The Tuition Kerfuffle: Missing the Forest for the Trees.

Orthomom attracted over 100 comments on her recent post about a 12% tuition increase in one of the Five Town Yeshivas. With a very few exceptions, most of the comments completely miss the point.

When I went to school in the 60's and 70's, most of the Rebbeim, with a handful of memorable exceptions, were terrible or worse. Some were just boring and disinterested. Others were, nebech, bitter survivors. Still others were cruel sadists. In my 12 years, fewer than a handful were inspiring.

By and large, at least in the yeshivas that our kids have attended, the opposite has been true. With a few exceptions, the morot and Rabbeim have been excellent, in many cases forging important and lasting relationships with our kids.

I think this is true for a number of reasons. One of them is that many rabbeim and morot come from well-to-do families who are (happily) subsidizing their childrens' choices to be mechanchim. In addition, the pay in the MO and quasi-chareidi yeshivas is more reasonable (albeit, on a relative basis, tiny compared with the alternatives). These two factors have made it possible to attract very fine young men and women into chinuch.

Indeed, the parents at these institutions demand nothing less.

This, and not administrative costs, and not lack of transparency, is the underlying cause of the tuition crisis. Teachers' salaries make up the overwhelming percentage of the costs of running a school. It's really that simple.

I addressed the red herring of administrative costs yesterday.

The idea that a lack of transparency is a cause of the tuition crisis is another red herring. Anyone who has ever run any charitable organization that is not disfunctional knows two things: First, they are not democracies. They are usually run by 5 or 6 men who put their money and their time where their mouths are.

Second, transparency is overrated. What good, exactly, do people think will come of transparency? What do parents think they will see when they look at the books? Will it change the fact that teachers' salaries comprise over 75% of the budget? Do they want to see how much each teacher is making? Will that help attract teachers?

Instead of harping on transparency and administrative costs, people need to be focusing on raising money from alternative sources. As one astute commentor correctly pointed out, we are being bled to death by parlor meetings for mosdos from out of town. We absolutely must find a way to fairly impose an 'inheritance tax' to build up a proper endowment (then transparebncy will, perhaps, become more important). Yeshiva education simply must become the most important focus.