OP-ED: The Baltimore Community's Tuition Crisis

By BJLife/Rabbi Dovid Fink
Posted on 07/18/22

Baltimore, MD - July 14, 2022 - The tuition crisis really needs no serious foundation to establish its existence.  Everyone involved with day school education - leadership, professionals, parents and philanthropic organizations, are all keenly aware of the serious shortfalls facing our schools and of the ever-increasing amount of parents who require scholarships or are being crushed under the burden.  While there are multiple reasons as to how this crisis came about, the main focus of this paper will be on a way out, not how we got in.  Some simple factual pieces of background will be provided to the extent they assist with addressing the solution.

The day school movement, in its present form really was established in the aftermath of WWII.  At that time, the labor costs for Judaic studies teachers was inexpensive.  Most of the teachers were elderly Holocaust survivors with no young children or families to support.  Many others worked for very little, seeing teaching as their contribution to rebuilding Judaism after the war.  I, myself had throughout elementary and middle school, mostly teachers who were elderly European Jewish men.  That dynamic significantly changed at the end of the 1970’s and the beginning of the 1980’s, with the retirement of that large cheap labor source.  Suddenly, schools had to go out and hire educators.  Fortunately, an ample supply was available from our burgeoning Yeshiva’s, but this new generation of educators were young and had salary needs commensurate with growing families.  The labor costs of the day schools increased dramatically.

Additionally, our schools never addressed the issue of “perks”.  In the 70’s, schools became accustomed to giving teachers complimentary tuition as part of their salary.  When schools were not paying a real working wage, this allowed them to lure quality educators without expending extra salary.  Fast forward 30 years and we now have scores of teachers, many of whom have 6 children or more, all attending school at little or no cost.  That’s a “perk” with a value of $80,000 or more, per teacher.  That’s madness.  The madness is even more compounded by the fact that we now typically have hundreds of applicants when one of our teaching positions opens.  We no longer need perks to lure quality people.[1]   Similarly, it makes no sense to give a blanket lavish perk to all teachers with no means test.  Why should someone who earns a modest government salary of $40,000 working full time, have to appeal to a tuition committee and/or pay a “minimum” tuition when a teacher in our school earning $50,000 whose spouse is earning $60,000 is entitled to free tuition?  Simply put, teachers should qualify for tuition reductions if they are in need, just like everyone else.  I can think of no reason why anyone should be exempt from paying a “minimum” tuition.

For the first decade of these rising costs, the difference was largely made up by significant tuition increases and an emphasis on greater fundraising.  The 80’s were a decade of plenty and while schools had their challenges, the wealth amassed in those years allowed schools to largely ignore the ever growing gap between their costs and what their parent bodies could absorb.  As time went on, schools became accustomed to addressing their short falls by raising tuition, at a significantly higher rate than incomes were growing.  When economic slowdowns and recessions came, disaster was inevitable. Philanthropic donations decreased and more families were struggling to pay tuition.

Solutions

1. Community Responsibility

The first step in resolving the tuition crisis is to recognize that educating our youth is a community responsibility as well as a parental one.  Communities benefit from educated Torah Jews and should share in the cost of their education.  Instead, we have continued to rely on a system that mainly targets young families with the greatest portion of the tuition burden.  This has left large parts of the Jewish population making an annual contribution of $18 towards day school education.

In Europe, even today, day schools are largely financed by a “tax” on the community.  The tax may be on local Shechita, additional shul dues etc., but the principal remains the same; communities as a whole shoulder a large share of the total day school costs.  While every community has its own unique landscape, this essay will address solutions that make sense here in Baltimore, though they are largely adaptable to any reasonably sized community like Cleveland, Chicago, New York or Los Angeles.

In Baltimore, we have one of the most widely accepted Kashrus certification organizations, the Star-K.  While there are numerous details to be worked out, some legal others practical, it would be eminently sensible to enact a city wide tax on all purchases made at establishments carrying Star-K certification.  This would include butchers, restaurants, caterers, groceries etc. A minimal tax of 2-3% would be felt only slightly by the consumer but would greatly enlarge the base of people contributing to the system.  Affluent people whose children are grown, families of means with only one child and non denominational Jews who are careful to keep Kosher and many others.  Additionally, while many of those at the lower end of the tuition paying spectrum can ill afford a $12,000 per child tuition bill, many of them could pay a few extra dollars a week instead of just pleading their case annually to the local tuition committee.

If the OU, Chof K and CRC would team with the StarK in this initiative, we could implement this system with nearly 90% of kosher consumers.

2. Insuring That Charity Dollars Stay In Town

The next step is to put some real teeth into the universally adopted halacha of keeping the majority of personal Tzedaka giving local.  Each year the Vaad Harobonim of Baltimore sends out a letter to the community advising of this Halacha and of the need for ½ of their Tzedaka to be devoted to local causes.  They further advise that ½ of the local allotment should go to local day schools. Regrettably, this advisory letter is not followed by many people and millions of dollars continue to flow out of Baltimore to various out of town causes.

The Agudas Israel Shul in Baltimore provides an invaluable service in prescreening Meshulachim and Aniyim that come to collect in the community.  Anyone who wants to collect money in the City stops at the Agudah and is issued a laminated certificate which ensures that at least an abbreviated check of their credentials and situation has been done.  Local people then can make a check to the Agudas Yisroel Charity Fund which the Meshulachim can convert back to cash before departing the city.

