Dear Readers,
H-E-L-P!
I may sound like a broken record to Matzav readers, and yes it is always an issue every year around this time, but so many of us are suffering and nobody is helping us. Please, there is probably no bigger issue facing Klal Yisroel today than the tuition crisis and what it is doing to our families and our schools, yet somehow a solution is nowhere to be found.
I am your typical struggling middle-class guy. My wife and I work full time and we cannot make it. It is the worst feeling to go to sleep each night and awake each morning feeling so alone and so helpless, with no help in sight. But let’s forget about my problems, because they are mine to deal with, and if I am big enough to have a family, then I need to be big enough to figure out how to make it.
My kids did nothing wrong. They were born into my family and with much siyata diShmaya they are raised in a happy home and are happy children, even without most of what they see others have. Yet, they have no idea how they did in school last year because I cannot get their report cards, since my tuition bill is still not paid.
Can I say I was “forced” to sign that tuition agreement last year? I was not forced to, because I could have always chosen a different school, right? Did I sign it because I felt I had no choice and hoped Hashem would send me the extra matanah to be able to pay it? Yes, I did. Did it happen? Nope.
I cannot get report cards for last year. I cannot get registration papers for this year, because on top of the tuition I already owe, I also have to pay a registration fee every year for each of my seven children. I cannot get my child’s diploma (its three years already that I am waiting for it), because I still have a balance for my child who graduated that I cannot seem to find the funds for. I cannot get transcripts or credits for the same reason, so my son in 5th year bais medrash cannot go to school without his credits.
Anyone reading Matzav care for me to continue?
What in the world am I supposed to do? My child in high school still does not know if she passed her Regent exam or needs to retake the course, because the school will not tell me this information or give me her report card, since it is all they have to hold against me to get me to pay the tuition money they are so sure I have hidden somewhere. They believe I am just playing hardball with them. My daughter also never got her papers to choose which friends she would like to be with as she enters her new school year, because I didn’t pay my obligation, since I am hiding all of my money from the school.
Boruch Hashem a million times over, my kids don’t hate me for letting them down, but they sure do feel bad that they have no idea when school starts and are too embarrassed to call their friends to get all of the school info they need.
My wife tries to go shopping with friends who have children in our own children’s classes so she can just buy the same school supplies she sees the other mothers buying, since we did not get our school supply list.
Shall I continue?
I truly feel bad for the schools, because they need this money to pay their bills. I don’t have it and I have exhausted every option – family, friends and gemachs – I know of just to keep my own home from being taken by the bank and for putting food on my table. I make too much to qualify for Medicaid and food stamps, but way too little to support my family and get health insurance. I don’t go on any vacation, even just for a night to get away. (My wonderful in-laws offered my wife and me a two-day, one-night get-away to some place in the Catskills where we can drive to, and they said they will pay for it and watch our kids. My amazing wife turned it down not because we didn’t need or want it, but because she is afraid to go since the schools will tell us that we managed to get away for a small vacation, so we must be able to pay our tuitions.
25 years of marriage. 0 vacations.
My letter can be signed by hundreds of hardworking parents who are going through the same issue. What do we do? We cry. We daven. We do everything we can, yet the feeling you get looking into your child’s eyes and seeing their disappointment and realizing that your child is being punished or held hostage or whatever you want to call it all because of your inability to make ends meet is just so heartbreaking.
Somebody out there, somewhere, somehow, for the thousands of us worldwide who are suffering, please come up with a solution.
A Heartbroken Father – from matzav.com
I would love it if someone could give me a solution, it’s easy for everyone to tell this guy to move to a cheaper city, but let’s face it leaving your hometown for some strange city doesn’t guarantee a well paying job. Out of town isn’t necessarily cheaper and moving – costs money that people in this situation tend not to have. The public school option never took off, people claim that if all the frum folks sent their kids to public school, the state would reconsider vouchers (which I don’t support) However, no one in the frum community has enough balls to pull off such a stunt, especially when they’re worried about shidduchim trivialities like if someone’s great aunt was divorced and wore pants.
People still think if they all signed their kids up for public school, the state would give them vouchers? Really? This sounds like a dream from a Sholom Aleichem story… in which the protagonist dreams to blot out the misery of his own existence. But keep dreaming!
If people all signed their kids up for public school the state would …
… give them an education.
That would be … a problem … for some of these parents. They are sending their kids to yeshiva in order to keep them from getting a modern, secular education with kofir subjects like science, history, math and English.
This guy’s problem is that he’s irresponsible, and worse, his irresponsibility is encouraged by his community.
He’s borrowing money to put food on the table? Then why did he have seven kids? Was he rich, and then lost his job? That would be one thing. But if he had the kids without the means to support them, that is irresponsible. Then, on top of having too many kids for his income, he’s trying to send them all to expensive private schools. Public schools are free.
> The public school option never took off, people claim that if all the frum folks sent their kids to public school, the state would reconsider vouchers
No, they probably wouldn’t, but if everyone sent their kids to public schools, the schools in frum neighborhoods would have mostly frum kids.
