Are Christian Schools Elitist?
By Mark Kennedy
“Why, that’s like charging people for God!!” That’s what one outraged lady said when I told
her families at our school had to pay tuition. It’s not an uncommon sentiment with those who
believe that public school education is free or with people who cling to the pseudo-Christian
philosophical canard, ‘If it’s cheap and easy it must be from God.”
More reflective thinkers would realize that, apart from tuition, there aren’t a lot of financial
resources out there with which Christian schools can pay bills and salaries. So we have to
charge tuition, whether we like it or not. It isn’t that we’re trying to limit enrollments to the
economically advantaged or that we’re fending off the ‘hoi-polloi’ by pricing our schools
beyond their reach. Most Christian school people aren’t elitists. But we do want first rate
teachers and outstanding, God-honouring school programmes. And those things cost.
Setting Tuition
Over my past 35 years in Christian school leadership I’ve learned some worthwhile things,
more than a few of them I learned the hard way. Take the business of setting tuition.
I used to think that Christian schools should set their tuition as low as possible so we could be
accessible to just about any family. It was a charitable thought and, since I was an audacious,
rather than sagacious, administrator, that’s just what I did at our school. The results were
disturbing.
Lower income families didn’t flock to the school. The percentage of families not returning from
one year to the next remained about the same. And, because of inflation, each year we had less
money to pay teachers and improve programmes. So ill-paid staff and a few committed parents
inevitably found themselves under enormous pressure to do more and more fundraising. It
wasn’t fundraising for new equipment or buildings – the kind of projects that can unify and
enliven a school community. It was ‘bailing bucket’ fundraising, ‘please keep us from sinking’
fundraising, ‘here we are on the brink of disaster once again’ fundraising. And it wore us all out.
Not only that, but our modest tuition didn’t curry much favour outside the school community
either –where, in most people’s thinking, low cost equals low value. It’s a standard North
American message about any product or service: quality costs.
And wealthy folk who could have made substantial donations to ministries like ours, never did.
That’s because financially successful people, especially people from the business community,
reach their position through careful planning – which includes appropriately pricing their
products and services. They set their prices to be comfortably higher than their operating costs,
their income to exceed expenses and they look for the same from any ministries they might
consider supporting. People don’t give generously to schools that are annually on the verge of
extinction.
That should speak to us. In the interest of providing an effective ministry for our students and
reasonable salaries for teachers we need to set tuition high enough to comfortably exceed
operating costs. The prospect of doing that is pretty daunting for principals and board
members. What if families pull out?! What if we go broke and have to close?!!! In the past 10
years I’ve seen a fair number of Christian schools close in our region –too many. Most of them
died with agonizing slowness, trying to keep their tuition ‘as low as possible to make the school
financially accessible to working families.’ They would have at least had a chance to survive if
they’d set their tuition high enough to more than pay their expenses.
Raising tuition to an appropriate level can be done without creating a disaster. Here are 5 steps
to accomplishing that goal:
1. Calculate what tuition income you would need to pay your expenses with at least a 10%
surplus.
2. Educate school families in the concept that Christian schooling is a shared sacrifice.
Parents aren’t the only people who pay for their children’s Christian education. Most of
our teachers and principals are making huge financial sacrifices too. They choose to earn
salaries 25% to 50% less than they could earn in public education so they can teach
God’s truth freely to their students thereby equipping those students well for life. And
our board members work for free! Maybe that’s the way it should be. Sacrificing to bless
others, especially our own families, isn’t something strange for Christians. According to
Jesus it is central to our faith.
“If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Mark 8:34
Christian school leaders have the daunting financial responsibility of making that ‘shared
sacrifice’ equitable for parents and school staff as well.
3. Educate parents in the relationship between tuition income and the ability to enhance
programmes and improve equipment and facilities.
4. ‘Grandfather’ current families by raising tuition to the ideal level in consistent annual
increments over a defined number of years (5 or less).
5. For new families, have a higher tuition rate to begin with.
But if we keep tuition low won’t the Lord’s miraculously provide to meet our financial needs?
It does happen, especially in places like Haiti. I’ve seen it. The Lord sometimes provides for the
poorest of his people in astounding ways. He does that in North America too but it doesn’t
seem to be as common here. It seems that, in Canada, one of the wealthiest nations in all
history, God treats Christian school leaders like toddlers learning to walk. In our first few years
he intervenes on our behalf, figuratively holding us up when in our financial innocence or
naivety we trip up. But as we mature he seems to expect us to maintain our balance by
applying biblical wisdom, guidance from others and lessons from our own experiences. And
sometimes he allows us to stumble painfully so in the long run we can learn to stand.
What about our responsibility to “widows and orphans”? Both the Old and New Testament
tell believers to care for ‘widows and the orphans’. For us in Christian schools, that means we
have a responsibility to help families that share our beliefs but can’t afford our tuition. Some
schools address that responsibility by filling empty classroom seats with students from families
that can only pay a fraction of the tuition. That’s a sensible short term plan with a serious long
term flaw. It gives everyone the illusion that the school is doing well. After all, look at all the
students! The reality may be that a lot of the students are on some sort of unfunded, reduced
tuition plan and that the school is struggling with a steadily increasing deficit. Inviting low
income families into a financially troubled school eventually becomes a bit like inviting
struggling swimmers onto a sinking ship – not a good long term solution for the swimmers or
the ship’s passengers. It is far better for a school to direct part of its fundraising efforts to a
scholarship/tuition assistance programme. People like to give to that sort of thing. The goal is to
eventually limit bursaries to the amount of real money in the tuition assistance fund.
When it comes to providing for needy people, maybe we should borrow a philosophy from the
airline industry. The pre-flight safety instructions always say, “In the event of an emergency,
make sure to put on your own oxygen mask first, before you attempt to help others.” They’re
not advising a ‘me first’ selfishness, they’re simply saying you need stability in order to help
others effectively. I think that’s what Paul meant in Hebrews 12:12,
“Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level the paths for your feet so
that the lame may not be disabled, but healed.”
A few months ago I got a phone call from a fellow Upper Canada College ‘old boy’. After trying
unsuccessfully to pry support out of me, he passed on some fascinating information. It seems
that at Upper Canada College, where tuition starts at $28,000 and there’s a huge student
waiting list, 25% of the tuition, (“only 25%” he said), comes from bursary funds donated by
people like me. “We want to increase that percentage,” he explained, “because in the States
the average ‘elite’ school receives 45% of tuition from donated bursaries!”
Now I’m not suggesting that our schools take on the airs or the tuition rates of elite private
schools. But we could at least follow their example by making sure tuition more than covers
operating costs and by raising bursary/tuition assistance funds to support lower income
families. And there’s nothing elitist about that!