However, using the magic of the Internet, I have been able to locate actual historical tuition data for JKHA and RKYHS. Before I begin, here are links to all the raw data:
JKHA 1998-1999, JKHA 2000-2001, JKHA 2001-2002, JKHA 2002-2003, JKHA 2003-2004, JKHA 2004-2005, JKHA 2009-2010
RKYHS 1998-1999, RKYHS 2000-2001, RKYHS 2002-2003, RKYHS 2003-2004, RKYHS 2004-2005, RKYHS 2005-2006, RKYHS 2007-2008, RKYHS 2008-2009, RKYHS 2009-2010
The Process:
Finding all of this data involved several hours of work hunting through thousands of documents in the Internet Archive. I'm not pointing this out to toot my own horn, but to illustrate the fact that the lack of transparency from our schools makes it incredibly difficult for the public to understand the problem let alone try to tackle it.
Despite my best research efforts, the following data is missing - either I couldn't find it, it was never available online, or the Archive didn't have a record of it: JKHA years 1999-2000, 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2008-2009 and RKYHS years 1999-2000, 2001-2002, 2006-2007, and 2008-2009.
In order to fill in the missing data, I did the following: JKHA 1999-2000 and RKYHS 1999-2000, 2001-2002, and 2006-2007 all had real data points for the prior year and the following year. Therefore, I averaged the prior and following years to arrive at an estimate for tuition values. For JKHA 2008-2009 and RKYHS 2008-2009, I was able to fill in actual tuition amounts as the 2009-2010 tuition page notes that tuition for 2009-2010 is $200 less for every grade than the 2008-2009 values. Finally, for JKHA 2005-2006, 2006-2007, and 2007-2008 I did the following. I averaged 2004-2005 and 2008-2009 to get an estimated value for 2006-2007. I then averaged 2004-2005 and 2006-2007 to get an estimated value for 2005-2006 and I averaged 2006-2007 and 2008-2009 to get an estimated value for 2007-2008.
One thing I noticed when going through the data is that you can't compare apples to apples unless you add together all of the fees to the tuition amount. Looking at tuition alone is meaningless. Furthermore, over about 12 years of data the fees have changed names and various fees have been added or removed over the years. Thus, the data below represents per student tuition and fees.
Another interesting point is that "per family" charges haven't changed much over the years (or year to year). The Parent Teacher Association Fee has gone from $50 in 1998-1999 to $60 in 2009-2010. The Dinner Journal Ad Fee has gone from $600 in 1998-1999 to $1,000 in 2009-2010. The Bond/Building Fund has gone from $2,500 in 1998-1999 to $3,200 in 2009-2010. However, it seems that starting in 2005-2006 this fee was no longer returned to the family once all of their children were out of the school. Previously, it was explicitly stated that this amount would be returned to the family. Note that the numbers below are "Per student" only. A "Per family" amount has to be added as well.
| 1998-1999 | 1999-2000 | 2000-2001 | 2001-2002 | 2002-2003 | 2003-2004 | ||||||
| Pre-K | $6,000 | $6,700 | $7,400 | $8,000 | $8,600 | $9,155 | |||||
| K | $6,100 | $6,800 | $7,500 | $8,000 | $8,600 | $8,855 | |||||
| 1st | $6,100 | $6,800 | $7,500 | $8,200 | $8,800 | $9,035 | |||||
| 2nd | $6,500 | $7,200 | $7,900 | $8,600 | $9,200 | $9,735 | |||||
| 3rd | $6,500 | $7,200 | $7,900 | $8,600 | $9,200 | $9,735 | |||||
| 4th | $6,750 | $7,450 | $8,150 | $8,850 | $9,450 | $9,985 | |||||
| 5th | $6,750 | $7,450 | $8,150 | $8,850 | $9,450 | $9,985 | |||||
| 6th | $6,950 | $7,675 | $8,400 | $9,300 | $10,050 | $10,805 | |||||
| 7th | $7,000 | $7,725 | $8,450 | $9,350 | $10,100 | $10,885 | |||||
| 8th | $7,100 | $7,825 | $8,550 | $9,450 | $10,200 | $11,015 | |||||
| 9th | $8,400 | $9,923 | $11,445 | $12,510 | $13,575 | $14,575 | |||||
| 10th | $8,400 | $9,923 | $11,445 | $12,510 | $13,575 | $14,575 | |||||
| 11th | $8,400 | $9,923 | $11,445 | $12,510 | $13,575 | $14,575 | |||||
| 12th | $8,400 | $9,923 | $11,445 | $12,600 | $13,755 | $14,755 |
| 2004-2005 | 2005-2006 | 2006-2007 | 2007-2008 | 2008-2009 | |||||
| Pre-K | $9,055 | $9,648 | $10,240 | $10,833 | $11,425 | ||||
| K | $8,755 | $9,423 | $10,090 | $10,758 | $11,425 | ||||
| 1st | $9,435 | $10,183 | $10,930 | $11,678 | $12,425 | ||||
| 2nd | $10,135 | $11,110 | $12,085 | $13,060 | $14,035 | ||||
| 3rd | $10,135 | $11,110 | $12,085 | $13,060 | $14,035 | ||||
| 4th | $10,385 | $11,298 | $12,210 | $13,123 | $14,035 | ||||
| 5th | $10,385 | $11,298 | $12,210 | $13,123 | $14,035 | ||||
| 6th | $11,205 | $12,213 | $13,220 | $14,228 | $15,235 | ||||
| 7th | $11,285 | $12,273 | $13,260 | $14,248 | $15,235 | ||||
| 8th | $11,415 | $12,370 | $13,325 | $14,280 | $15,235 | ||||
| 9th | $15,225 | $16,100 | $17,525 | $18,950 | $20,125 | ||||
| 10th | $15,225 | $16,100 | $17,525 | $18,950 | $20,125 | ||||
| 11th | $15,225 | $16,100 | $17,525 | $18,950 | $20,125 | ||||
| 12th | $15,405 | $16,400 | $17,825 | $19,250 | $20,425 |
| 2009-2010 | |
| Pre-K | $11,225 |
| K | $11,225 |
| 1st | $12,225 |
| 2nd | $13,835 |
| 3rd | $13,835 |
| 4th | $13,835 |
| 5th | $13,835 |
| 6th | $15,035 |
| 7th | $15,035 |
| 8th | $15,035 |
| 9th | $19,925 |
| 10th | $19,925 |
| 11th | $19,925 |
| 12th | $20,225 |
Note: These tables are difficult to do in Blogger. There are supposed to be 3 tables. The first has years 1998-1999 through 2003-2004. The second has 2004-2005 through 2008-2009. And the last has only 2009-2010.
