Even now, parents will sacrifice nearly anything to keep their kids in private schools
The economic downturn has hampered but not entirely derailed many parents’ plans to keep their children in private schools.
“In surveying parents after the 2008 stock market plunge, most said they would give up everything else first to pay tuition, and kids that are in are staying in,” says Douglas J. Lyons, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools (CAIS).
That’s no less true in 2010, and private schools are trying to respond by providing additional financial aid to struggling parents.
“We’re giving more financial aid, and trying to allocate more funds for returning families that have been impacted by the economic downturn,” explains Ray Diffley, director of admissions at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, a day and boarding school with around 830 students.
“More families are applying for financial aid but we have had very few situations where kids who were here had to leave,” adds Robert J. Izzo, head of school at Hamden Country Day School, an independent college preparatory school with more
than 585 boys and girls, most from the New Haven area, in preschool through grade 12. Tuition for the 2010-11 school
year ranges from $13,490 for PK to $28,990 for grades 9-12.
At Choate, tuition went up 3.9 percent for the 2010-11 school year, to around $35,000 for day students and $45,000 for boarders. The school also is “coming to the end of a $200 million funding campaign, and doing well toward that goal,” Diffley says, adding that Choate’s endowment has taken a slight hit in recent years and currently is hovering at around $260 million.
Boarding schools have fared better, Lyons says, because “Their market is the whole globe, and the exchange rate favors the American schools.”
For many private schools, the market for new students is “staying flat,” Lyons says.
But some are bucking that trend.
Applications at Hamden Hall, for example, have increased by around ten percent over the last several years.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” says Head of School Izzo.
Hamden Hall also has done some “belt-tightening across the board,” he adds. “Just any other business during these economic times, we just have to be very careful about how we deploy our resources.”
The school employs 125 full-time teachers, and 80 to 100 employees for summer programs. The most recent building project was the new Beckerman Athletic center on Skiff Street, which opened in December 2009 and is named for local developer (and longtime boys basketball coach) David Beckerman. It has three collegiate-size basketball courts, a running track and six-lane pool.
Meanwhile, Catholic schools overseen by the Diocese of Bridgeport are “holding their own” but have “seen some dips” due to the recession, including a two-percent year-over-year drop in enrollment for the 2009-10 school year, says Margaret Dames, superintendent of the diocese.
Around 11,000 students in grades PK to 12 attend the 38 Fairfield County Catholic schools, including a special education school and five high schools. There were 39 schools, but two elementary schools were merged last year.
The average tuition is around $4,800, and ranges from $3,500 in inner city schools to $8,500. “Angel” scholarships covering up to $5,000 per year are available, but scholarship contributions “have been flat” lately, according to Dames.
Around three years ago, the diocese created an endowment, which Dames says is making some headway toward its goal of upgrading its six inner-city schools with computers and other educational tools.
At Hopkins School in New Haven, the economy “has had no noticeable effect in terms of inquiries or applications or acceptances” over the last two years, says Head of School Barbara Riley. “It also has not affected the school’s attrition rate, which is historically very low, under two percent.”
Although Hopkins’ families may be feeling the pinch, Riley says,
“These are families that deeply value education, and if they have to they are going to make other adjustments in their family’s spending in order to provide an absolutely first-rate education and experience.”
A day school, about 65 percent of 680 Hopkins students come from New Haven County and around 33 percent from Fairfield County.
Riley says the school has “worked hard to moderate our tuition increases,” which were 3.5 percent in 2009-10 and 4.25 percent for 2010-11. Tuition currently is $30,650, which is “still over $6,000 less than it costs us to educate a student, and several thousand less than day school tuitions,” Riley explains.
A couple of years ago, Hopkins budgeted “a pretty substantial financial contingency, because we didn’t know whether families would experience hardships outside the normal,” Riley says. “When applications increased, we didn’t have to draw significantly on the budget contingency. We were surprised, especially last year when there was such a sense of uncertainty about where the economy was going, that inquiries and enrollment went up.
“But the truth is whether in really good economic times or current not-so-good ones, the need for financial aid is increasing.”
Hopkin’s school’s endowment “did take a dip because of the recession,” Riley says but it was “very, very carefully invested, and built to weather storms.
“We’ve also been engaged in pretty active capital raising over the last five years, and have raised over $30 million, about half for facilities and half for endowment, for financial aid and faculty compensation.
We’re careful about spending, and we’ve been budgeting as if we’re in a recession for the last 350 years.” (The third-oldest educational institution in the nation, Hopkins was founded in 1660.)
Looking ahead, Riley says, “I see a school that will continue to become even more financially stable, and one that continues and will continue to generate incredible loyalty and support from its current families and graduates.”
Hamden Hall’s Izzo believes that “Independent schools will always have applicants because we’re able to offer the small class size parents are seeking for their children.”
CAIS’ Lyons agrees, and says private schools could get a boost in enrollment next year, when the federal stimulus
money runs out, “creating a secondary market for independent schools that may not have been there otherwise.” (Connecticut also recently failed to make the final list of states vying for $4.3 billion in federal Race to the Top education grants.) “If there are 32 students in your kid’s [public school] class,” Lyons says, “You may love the idea.”
As for the future, Lyons says, “Who knows? These are very tough times to make reliable predictions. I’m generallyoptimistic that parents still value private schools, and they’re pretty much the last thing people will give up. Though our schools will be sideswiped by this recession, they will come out more efficient and leaner, and the overall majority will survive.”
— K.S.
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