I must disagree that he was irresponsible in having 7 children.
Your typical frum person – at least your typical Matzav reader and writer – doesn’t take birth control without asking a rav. I haven’t yet met the rav (in the Matzav community) who gives a heter for birth control for financial reasons.
I think he’s irresponsible for being Hareidi.
I haven’t asked many chareidim, but I think a good number use some form of birth control. Families would typically have 14 kids instead of 7, if they weren’t using BC. Heck – I have a friend who was infertile for the first 3 years of marriage, and used birth control between kids – and still has 9 kids! (yes, nine)
HOWEVER, I think a lot of people choose to have 5-8 kids because of social pressure. It’s not OK to be stuck at 4 (for financial reasons or other reasons) when your little sister or your sister-in-law is working on #6.
Sure they use birth control, but for the most part, the only acceptable reasons for going on BC is because the mother – never the father – is overwhelmed and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
i agree – he was just following the norms of his community. But it’s still irresponsible.
Any community which says that adults have to refer all their important life decisions to a religious leader is not serving its members well. It reduces them to lifelong dependent children and does not allow them to become fully-functional adults.
Why even get stuck on the number of children? This is a very real issue even with 3 kids.
Yes, if someone has 3 kids and they can’t afford that many, that’s also irresponsible. If someone has one kid they can’t afford, that’s irresponsible. But a middle-class income will usually cover 3 kids, but won’t cover 7.
Ah the age old “help I’m trying to decide between yeshiva and hunger” I don’t understand how starving your kids to give them a cruddy education they could get at home for free is cause for another frum crisis.
The crisis is the frum community’s insastance that public education and homeschooling are evil.
“Did I sign it because I felt I had no choice and hoped Hashem would send me the extra matanah to be able to pay it? Yes, I did.”
There’s your problem right there. Please learn the difference between having bitachon and being foolish. If you are stretched to the breaking point, insisting on private schooling is irresponsible.
I noticed a heated debate on Facebook last week on this topic. It seems like most people felt that if they sent their kids to public school the kids would go OTD.
https://www.facebook.com/meilechmandel/posts/10201690892291560
Which I always find funny, because the kids who grew up in Rochester and went to public school are way frummer and well adjusted than those who went to public school instead.
What I found funny was the argument that everyone who went to public school in the ’30s and ’40s went frei. Well, sure, they went frei, but so did everyone in Europe who was in cheder, so I think no one should go to cheder anymore.
You know when my father went to Ner Yisroel in the 50’s, they went to public school during the day and learned at night, how far we’ve come.
I don’t usually read Fink’s blog – is he always that hard line? He didn’t seem to be.
Actually he’s quite liberal, hence the people saying he’s got to cool it down if he ever wants another Rabinical position.
I’m with G*3. What we face is not a tuition crisis, but an ignorance crisis.
Much like Rashi’s explanation of the eishes yefas to’ar leading to a firstborn from a scorned primary wife that inevitably culminating in the ben sorer u’moreh, the shidduch crisis, the tuition crisis and the off-the-derech crisis — arguably, the three main issues facing 21st century Orthodox Judaism — are inter-related and largely dependent upon one another.
The way I see it, the shidduch crisis is a result of misguided ideals in dating. The tuition crisis is generally a result of poor choices made in the shidduch process. And the off-the-derech crisis — both the adults-at-risk and the adolescents-at-risk segments — is really nothing more than a partial jettison of poorly-understood or weakly-maintained values.
Learning boys may make great learning husbands, but they often do not make good learning breadwinners. Does anyone think it’s a good idea to have 16 children with a combined family income below $400,000.00? Simple math then dictates that having 4 children with a combined family income of less than $100,000 is also not a good idea — and this calculation is ignoring variables that don’t change based on how many kids one has. Feel free to maintain proportions and re-calculate for your own situation.
Then we get the adults who are stuck in this dizzying labyrinth of small income-to-expenses ratio and they want out. But they’re stuck. So they phase out. And the kids sense that dad or mom are faking it, or that they’re poor because that’s what’s consistent with religion, and they want out, too.
So quit writing essays asking others to help you sort it all out. You were reckless while others were not.
My community has a foundation that ensures pretty much every kid whose parent wants them in a Jewish school can go. And, it doesn’t hurt to know the rabbi who serves as their adviser. On the other hand, the public schools here are better than the Jewish K-8 schools. Additionally, its cheaper to pay for supplemental Jewish materials and tutors than to send them to a Jewish school. I see no point in breaking the bank when they can have the best of both worlds while spending less. Our kids are proud, committed Jews who take sack lunch it and cut class on the holidays. So? We do have a pretty good Jewish high school in the Torah u’Maddah vein that has college prep as a main pillar of its agenda. We’ll see.
Oh, and we also stopped at 2. My wife’s uterus isn’t a communal concern….
new reason for the shidduch crisis it has nothing to do with age gap or more boys than girls.
http://thepartialview.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-shidduch-crisis-is-not-result-of.html
I read your link, it does not make any sense.