. So we cheated ourselves out of $2500 tax deductions. Congratulations.
If only we had the sense of community that the Mormons and Catholics had we would less of a tuition crisis. People whose kids have grown up and have the most means and least expenses would be subsidizing the younger parents who are mostly at the beginnings of their careers and can least afford to pay.
NNJKIDS was formed to help address this problem. So far they are collecting enough to cover about 2% of school costs. We could be doing much better and we should be doing much better.
Yes, schools need to be doing a better job of cutting costs. But WE need to do a better job of raising revenue. There’s blame to go around for the crisis we are in.
Logging you in...
israelteaneck 23p · 691 weeks ago
We are missing out on some fiscal savings due to each shul, day school, high school, mikvah being ran as its own organization. Yes, we can add 2 kids to a classroom, we can drop 2 or 3 admins at each school and have the remaining admins and their staff handle those assignments, perhaps have children that require psychological services get them off school property, etc...but that is only part of the equation. In our community... there are:
1. Endless shuls
2. BPY, Noam, Yavnah, Moriah, YNJ
3. Now He'Atid
4. TABC / Mayanot
5. Teaneck Mikvah
At one point can we all unite and just stop wasting money?
99%Yid · 691 weeks ago
I would love to see a unified school, where everyone is appreciated & accepted. But as you can tell by this and other blogs alone, that we haven't grown up. The smug attitudes of many, the repeated assault on those who are looking for different options, and those bold enough to challenge conventional wisdom or communal detachment from economic realities.
Do we need a centralized answer, yes. (funding and administrative)
Do we need so many shuls, no.
Do we need a Public School option, yes.
Do we need a secondary education for BOTH adults and children, YES.
Unfortunately, there are too many who are unwilling to go against the CW of the last 2 decades. It isn't a joke anymore, and it will become more difficult moving forward. The reality is, our options are running out. And unless you want to see a two-tier system, those who have means send to Yeshiva, and those without send to public school, the system must seriously change.
But ignoring the problem is so much easier than actually doing anything about it.
Miami Al · 691 weeks ago
When talking about a unified school in Bergen County, people can't have their children at a school with "jackets" in 7th grade and mothers that wear t-shirts.
Mormons and Catholics have more/less religious members in the same church. We're split into tiny stupid fiefdoms, mostly based upon clothing.
Also, the Churches you mention happily utilize lots of lay leadership. They have professional clergy, and non-ordained deacons (I forget the Mormon titles) and other officials that help run the organizations. We church out Rabbis and want to pay them a fortune.
If you merged Elementary School (K-4) and Shuls, which could be neighborhood based, you could then run Middle/High School (5-12) in a larger, central organization.
The average public middle and high school in South Florida are 2000-4000 students, with minimal administration. The bigger, established private schools are in the 2000-2500 range, with PreK-12 there. The only Day School that made South Florida Business Journal's "Top 25 by enrollment" was one community day school.
Too many Rabbis, too many organizations that exist mostly to employ Rabbis. Christian's refer to the Ministry/Priesthood/etc as a "calling" and it makes minimal incomes. But since every MO Rabbi needs to live in the wealthy Teaneck area and send their children to Jewish Prep Schools, and therefore needs to make 100k+, we're screwed.
Seriously, how many "communal" Rabbis do you actually need in Teaneck. If you were trying to function like the centralized Churches, do you need a Rabbi, or a small apartment in each Shul and the Rabbi can rotate through them.
rickroll · 691 weeks ago
Yes, our community could save a very small amount of money by centralizing purchasing and accounting. But NO, there is no excess capacity at most of our institutions that can drive consolidation. RYNJ and Noam are filled to capacity. Every shul in the West Englewood neighborhood is full to overflowing on shabbat, with many spillover minyanim in houses. In my opinion, the cetralized Teaneck, mikvah is a negative, resulting in many women pushing off mikvah night rather than walk 2 or 3 miles on a Friday night in the dark. Miami Al lives in bumblefart so as usual, no clue what life is really like in a vibrant community with so many thousands of Orthodox Jews in a small area.