Since our Rabbonim are in fact instructing people to apportion their Tzedaka according to this long recognized Halachic formula, why not just make it automatic?  Anyone who is issued a collection certificate from the Aguda would have to agree to sign over 20% of their collections to the community day school fund as a condition for receiving the certificate.  The 20% would simply be deducted from their total checks when they come to the Agudah to cash them in.  This simple procedure would generate a millions of dollars more annually for the local schools based on recent figures of the monies being assigned through the Agudah Charity Fund, all in compliance with long standing endorsed halachic principles.

3. Community Planning

There is no hope of getting a serious handle on spiraling tuition costs with out addressing the school and shul construction situations.   Each of our local schools has a mandatory building fund assessment on top of tuition to help fund future capital needs.  Those needs are real.  We have B’H growing communities and over the last number of years each of our schools has invested millions of dollars in the acquisition and construction of new land and buildings.

The same is true of our Shul’s.  No less than a dozen Shul’s in Baltimore have engaged in construction of ½ million dollars or more in the last 10 years. Several in the multimillion dollar range.  In some cases the new construction has been for new facilities and in others for enlarged facilities or catering venues.  The one point that is inescapable is that our Shul’s sit mostly empty during the precise times that our schools are open.  Most Shul’s by 8:30 A.M. have concluded their learning sedarim and minyanim and remain relatively dormant until the time for evening Mincha comes around.  Our schools are similarly empty during Shacharis and Maariv times and completely on Shabbos.  WE MUST START BUILDING MULTI USE FACILITIES.

On a recent trip to Eretz Yisroel, I davened at a Minyan on Shabbos which required us to fold the tables and chairs after Maariv because on Motzei Shabbos a women’s aerobic class was held there and on Sunday thru Friday a preschool used those rooms.  I am not suggesting that the main sanctuaries be converted for Aerobics during the weekday mornings, but some common usage is in order.  Classrooms can be used for a Beis Hamedrash, and both Shuls and schools need kitchen and eating facilities.  There is a great deal of space which could be either shared or designed for dual usage with a little bit of community wide planning.

Imagine if a local philanthropic organization offered to underwrite 20% of the cost of construction if at least 50% of the new space was devoted to dual usage.  Combined with the savings from not having two separate institutions spend money on similar facilities, the savings on a community wide level would very quickly move into the tens of millions of dollars.  Indeed, additional community revenues would be realized if a proper wedding hall was built with shared funds so that local hotels didn’t need to be rented for banquets or weddings.

4. Youth Direction

When one considers that a family with 4 children now realistically has to earn $140,000 in order to have sufficient after tax money to pay $48,000 in tuition, it is quickly apparent that when day schools are in the discussion, there is no middle class.  $140,000 a year is the top 9% of wage earners in the United States.  It is not realistic to expect 2/3 of our families to earn in the top 9% of wages in the country.  We must convey to our High School and post High School Children the NEED to earn at a high level, not for prosperity’s sake, but just to be able to pay one’s share.

In fairness, one cannot omit the directives we give to our young men and women as a significant issue in the current discussion.  In any moral and responsible society, those who have been blessed with more are rightfully expected to help those with less.  Those who are “middle class” should be self sufficient.  For reasons that seem to be not based on Halacha, we began about 35 years ago encouraging virtually all of our young men and women to make choices where they cannot even hope to pay their share.  The upper class can and should help balance the scales for those who have not been blessed with “as much”.  It is not fair or realistic to expect them to also pick up the slack for those who choose not to earn what they could. [2]

Application

We cannot wait any longer.  In Bereishis (4:10), the Pasuk says after Kayin killed Hevel that “all the bloods of your brother are crying out to me”.  Why the plural, “bloods”? Rashi says these were the Neshamos of Hevel’s descendants crying out to Hashem that they were never born.  Yes, Neshamos which were never born were crying out.  We are in such a matzav now.  Many young people are choosing to have only 1 or 2 children simply because they cannot foresee how they will pay tuition for more.  We cannot allow all these Neshamos to cry out to us when we did nothing to address the problem.  We can solve the tuition crisis.  It requires leadership, foresight and compassion.

These suggestions will in some form or another be adopted out of necessity within the next 15 years.  Our buildings will not be able to house all the growing student bodies and the budget deficits of the schools will exceed their ability to borrow from Peter to temporarily stave off Paul.  The only question is whether we have the community desire and leadership to enact sensible steps while we are merely in “crisis” mode but before we are in catastrophe mode.

The main obstacle to initiating these reforms is our past luxury of not having to.  As long as it has not been an absolute necessity, each Shul and institution has been willing to insist on complete autonomy to their facilities so as not to encounter a less strict mode of dress, a foreign custom or Nusach or people who simply view things a little bit differently than they do.  Ironically, that is why in Eretz Yisroel, where polarization is the norm, people of different views have found ways to co-exist in space sharing arrangements.  It has been a necessity both out of the space available and the shortness of funds.  We should be at a point in time now where it has become increasingly clear that the bubble mentality has its limits.  We shield our youth from anyone to our left or right when they are in Shul and in school but pretend they don’t notice these “horrific” influences in Walmart, Target or the grocery store.  Perhaps if we can teach our children the beauty of our values instead of pointing fingers at those who we look down upon, all the need for growing institutions in Galus would disappear altogether.

The author can be reached at  davidefink@yahoo.com