Beit Rabban Day School Pilot To Cap Tuition Costs
Source: The Jewish Week
Beit Rabban Day School is offering a substantial discount to parents who enroll multiple children for the 2014-15 school year through its Tuition Affordability Initiative. The Upper West Side NY school, which serves preschoolers through fifth graders and is planning for a middle school, will allow families to cap their tuition at 15 percent of the household’s adjusted gross income, regardless of how many children are enrolled.
Unlike the school’s scholarship program, this initiative is aimed at middle-income families — those making between about $150,000 and $400,000 a year — and sets a minimum of 55 percent of the full cost of a family’s tuition.
Tuition at Beit Rabban ranges from $20,903 for half-day preschoolers to $31,127 for fourth and fifth graders. This is on par with most New York City day schools, where tuition ranges between $20,000 for kindergarten to $40,000 at some high schools.
In Beit Rabban’s program, families will be able to calculate their tuition based on their income — and they will know that the cost won’t change anytime soon.
The program is sponsored in part by the AVI CHAI Foundation, which is also funding a program at Robbins Hebrew Academy in Toronto. The foundation modeled the initiative, dubbed iCAP, after a similar effort started by Solomon Schechter of Greater Boston.
Over the past two years, at least a dozen schools in the U.S. and Canada have instituted tuition assistance programs for middle-income families. In New York, Riverdale’s SAR High School gave eligible middle-income high school students a $2,000 tuition credit last year through the help of an anonymous donor.
The foundation set the pilot program at three years with the expectation that it will take some time before it becomes profitable.
Read more at The Jewish Week.