Increasing cost of private Catholic schools

Private education is a choice for families. Parents decide whether or not it is worth their money to send their children to a private school or university. As seniors, we are all familiar with the costs between public and private universities. However, recently, this form of private education has widened the gap between the upper class and the middle/lower classes. This growing inequality could have many consequences.

Back in the early to mid 1900s, Catholic schools were established for the purpose of providing education to middle and lower class students. However, since the 1970s, the number of these schools declined due to decreasing number of clergy and various scandals, such as sexual abuse. As a result, the tuition for these schools have heavily increased in the past decade. For example, the average tuition for a Catholic private elementary school today is $5,858, and this is five times more than the average tuition back in 1970.

As a result, this increasing cost has caused a major gap in communities. Around 10% of children in the US has chosen private education for decades. However, what has changed is the demographic of that percentage; while more rich families, typically white, choose to stay in private schools, less wealthier families cannot because of their financial situation. Research shows that the students who attend private Catholic schools tend to perform better on standardized tests on math, which indicates that students who want a better or more specialized education may not be able to because of their parents' income.There is definitely a difference in the public and private school systems, and who benefits from which is heavily based off wealth.


Sources

https://www.educationnext.org/who-goes-private-school-long-term-enrollment-trends-family-income/
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/07/why-private-schools-are-becoming-more-elite/566144/

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 20, 2019 at 12:58 AM

    The increasing cost in Catholic private schools seems to match the overall trend in education of increasing prices. Higher education has also been on the rise for the past few decades, with the cost increasing faster than inflation. Even the public schools, which are inherently supposed to be more accessible than some of the elite private schools, have their costs on the rise. I think another factor for the Catholic school price increases could be that people are valuing education more, and are willing to pay more for the same education. Schools are then able to take advantage of the decreasing elasticity of tuition and are responding by increasing prices.

    Source: https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-rates-growth-published-charges-decade

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 20, 2019 at 7:44 AM

      I agree! I think one could even go as far to say that this trend is happening not only within the middle school, high school and elementary school communities but also the colleges.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousApril 20, 2019 at 6:50 AM

    My step-mom and her siblings all actually went to Catholic private school as kids but they were likely some of the poorest kids in their town. Nowadays it seems that families like them would not be able to afford modern catholic schools. Fortunately however it seems most public schools have improved in quality of education to meet or even exceed education offered at private institutions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 20, 2019 at 11:32 PM

    It's interesting that you bring this up; the cost of private schools now are actually quite high, as most of them have a higher tuition than any of the UC school tuitions (in-state). Looking at the most expensive private school's tuition alone, Harker, their cost for ONE year ($51k) matches the tuition of a UC school for FOUR years. I've also heard that at private schools, there is a lot more grade inflation, as everyone has higher GPAs to up the rates for students getting into colleges.

    https://www.harker.org/admission/tuition-financial-aid

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Cost of Inelastic Goods

Image
Many goods that are inelastic in terms of demand are ones that are essential or, in other words, necessary to one's self. There are several examples: basic foods, gasoline, or even medicine. I was interested in how producers can manipulate the prices of these goods and how the total revenue can change over time because those goods are inelastic. The first example I thought of was insulin. Considered inelastic because, without it, those who are diabetic might physically suffer, I looked at the price trends in the past couple of years. Just as I predicted, the price has been rising dramatically in the past decade or so as producers are taking advantage of the consumers' essential need for this good. There are about 7.4 million Americans that use insulin and many struggle to pay the costs of this increasingly expensive drug. So, while rising prices benefit insulin manufacturers, those same prices come at a serious cost for patients as the demand for insulin is inelastic. Other...
Read more

The Economics and Psychology of Gambling

Image
As gambling around the world continues to increase, governments are starting to see these often self-destructive habits as a way to get money from their residents. Gambling has been seen as immoral and manipulative on the part of casinos, as well as pitiful on the parts of the people that gamble all their money away. It is seen as immoral and a “lazy way” to make money that isn’t even assured to get you anything. So what keeps bringing people back to the card table or slot machine? There are many theories about why someone would continuously gamble any money that they make to the point of landing themselves in debt. In many cases, the gamiling becomes an addiction, though many professionals have reservations on calling it that, that gets increasingly hard to kick. It is irrational for someone to continuously lose money and keep going back only to lose more. Or is it? The utility that some get out of gambling may feel like spending the money is worth it. As far as recreational ...
Read more

The Hidden Monopolies of the World

 Monopolies are all around us in the world, and not all of them are  obvious on the surface level like Google and Facebook. For example, you might be searching for hotel rooms and browse multiple "competing" sites like Travelocity, Trivago, or Hotel.com. What you most likely do not know however, is that all three websites are actually all owned by the same company; Expedia group. This illusion of free choice is used to hide the fact that Expedia essentially hold a monopoly over the industry and all hotel bookings actually go through them. These fake competitors which are all owned by Expedia Group controls 75% of the US online travel agency industry, Similarly, apple fans and Microsoft fans stubbornly stick to their respective brands of computers; not knowing that the laptops all come from the same Chinese manufacturer. Throughout all types of industries such as the ones listed earlier and others such as smartphones, supermarkets, beer, and even sunglasses, hidden parent co...
Read more