Interesting points:
1) In a little over 10 years, Pre-K tuition has nearly doubled from $6,000 to $11,225. 12th grade tuition has gone up nearly 2.5 times from $8,400 to $20,225.
2) In the 12 years worth of data, 2009-2010 is the ONLY year that tuition went down. Other than this, only Pre-K and K went down a bit in 2004-2005.
So, by what percentage does tuition go up every year? Well, the answer depends on whether you're talking about Pre-K through 8th grade or 9th grade through 12th grade. Here's the raw data:
| 1998-1999 | to | 1999-2000 | to | 2000-2001 | to | 2001-2002 | |
| Pre-K - 8th | 10.79% | 9.74% | 9.09% | ||||
| 9th - 12th | 18.13% | 15.34% | 9.50% |
| 2001-2002 | to | 2002-2003 | to | 2003-2004 | to | 2004-2005 | |
| Pre-K - 8th | 7.39% | 5.83% | 2.94% | ||||
| 9th - 12th | 8.68% | 7.34% | 4.45% |
| 2004-2005 | to | 2005-2006 | to | 2006-2007 | to | 2007-2008 | |
| Pre-K - 8th | 8.50% | 7.83% | 7.26% | ||||
| 9th - 12th | 5.93% | 8.81% | 8.10% |
| 2007-2008 | to | 2008-2009 | to | 2009-2010 | |
| Pre-K - 8th | 6.76% | -1.47% | |||
| 9th - 12th | 6.18% | -0.99% |
Note: These tables are difficult to do in Blogger. There are supposed to be 4 tables. The first table has increases for 1998-1999 through 2001-2002. The second table has increases for 2001-2002 through 2004-2005. The third table has increases for 2004-2005 through 2007-2008. The last table has increases for 2008-2009 through 2009-2010.
For the entire data range, this amounts to an average 6.79% year on year increase for Pre-K to 8th. However, if you don't count the last year in which tuition went down it is a 7.61% yearly increase. For 9th to 12th grade it is 8.31% for the whole data range and 9.24% without the last year.
What is most amazing to me is that in my previous post, I went up to a 6% yearly increase to find out what tuition for a family of 4 would be in 2022-2023. I thought it was ridiculous to go any higher than that and that I would be called out for being "sensationalistic." It turns out, if the trend continues and this year is an aberration, a mere "blip" from standard tuition increases, 6% is too low.
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8 comments:
This is impressive. And terrifying.
Basically terrifying. Your leg work is more comprehensive than mine, although I show a lower rate of increase. However, in the past year, our schools had a higher rate of increase.
1) holy crap
2) no idea if data is available, but in brooklyn yeshiva of flatbush and magen david are both k-12 coed. so is ramaz and now sar.
3) looking at kushner is actually intersting, as it can show whether or not the withdrawal of a major donor (in this case kushner) has a major affect on tuition.
Thanks. I hope people find this information educational and perhaps will stir some people to action.
I find that a major problem with the entire tuition debate/conversation is a completely lack of data which just leads to shouting and blaming those who may not necessarily be responsible.
In this case, everyone just "knows" that tuition is going up every year and that it's higher than inflation. However, seeing the numbers and real data is jarring and gives a greater sense of the problem we have here.
I hope to perform a similar analysis for other schools. However, it takes a LOT of time and is completely dependent on whether the school ever posted tuition data online and whether that data was stored in Internet archives.
Lion,
Do you know when Kushner pulled out as a major donor?
Other than 2004-2005 when tuition "only" went up ~3% to ~4.5% and the 2009-2010 year when tuition actually went down, the rate of increase is fairly steady.
This is really interesting and scary data. Thanks for pulling it together.
It's too bad we can't splice this data into separate sections based on scholarships and operating expenses. Many (myself included) think that shifting the burden of scholarships to an external organization would help schools create a more sustainable system.
I wonder how much of these dramatic increases have been because of scholarships and how much has been because running a school is just becoming more expensive every year.
Ely,
I intend, in a future post, to try to calculate the impact of scholarships on tuition prices. This will likely take several hours (again!) to pull together, so be patient. The hardest part is finding and compiling the data. It's unbelievable how hard yeshivas try to hide this data.
Yeshiva of Flatbush.....who is pocketing this money?
How many students are in tuition assistant? what's their life style......they have luxury cars, expensive vacations. maids, house in deal and show up in school with an income tax of $50.000 BINGO....tuition assistant......Besides that why don't they adjust salaries....all our income are going down what about YOF principals are they excempt from this turnmoil?
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