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Tuition & Fees

2020-2021 Tuition Policy 

As always, I, Fr. Ken, our leadership teams, and the school board remain united in our shared commitment to maintaining both the quality and affordability of an SJF education. You’ll see this highlighted throughout the strategic plan, specifically the many ways we envision dealing with these often-conflicting goals over the next 3-5 years. The reality we find ourselves in, however, is that our current tuition structure does not cover the base costs of educating our children, let alone the many improvements we want to make going forward. Based on enrollment and cost projections, we estimate our operating budget will be in a significant deficit without any changes. In that light, we have set tuition for the 2020-21 school year per the table below. Similar to last year, it reflects an increase of $150 per student. This should make up approximately half of our projected deficit. We plan to make up the rest through various fundraising initiatives, continued creative application for third party grant funds, and the seeking of select operating efficiencies.

Full-time Tuition   2019-20   2020-21 % Disc. Per Fam. $ Change % Change

1st Student          $ 5,165     $ 5,315       n/a    $ 5,315        $ 150          2.9%

2nd Student            3,420        3,570       33%     8,885           300          3.5%

3rd Student             2,665        2,815       47%    11,700          450          4.0%

4th Student             1,450        1,600       70%     13,300         600          4.7%   

5th+ Students            150                       100%    13,300         450          3.5%

3 Day Full-Day     $ 3,099     $ 3,200       40%       n/a          $ 101          3.3%

5 Day Part-Day        2,416        2,675      50%        n/a            259         10.7%

3 Day Part-Day        1,556        1,600      70%        n/a              44           2.8%

 

We are also making changes to our “Book Day” fee schedule to more directly tie fees to related expenses and to have the average SJF family see a decrease in total non-tuition fees. These changes are shown below. You will see the biggest change is we are eliminating the fundraising fee due on Book Day and are introducing a requirement to “earn” a certain amount of MANNA credit for the school before the end of the academic year. MANNA is our single largest school-specific fundraiser, and participation in it has severely dropped in recent years to the point where less than 35% of our current school families regularly use it. We’re hoping that introducing a requirement to earn credit for the school through MANNA will be a positive boost for both our budget and yours. For every $1 you earn for the school, you also earn $1.50 credit toward your tuition bill, so this requirement will also have the side effect of helping offset some, if not all or more, of the headline tuition increases introduced above.

Book Day Fees                       2019-20                 2020-21

Base Registration / Admin        $ 25                  $  50   Family

Books & Supplies                        220                   200   Student

Technology                                  100                   125   Student

Lunchroom                                    20                     25   Student

Archdiocesan Assessment            25                     50   Student

Fundraising                                  175                      -

FSA Membership                           -                        50   Family **In lieu of room parent collection

Manna Earnings Requirement       -                       300  Family **Details / example to follow

Please know we don’t make any of these decisions regarding tuition and fee changes lightly. It is not lost on me that this letter and these changes come at what is an especially challenging time for us all in so many ways. I know that includes financial challenges for some of our families, so we have done our best to appropriately balance our various educational objectives and financial needs without putting an undue or unexpected burden on you. Tuition and fee schedules are always set after much consultation and comparison of our offering with the school board, our neighboring schools, and the parish business manager. For 2020-21, on a combined basis, we sought to limit any increase in SJF’s total cost to under 3%. While not exactly the same for everyone because of the multi-student discount and the different fee bases, for our average 2-student family, next year’s total cost increase will be approximately 2.3%, and that is before any offsets from potential increased Manna tuition credits.

 
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