National private school enrollment is growing. A survey from the USSchoolindex showed that Private K–12 enrollment increased by 365,062 students, or 7.7%, from the 2021–22 to 2025-26. The trend is positive. The cost behind it is not. The median annual tuition now exceeds $26,000 in lower grades, and in some cities, it is even higher.
The cost of tuition is not only a burden on families, it is a threat to the institutions themselves. A successful family earning $300,000 a year, which places it in the top 2% of American households, can face $100,000 in tuition for four children. Even at that income, full tuition is out of reach. The cost is not waste. The median cost of total expenses per student from the National Association of Independent Schools NAIS, is $28,240. In addition to inflation which has impacted the cost of everyday business, schools have also invested heavily to improve their physical security. When tuition becomes unaffordable, enrollment eventually declines. A school with declining enrollment cannot maintain its operations. The tuition crisis is not a family problem. It is a sustainability problem.
The first problem is how schools spend money. Many were built as small institutions with an educational mission, not as businesses with financial controls. That was fine when budgets were small. It is not fine now. Schools have large budgets and complex operations. Simple exercises reveal simple waste. A service that has been on autopilot for years can be rebid. Contracts opened to competition tend to fall in price. The money is there. It is just not being watched.
The second problem is revenue, especially for parochial schools. Schools that are mission-driven, and their mission is to educate every student who wants to be there. That instinct is right. But it can lead to weak tuition collection. The fix is not to raise the sticker price. It is to collect what is already owed. Cutting expenses and improving collection, together, is how a school rights its finances without pricing out the families it exists to serve.
Rabbi Dovid Nathan has spent years working on the financial side of Jewish education. He is the founder of The Jewish Education Endowment Fund, which is building a long-term endowment to support day schools. His view is that schools cannot solve this problem through tuition increases and annual fundraising alone. They need stronger financial controls, greater transparency, and a structural funding mechanism that lasts.
Nathan describes what he found when he started working with struggling schools. In his first year, he saved well over six figures just by opening contracts to competition. One year, he saved thousands on copy paper by reminding teachers to be careful when printing. “There’s just a tremendous amount of money being spent without people even realizing it,” he says. The savings were not the result of cutting education. They were the result of watching the money.
The third problem is transparency. Nathan argues that schools should clean up their charts of accounts, keep better books, and open those books to parents, donors, and boards. The fear is that transparency invites criticism. Some parents will question spending decisions. But his experience is the opposite. Parents who care enough to ask are often the ones who can help. They might know a vendor who can offer a better price. The conversation is not a threat, it is an opportunity.
That transparency is a precondition for the endowment model Nathan is building. The fund aims to reach $1 billion over time. It would be professionally managed, with only 4% distributed to schools each year and the rest reinvested. At $1 billion, a 4% distribution would provide $40 million annually for schools. Whilst investment returns vary, and the model depends on disciplined management. But it is a structural answer to a structural problem. Annual fundraising is unstable. An endowment, managed properly, is designed to last.
The alternative is what Nathan calls the two consequences of inaction. Private education becomes unaffordable for all but the wealthiest families, and enrollment declines, or schools become increasingly reliant on government funding that can disappear when political conditions change. Neither outcome protects the institutions that families depend on. The message is for school boards, finance leaders, and donors. The institutions built decades ago will not survive decades from now unless the people running them start planning for that horizon. That means controlling expenses, collecting revenue, opening the books, and building a funding mechanism that does not depend on next year’s campaign.
The tuition crisis is solvable. But it will not be solved by doing the same things harder. It will be solved by schools that treat financial discipline as part of their educational mission, not as a distraction from it. If the institutions were built to last for generations, why would the financial model behind them be built only for the next fiscal year?
