When It Comes to Money, Most Private Schools Are Not Sidwell Friends

Neal McCluskeySeveral private schools are taking a  public relations beating for applying for CARES Act relief, including Sidwell Friends, the alma mater ofseveral presidential children. But most private schools arenot Sidwell Friends, and they should not be shamed for help they need to survive not just in the COVID economy, but as they compete against taxpayer ‐​funded public schools.According to theWashington Post’s coverage of the Sidwell dust ‐​up, the school charges $45,000 in tuition. To place that in the spectrum of private school tuition nationally I’ll adjust to 2011 dollars, because themost recent national data on private school tuition is from the 2011-12 school year. That puts Sidwell ’s tuition at about $39,000.How does that stack up? In 2011-12 average tuition for all private schools —including Catholic, other religious, and nonsectarian—was $10,740, less than a third of what Sidwell charges. Indeed, too few Catholic schools charged $15,000 or more to be reliably included in the count, and none of the three groupings had average tuition above $22,000.What follows is the number of schools and average tuition by private ‐​school sector in 2011-12:To put those charges in some overall K-12 perspective, the average public schoolspent $12,796 per student in 2011.As I  wrote recently, the COVID economy is going to be tough on all schools, butdeadly for many privates. Public schools will keep getting taxpayer funding, though reduced, while many...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs