Meet The Parents – Part II – SchoolAdvancement

This week’s “Marketing Matter” comes from an initiative set forth by a school in Western Pennsylvania.

The principal set up meetings with several parents who were receiving financial aid, yet whose aid application showed they were not in need of as much financial aid as they were receiving.

Full-tuition (not the amount after aid being awarded) was broken down into a daily rate, and further, into an hourly rate, at which point was shown to be less expensive than the cost of daycare was for their children several years prior to them being enrolled in school!

If there was a hardship, then the family would receive the necessary financial aid in order to help ease their burden.

The learning is that large numbers are difficult to comprehend, and seem cost-prohibitive. A study I conducted several years ago prior to the pandemic showed that 70% of schools that published their tuition on their Web site had a decreasing enrollment trend, while those that did not publish a tuition schedule on their Web site had a 50/50 chance of their enrollment growing!

To make matters worse, there are still schools that publish family rates, so that the tuition for 3 children is shown to be something like $1o,500 – yet doesn’t explain that’s $4,000 for the first child, $3,500 for the second, and $3,000 for the third. For the family that makes $60,000 a year before taxes, which translates to about $45,000 after taxes, that’s about 25% of their income.

With this is mind, what do you think the most common response of an interested parent would be?

If you said, “We can’t afford that,” you’d be right.

Yet, these same parents will pay $8 an hour for daycare. Do the math. Which is more?

That’s right – daycare.

But parents find a way to do it.

Here’s another way of looking at it. If your school’s tuition for 1 child is $4,000 a year, and you have a 10-month payment plan at your school, that’s $400 a month – which is more than many car payments today.

But, depending on your State educational guidelines, there are around 990 hours of instructional time required per school year. That’s about $4.05 an hour. You’ll pay more than that for a teenager to watch your kids watch TV, give them a snack, and tuck them into bed.

Once the parents saw and understood the value they were receiving, and could compare costs to something they were familiar with, they were open to the realization that need-based aid is a matter of justice.

It’s Scriptural as well: “Much will be required from everyone to whom much has been given. But even more will be demanded from the one to whom much has been entrusted” (Luke 12:48).

What’s the best way to deliver this good news to parents? Face to face. Meet with them. The pandemic taught us that we need to do things differently.

This might be different for you…and that’s a good thing, since going “back to normal” may be met with an even faster enrollment decline due to the rising cost of living.

Being entrusted with the leadership of a Catholic, Christian or other faith-based school requires bold steps today…and you can’t develop a relationship with parents just by sending invoices to them and expecting them to pay.

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