1. Kol hakovod to you for not ignoring your balances and telling the school “I don’t have it, so I’m not paying”.

   May hashem repay you kefel kiflayim

   • My question is if things are so bad here and there’s no money to help people struggling with tuition and a High School in Monsey had to close down why was it so easy to raise 113 million dollars for the Israeli Rosh Yeshivas

     • It wasn’t so easy & it was about saving the Mosdos Hatorah in E.Y. on a global level. This is a tzoras Yochidim & is much harder to resolve.

2. I’m in the same boat. If there’s someone who helps pay tuition for ppl struggling I would love to know about it. We’re living very simply with basic necessities only and not managing! We don’t own a house, lease a car or go on vacations. We live day to day… Tuitions aren’t manageable when you have a bunch of kids in school….

   • For many years leading was the poor man’s way to obtain affordable reliable transportation

3. I am also in the same boat and my sons school told us unless we pay up he cannot start school. We tried our hishtadlus and called who we could but because of the financial situation in the world today we were not able to get any help. We are desperate.

4. As sad as this suggestion sounds it may be the only option. All those who legitimately cannot afford and have no place to borrow money should send their children ני”ו to school on the 1st day. Dismissing children from school due to a parents inability to pay takes an אכזרית that (hopefully) most mosdos simply won’t do.

5. Great question and i compliment you for taking responsibility upon yourself for things that apply to you and your family BUT did you do your Ruchnius HISHTADLUS versus just your gashmius hishtadlus of looking for help. Did you stop your life and make a cheshbon hanefesh on where your personally holding in your bitachon and emunah, where you are holding at your age that people the same age should be on the level of turning directly in Hashem for help and then you will lack nothing. As we say every time we bentch, from tehillim v’dorshei Hashem…… Which means “for one who seeks out Hashem DIRECTLY lacks nothing that is good.

   May Hashem help you start improving in your Ruchnius HISHTADLUS of bitachon and emunah and then you will not lack anything and also be the happiest person ever.

6. This is a big problem, but I’m just wondering, if you borrow the 5 k and then have the new years’ tuition, how will you be able to repay the loan.

   • She’s not worried about next year.

7. the true size of this quagmire is beyond a simple letter, and what is urgently needed is a solution to help the middle class,

   fact is everyone here is private, if we all went public the state system would implode, the richest among us are paying enough taxes for all of us to get quality educational services if we would all switch over to the public system, the holdback are the rich, they will never send to public school, so, their children are benefitting from the private schools because of the well behaved poor children, and the rich want the private system in place, and they already paid for the public schools in taxes,

   so, if the state doesn’t wake up soon, then the rich will move out of state which is a real possibility with airplanes, zoom, and remote login, and they will take their taxable income to a more friendly state, leaving the poor kids alone, and those poor families can then opt to switch to the public system, and with the influx of so many new poor kids, MINUS the tax dollars of the rich former state residents,

   will bring the state down to economic BUST!

   but then again, who said foresight is a politician’s requirement?

8. The same place you take a loan for anything else in your life. This expense is no different.

9. I think Kentucky or something has vouchers

10. Start a go fund. It’s a more worthy cause then all the other ones

11. If your kids are in smaller schools perhaps there’s a service you could provide in lieu of some tuition. One idea would be driving a van on Sunday’s or an early morning weekday run.

12. Same here as well, short 25k just to be able for our 4 kids to continue the coming year in yeshiva,
    May we all have eitza V’ Soshia b’karov
    Mammesh! As the password “al tivtichu b’nidivim, and as it says rock al Avinu sh’bashamayim. Kein yehi ratzon!

13. Passuk, typo from my keyboard

14. This letter and the comments make me feel terrible.
    Lakewood has become unaffordable.
    This is only going to get worse and fast.
    Someone has to do something.

15. Believe me you’re not alone. For too many families the tuition crisis is a nightmare that robs their sleep and more.
    I believe we should have a fund for tuition grants where everyone would be encouraged to give a large portion of their Maaser. Good Chinuch is the most important of all causes, as the lack of it is the root of many other issues that cost the Klal exorbitant amounts.
    Also, in order to avoid future tuition hikes which would essentially cancel those grants, the schools accepting them would agree to be transparent with their financials to the board of that organization. Hopefully, the streamlining of many schools participating in the program would make their financial management even more effective.

    • And the people taking them would agree to be transparent as well, like spending on vacations, sleep away camp etc.
      Isn’t it interesting that everything else has to be paid for up front, while schools are at the back burner.

      • Agreed. Transparency should go both ways. There’s nothing wrong with an organization saying I’ll help you (school, parents) financially, but I need to audit your financials.
        In our case we don’t take any vacations, no big spendings on clothes or anything else. Tuition is on average $8k per kid + $2k for the summer or $70k for seven kids KN”H!! How much income is required to pay that amount net after taxes?? $300k? $400k? $500k?
        We both must work all summer, and the big ones who are extremely diligent all year round BH need a breather for a few weeks. However, if that organization says they don’t deserve to go to sleep away camp, I would keep them at home – As long as the school principals are denied to go on vacations too…

        • In your calculations, you left out that since camp ends early and there’s a gap between camp and school, we also need to pay for camp after camp. Nevermind the camps also after Sukkos and Pesach till the playgroups start again. It’s the only way we can even work. during these times. I don’t know why working people get the short end of the stick. How do they expect parents to pay for school if we constantly have to take off to watch our kids?

16. Just heard on 104.7 a speaker talking about the Chiyuv to give Tzedakah to relatives first. Rav Aryeh Levine wouldn’t take money from a person of means for his Yeshiva, because he knew that he had relatives that needed the money, and they come first.
    Rav Moshe in Chelek A 147, writes that the majority of your Tzedaka dollars should go to relatives first, in the order cited in S”A 251: Parents, married children, siblings etc. The Chazon Ish says that it’s enough to give them 50% unless they’re in a major financial distress. Check out Kovetz Psakim for more details.
    From all this we see that it’s a Chiyuv Deoraysa to give to your relatives first, and it’s therefore incumbent on all of us to call the schools where our relatives send their kids and to inquire if they have any balances that we could cover.
    Ashreichem V’Ashrei Chelkeichem.

17. I can’t help but remind everyone just how much gets donated to all kinds of good worthy causes in Lakewood, how much was donated to the Yeshivos in E”Y, and that the real estate owned by the schools in Lakewood is over a BILLION dollars, but somehow, we all seem to find ourselves in the unfortunate position of the writer of this letter. We spend more on tuition than on ANY other of our basic needs. Doesn’t anyone realize that for the vast majority of recipients of other donations, that if the tuition was covered, almost nobody would need the other funds??? Why is it so hard to put the priority on Torah education FIRST, before anything else?

18. Does the tuition crisis exist in Chasidish mosdos as well? If not, how do they manage? Can their model be emulated?

    • Because all their children go to one mossad and they’re all non profit.
      They have elementary, high school mesivta etc. Someone can give money to the mossad and it goes where it’s needed. Not like most people in lkwd or anywhere else where u can have 5 boys in 5 different yeshivos.

      • You didn’t answer the question. Where does the money disappear in our Mosdos then?

        • As I understand it – Over a BILLION dollars of real estate assets in Lakewood schools. Developers finance the deals, then the yeshivos pay off the loans the developers took to build. Then the developers own the real estate, and can leverage it on their own future projects. There are schools where this is not the case, but as far as I understand it, they are the exception and not the rule, and are a handful of the original mosdos.

      • The consumer should demand that all the mosdos ban together under one large not for profit with various autonomous divisions.

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