Presence

How sad is it that yeshiva tuition has become a form of birth control? (At least it has in our household.)

Or that it hasn't...

26K is more than my yearly salary!
And yet we're living with full health care, no tuition breaks, a manage-able mortgage, 5 kids and a brand new car.
(sorry, no pets)
Anyone else think that it's so hard to make aliyah?
I guess the main drawback to living here in Israel is that it never rains during the summer (read: 6 months from Pesach to Sukkos). Oh how I miss that muggy August Baltimore goodness.

Gotta go back to the beis medrash.

Or make aliyah and save yourself the 26k...

A well-respected rabbi at my shul claims that day school tuition has ruined more Jewish marriages than any other cause. I'm inclined to believe him.

I'm personally tired of saving up to buy a house, have a couple kids, and then be poor for the next 25 years. The schools need to set tuition in line with what it actually costs to educate a student, not force families to subsidize other students and not even give them a tax break for their charity. If the schools need more money, they can ask for it like every other charitable organization.

Moving to Israel isn't an option for everyone, either, and I find it insulting when people pose it as some sort of easy-fix solution.

David- I agree with you. I find it a bit insulting and a lot sanctimonious.

Ideally should we all want to make aliyah and be able to do it (for a variety of reasons)? Yes, but I definitely wouldn't do it to save myself the 26K of tuition. What is sad, is that I have heard of people who have done this. They then trade in the semi-financial issues (I say semi financial because in the end most of these people don't get jobs in Israel so the tuition thing is a financial trade off) for a bunch of different issues since they weren't making aliyah for any rational reasons in the first place.

I am making aliyah this summer, so I feel somewhat qualified to give my 2 cents on this tuition debate.

Yes, you save money on tuition, but you also do not make as much money in Israel as you do in the same job in the US.

I think the area where you save is that the costs are not continuously rising. So even though your salary is lower, you don't have the rising burden of tuition as younger children begin to attend school and when your kids reach HS.

Also, i know you are in baltimore where the tuitions are high, but not completely out of hand. In the NY & LA metro areas, they are completely insane and are definitely a factor in many people making aliyah.

FYI - This comment is not politically correct and is NSFW (not safe for work(ing people)

Why shouldn't we be forced to subsidize other students tuitions, to the extent they truly need the tuition break. Who should pay for it? A community needs a jewish education system with quality teachers, just like we need shuls and mikvaos and therefore a community unfortunately must bear the brunt of it. The issue is why we can’t get the schools (and IRS) to structure it as a donation so that it can be tax deductible. It is nice to say the schools should raise it and I am a firm believer that professional fundraisers should be held accountable, but from where do you expect the school to get the additional funds?
Aliyah is a wonderful thing to do, but doing it driven by financial reasons usually ends up hurting the person. I was recently in Israel and was told that there are many unemployed American professionals who came to Israel expecting to continue their careers and are having extreme difficulties in doing so. I was told of professionals who were making or are capable of making very nice livings are working for $5-7 an hour.

In previous generations - Jews were murdered, tortured, starved and exiled for leading a torah lifestyle. Now, we may be poor but we still have ipods, computers, meat, chicken, cars and AC. Who said being moser nefesh was easy?

The budget posted has a lot of imaginary numbers ex. $700 pr child pr yr for clothes. The adults don't get clothes? And the budget isn't just for Orthodox jews. Goyim use private schools too. The only distinctive expense listed is the the mysterious $800 pr month for the Shul; that is very unusual. Maybe it is including all tzdecka too? Really the numbers vaguely reflect the rising cost of living a typical middle class life in America.

Perhaps the tuition crunch would be a bit more palatable if parents felt that they got value for what they paid. A couple of the schools in this community (and I won't single them out by name) take tuition-paying parents for granted and run themselves administratively and educationally with incompetence, peppered with nice dose of cronyism. The result is a lack of accountability, openness, and responsiveness.

"The issue is why we can’t get the schools (and IRS) to structure it as a donation so that it can be tax deductible."

Precisely. If I was paying $15k, but I got to write off $5k as a donation (and as ma'aser!), I wouldn't complain quite as much. Why don't we do this?

Well, it's easy enough: it would be disadvantageous to the people _receiving_ the money, because elementary and middle schools don't seem to qualify for tax-free scholarships, since they don't give out degrees. Read the IRS tax law about scholarships sometime - quite enlightening.

So, basically, they're screwing the people paying into the system extra hard. Thanks!

The reason it is not tax deductible is that it is tuition, not a donation. If you don't pay you can't go to school (without getting a reduction). Some schools push the envelope further and attribute money paid to synagogue fees, building funds, dinners, etc. Those portions are tax deductible. If it is called tuition and a requirement of admission it is not deductible.

"Those portions are tax deductible. If it is called tuition and a requirement of admission it is not deductible."

I agree. My point here is, by not including scholarship/tuition-reduction funds in the list of extras, they unfairly punish the people who are paying for the system. There is no sane reason why this couldn't happen, except for the reasons I gave above.

Check this out... forum for TA parents to vent with a link to this post http://cptabaltimore.blogspot.com/