Tuition, Class Size and Teacher Pay – I Want It All

Ask most parents, teachers, administrators and board members at a private school the following three questions:
Would you prefer high or low:

• tuition?
• student/teacher ratio?
• teacher pay?

You are most likely to hear a desire for low tuition, low student to teacher ratio and high teacher pay.  This sounds great and appeals to almost everyone…until the bankruptcy.

The trick is to find a balance among these key, interrelated factors.

Each factor impacts the others in the following ways for the institution to survive long-term:

To keep tuition low – you must have some combination of more students per class providing revenue and lower teacher pay. Are large classes and low teacher pay a formula for success?

To keep class size limited – you must either raise tuition on these fewer students or lower teacher pay. Let’s see…parents and teacehrs will like the smaller class size, but neither will like the price tag.

To have well-paid teachers – you need more students per class or you must raise tuition. Wow, more students per class and higher tuition! That’ll keep the applications rolling in.

No two schools are alike. The difficult policy decisions regarding tuition, class size and teacher pay must be resolved to balance the needs of the families, students and teachers at each school. No matter where you find “balance” for your school, these decisions will define your culture and population.

Unfortunately, on this one you can’t have it all. But you do get to wrestle with it every year!