Miami Al · 691 weeks ago
For comparison, in 2007, the Catholic Chuch claimed 1.147 BILLION members and 408,024 Priests. That means 2811 Catholics / Priest. If you had the same ratio in Teaneck, you'd have 3-5 Rabbis. Instead you have around 9 "Communal Rabbis" plus a few dozen in the schools. That's a LOT of professional clergy members to support. Between the schools and the Shuls, you have to have 50 Rabbis, yes/no?
That's about 10 times the number that the Catholic Church would supply for the equivalent number of parishioner.
There is nothing magical about the Catholic Church. Catholics tithe to their church, or donate in lesser amounts. Some is kept in the Parrish, some is redistributed by the diocese, and some no doubt flows up to the Vatican where it is deployed strategically.
Catholic School tuition is NOT deductible, nor is secular private school tuition. Tuition is not deductible, donations are.
Send a donation to your Shul, you'll get a tax letter. Send a donation to your School, you'll get a tax letter. Pay your tuition, you won't get a tax letter.
Same for Catholics. They donate to their Parrish, tax letter, they pay school tuition, no tax letter.
The only magical thing about the Catholic Church is that is is a centralized organization that flows money around to fulfill their strategic needs. The LDS Church does the same thing but on a smaller scale. The lack of centralization in American Judaism prevents this economic model.
Also, a daily Mass attending Catholic (the Orthodox-equivalent ones) and the twice/year Church goer attend the same Churches and tithe/donate to the same Parrish/Diocese. A twice/year Jew goes to a different religious institution as the daily/weekly Orthodox Shul attendee.
Those are the main differences, not some magical tax status received by the Catholic Church. The only "special treatment" is the availability of parsonage, which Orthodox Jewish institutions use/abuse, despite the law referring to a "minister of the gospel," which Jewish and Catholic institutions don't minister.
Yeshiva_Dad 69p · 691 weeks ago
Miami Al · 691 weeks ago
The percentage of "Orthodox Jews" that attends services weekly is much higher than it was 20 years ago, because the Orthodox institutions pushed away the Traditional/Conservadox members that would have helped maintain that ratio.
Regarding 2811 in Church, all the Catholic Church's near me advertise two Sunday morning service times, one Sunday afternoon time, a Saturday evening time, and a Spanish language service -- by advertise I mean those are the times on their sign by the side of the road. I have no clue what the attendance rate is.
If they average 150 parishioners/service, that'd be 750/priest.
My point in this math is that the BIGGEST difference between the Catholic and Mormon Churches in America and the Jewish Temples/Shuls is that there is predominately ONE organization for them (there is a break off Catholic group (maybe more), and at least two non-LDS Mormon Church that I know of, but they are small, and Cafeteria Catholics will support a Roman Catholic Parrish, the breakoffs are extremists). That is part of the low Priest/Catholic ratio.
If you look at the Priest/weekly Mass Attending Catholic, the ratio is definitely different. RASG has LOTS of non-Observant families that attend there (and pay tuition), how many of your Yeshivot can say the same?
Miami Al · 691 weeks ago
This post has a good summary:
http://ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v26/mj_v26i62.html#...
I guess that behavior isn't "frum enough" for Teaneck, since it was the custom of Yekkes and Sephardim, and not the Lithuanian Litvaks...
But building 5 extra buildings would be totally in line with the solutions for everyone else.
Yeshiva_Dad 69p · 691 weeks ago
You completely missed every one of my points. I know about the tithing - I mentioned it in my post! My point is that we should emulate that system. Tithing is not legally required so it is a donation that is tax-deductible, even though it funds a school, and helps lower tuition. If WE would donate voluntarily, such as with the "suggested" scholarship donations the schools used to have, or with NNJKIDS, we could reduce the required tuition costs and move some of the costs to tax-deductible methods.
I don't know what special tax status you are talking about but Jewish institutions are also tax deductible if the donations are made voluntarily, as oppose to it being a requirement so send your child there. The required tuitions at Catholic schools are lower because of the voluntary contribution people make to the churches.
I didn't suggest centralized purchasing and accounting. That's a separate issue. If you are referring to IsraelTeaneck's post I think he is suggesting using schools as shuls to reduce Real Estate expenses.
Also, there is room at each of the day schools. Especially in some of the grades at BPY. And of course He'atid would like to open additional sections. Even at Noam the waiting list is gone for most grades. And Yavneh has no waiting list. So consolidation is something to consider even though that was not the suggestion in my post.
I don't need you to cut me any slack I just need you to read my posts more carefully.
There is room
anon613 · 691 weeks ago
You say there is no excess capacity in some of our local schools. Even if this is true, why does each school need to be defined by the space it occupies? Is it not possible to have a single administration over two buildings? It really is annoying that people defend multiple schools by building size limitations.
It seems everyone wants to focus on He'Atid, but the real gains will come when the established schools look to merge. In an ideal situation, we should have two schools merge (i.e. Noam and Yavneh) and then allow He'Atid to act as a test-bed to study the capabilities of their model, to be rolled out to the combined school in the future.
Orthowatch · 691 weeks ago
israelteaneck 23p · 691 weeks ago
What I am getting at is that the RC church, and to a lesser extent JEC and KJ in Monroe, have one cetnralized "brain" - HQ. True, bruriah is over a mile from the main JEC school and the kollel is in the North Avenue shul, but the admin offices for the shuls, school, mikvah, kollel, etc. is all in one centralized office. The main JEC building is used daily for a K-12 program, minyanim, shabbos for groups and kiddish, as the main shul is attached and Sunday for various shul / school activities [fairs, sports, etc.]. This is not just "centralizing" ordering of supplies, but overall overhead is reduced. Having Rabbi Tietz SR. oversee everything, from DEAN to head mashgiach to rav of all shuls is from a fiscal standpoint point on. One fellow can have 2-3 assistants running all his tasks versus 5-6 admins each having 2-3 assistants. The financial aid committee, the business office, etc. are all K-12 programs - not indiviualized to each school.
israelteaneck 23p · 691 weeks ago
I am not saying JEC is perfect, RC church is perfect, etc...I am just saying that we have a BPY building that is over 1/3 empty, we have multiple buildings in BC used for K-8 or 9-12 that sit empty, by and large, Sat - Sunday, etc...couldn't we put our heads together and reduce costs by maxing the use of Real Estate and our personnel overhead?
Can't Noam / Yavnah / Frisch merge, have ONE centralized business office, etc...use one building for K-4, one for 5-8 and other for 9-12...but eliminate 10-12 positions due to uniform system?
guest · 691 weeks ago
remom · 689 weeks ago
That his children attend public school is irrelevant - for all you know they might be brilliant and need serious enrichment or possibly require other services. Why the need to hit "below the belt" - he's a Jew with an interest in a Jewish community. Be grateful that someone from outside your miniature Litvak MO shteibel-like community takes an interest.
Orthowatch · 691 weeks ago
For NNJKids, there is no such incentive for the schools. They can raise their costs because it won't take more money out of their pockets. NNJKids will just try to pick up the slack as best they can. The schools need a real incentive to cut costs.
Orthowatch · 691 weeks ago
For NNJKids, there is no such incentive for the schools. They can raise their costs because it won't take more money out of their pockets. NNJKids will just try to pick up the slack as best they can. The schools need a real incentive to cut costs.
Orthowatch · 691 weeks ago
For NNJKids, there is no such incentive for the schools. They can raise their costs because it won't take more money out of their pockets. NNJKids will just try to pick up the slack as best they can. The schools need a real incentive to cut costs.
Orthowatch · 691 weeks ago
For NNJKids, there is no such incentive for the schools. They can raise their costs because it won't take more money out of their pockets. NNJKids will just try to pick up the slack as best they can. The schools need a real incentive to cut costs.
Miami Al · 691 weeks ago
But yes, the money "flows" up/down as needed, so controlling costs in one school frees up money for the Church to flow elsewhere. In NNJKids/BC Schools, the money all flows one way, and cost controls don't benefit the communal efforts, and NNJKids has no ability to control costs.
One way to "help" would to have NNJKids move from a straight "voucher" to a reverse price voucher. i.e. if School A sets tuition at $X, and School B sets tuition at $2X, then the NNJKids "voucher" to School A would be twice that of School B. If you could get NNJKids to have a substantial pile of money flow, then it would provide an incentive to lower tuition.
But NNJKids seems more focused on keeping money within a hashkafic range than incentivizing better economics.
allmobitools · 293 weeks ago
allmobitools · 293 weeks ago
allmobitools · 293 weeks ago