With all the hoopla in the current government about the importance of charedi schools providing a core curriculum to their male high school students, something I haven’t seen mentioned is cost.
In dollars and cents(shekels and agurot?) it’s been ignored that It costs a lot of money to send a son to a charedi high school with a full bagrut curriculum. A lot more than a typical charedi yeshiva and both yeshivas are more than the fully government funded public high schools. The annual tuition for our ds15 is $8820. Remember, this is an Israeli school and parents aren’t making American salaries.
Unlike in the US, there are no scholarships through the schools, not merit based nor need based. However, I was told by someone who sends her son to the particular school that my son is at that there’s a private outside organization that financially assists families to some degree with tuition. This was also mentioned in the form letter sent to everyone at the beginning of the year, so I asked the secretary about it. She told me that it will take a couple of months until the scholarship process for the year begins and in the meantime you pay full tuition. I told her that if someone needs a scholarship that would imply they don’t have the means to pay full tuition but she said that’s how it is.
So that’s what we did and for five months didn’t hear anything about this. When asked how people afford this I really didn’t have a good answer. Then a couple of weeks ago the secretary called and told us that ds15 and dh needed to be in Jerusalem for the interview and testing (3 hour test for ds) a day later. It was changed to the following week (naturally we were notified the evening before the appointment – this ‘wait a long time and hurry up at the last minute’ seems to be a way things are commonly done here).
There are a number of factors that they take into account when determing how much of a grant to give towards each student’s education – family size, income, extentuating cirumstances and how well the student does on the testing. The interviewer had already knew about ds15’s academic performance in school and when ds finished his testing, he thanked the proctor. The proctor told him – in all seriousness – that if a person says ‘thank you’ he has 5 points automatically added to his final grade! Who knew that teaching your child to be polite and appreciative would also be financially helpful? 🙂
If you’re granted a scholarship, you pay a reduced amount to the school and this private organization pays the balance to the school. So the school is paid fully whether you get this grant or not. We were offered a generous scholarship and that means that over the past five months we’ve already paid our annual tuition through the end of the year! I’m so grateful that an organization like this is available – this tuition expense has been a big pressure for us and did I mention I’m so grateful? 🙂
Avivah
And people say… “Move to Israel- tuition is cheaper here/school is practically free.”
Definitely not. And salaries are much lower…
I’ve questioned this statement, too! I suppose it depends what perspective you’re coming from. For us as a homeschooling family, sending to school – even with low tuitions – was still way more than we spent in the US. For families who are barely managing to pay full tuition in the US but have the option to to move to Israel and keep their American jobs and salaries, they can live much more comfortably here. The tuition that’s a strain for us is cheap for someone with a US salary used to paying US tuitions!
I think also you have to take into account the lifetime expense of schooling a child and costs. TO send to a Jewish kindergarten in Toronto my children would have to pay 6000 CDN a year!!! So taking the costs of a high school or seminary education and spread it out over the schooling lifespan of a child it is still relatively cheaper. When I say the prospectus I was shocked! That was more than my tuition for 2 years of University!! No way! That is what turned me to homeschooling – purely economics, the hashkafa came later 🙂 And now we are in Israel -I don’t bat an eye when I am handed a the fees list from my kid’s school. Including books and uniform and tzaharon over the last 5.5 years we have never paid even close to even one year in a Chtuz LaAretz Jewish kindergarten 🙂 /
I am referring to schooling all my kids.
I was also faced with this when my daughter applied for a “frum” nursing school. Full tuition! But scholarships are “available”- but students only find out if they’ll be receiving it midway through the year. So we decided, at first, not to take the risk. Then in an amazing hashgacha pratis moment- I sat down at a table at a wedding next to the office manager of the school in question and the conversation wound around until it came to this issue. She kindly informed me that the only girls who do not get the scholarship are the ones who do not ask for it. I am not saying this is always the case, but we have had this happen more than once.
Tuition is CERTAINLY far lower in general in Israel and the lifestyle is different too. People who who have the ability to pay full tuition are asked to pay it. We are forced to rely on HKB”H on a minute by minute basis, hashgacha stares you in the face here. I once heard a psychologist who had practiced in America and then moved his practice to Israel say “in Israel people are in a perpetual state of ‘whelmed’ throw one extra issue into the mix and they are overwhelmed!”
On the other hand an Israeli said to me “one must be wealthy to home school in Israel.” …..huh?
About that comment that one needs to be wealthy to homeschool in Israel: it comes from the perspective that both parents need to work full time to support the family, that there isn’t anyone home to do the homeschooling, and probably also that they are sending to the public religious/secular system in which fees are much more strictly limited. So the idea that a family can afford to have a stay-at-home parent implies wealth.
The truth about family life is that everyone is different and people make hard choices, no matter where they live, about how to be true to themselves, their real (not wished for) energy levels and abilities, and their values in the face of complex realities. The realities of raising and schooling children, IMHO, are ALWAYS complex.
Sending strength to all of you out there in the midst…