Saturday, March 11, 2006

Compared to some high schools, Harvard's a bargain

NEW YORK (AP) -- Harvard is great, but it's no Riverdale Country School.

The Bronx private school will charge tuition of $31,200 next school year for sixth- through 12th-graders, more than $3,300 higher than this year's rate at the esteemed university. Bus rides are not included.

Riverdale is among several elite New York City high schools that has surpassed or is approaching the $30,000 mark.

Manhattan's Trinity School will soon charge $30,170 for seniors, private school observers say. And plenty of schools are just a hair under the $30,000 threshold. The Horace Mann School in the Bronx, for instance, will charge about $29,000 for the 2006-07 school year.

Dozens of people are often on waiting lists to get into the schools, even as prices rise.

The elite schools are so sought-after because they boast small classes and top-notch teachers, not to mention high-quality facilities, especially for athletics. But perhaps more than anything, the most elite offer their reputations, something that could give an edge to students applying to top-tier colleges.

"Tuition, however high or low it may be, or whatever it is, it still costs us more than that to educate a student," said Mary Ludemann, a spokeswoman for Riverdale. "We are trying to raise faculty salaries, teachers' salaries. The only way to do that is to raise tuition."

In many ways, the higher tuition bills are not a surprise. New York is by far the most expensive place in the country to send a child to private school -- driven by the high cost of living in a city where apartments routinely sell for $1 million and it can cost a small fortune just to park your car.

The median 12th-grade tuition in Manhattan independent schools -- a group not including parochial schools -- was $27,200 in 2005-06; nationwide it was $16,970, according to the National Association of Independent Schools.

"New York is the only region of the country where there are numerous schools in that price bracket -- close to $30,000," said Myra McGovern, a spokeswoman for the association.
And it's not just high schools with large tuitions. At Riverdale, preschool tuition cost $24,500 for the current school year, while kindergarten through fifth grade is $27,150.

While the cost of living in New York is a big reason for the jump in tuition, some schools are offering more specialized programs and classes that also drive the cost of instruction up.
Schools define tuition in different ways. Some do not include bus transportation; others charge extra for things like books and activities.

McGovern said parents feel it's worth the cost.

"It's investing in their children's lives," she said. "Many people are willing to spend that much on a car. This, for most parents, parents who send their children to independent schools, pays dividends for a lifetime."

1 comment:

Ric Caric said...

"Another salvo in class warfare"--That can be read as an ambiguous statement drt. Are the private high schools part in NY of the wealthy's approach to class warfare on the East Coast? In other words part of the class war of the elite. Or is it complaining about the advantages of the wealthy that is class warfare? Generally speaking, the American media views the advantages of the wealthy as natural and inevitable and any criticism of those advantages as "class warfare." What about you?

One of the things that was interesting about your post was your placing yourself in competition with the wealthy students at the private prep academies in NY. Let's line up their advantages--elite manners and interests derived from their families, elite contacts derived from families, top of the line prep school, resources for developing artistic, musical, editing abilities, and academic summer camps before getting to Harvard with its enormous prestige. What you place against all of those advantages is your work ethic ("The only bearing it has on me is the additional work . . .).

I'm not saying that you won't do well. But in your version of class competition, you're competing as an "individual" while your elite competitors have extensive social support. Indeed, their group affiliation gives them an enormous advantage over you because you would be leaving your "group" in your effort to join "theirs."