Financial Aspects

The number of organizations offering scholarships for private school students is limited. In addition to the list of organizations below you should also check to see if your state has and Scholarship Funding Organizations. Apptoximately 14 states have SFOs. Most admissions officers will be able to advise you about scholarships available in your area.

• Abell Foundation, Inc. (MD)
• BASIC Fund (CA)
• Bay Area Scholarships for Inner-City Children Fund
• Baltimore Educational Scholarship Trust
• A Better Chance
• BISON Scholarship Fund (New York)
• Black Student Fund (DC)
• Capital Partners For Education (DC)
• Catholic Schools Foundation (Massachusetts)
• Children's Scholarship Fund (TX)
• Commonweal Foundation (MD)
• The Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation (Chicago)
• The Denver Foundation
• The Independent Scholarship Fund
• Inner-City Scholarship Fund (Boston)
• Inner-City Scholarship Fund (New York)
• Latino Student FunD (DC)
• LINK UnlimiteD (Chicago)
• Maine Community Foundation
• Office of Navajo Nation Scholarship & Financial Assistance
• New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
• Partners Advancing Values in Education (WI)
• Philadelphia Society of Friends
• Prep for Prep
• Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education
• Scholarship Fund for Inner-City Children (NJ)
• School CHOICE Scholarships, Inc. (KY)
• Shepherd Foundation (DC)
• Skillman Foundation (MI)
• Student/Partner Alliance (NJ)
• Tri-County Scholarship Fund (NJ)
• Vermont Student Opportunity Scholarships (VT)
• Washington Scholarship Fund
• Wight Foundation, Inc. (New Jersey)
• YES Opportunities, Inc.

Charter Schools
Is a charter school a private school? No. It is a public K-12 school. It receives public funding but operates without some of the arcane regulations most public schools must abide by. Read 10 Things To Know About Charter Schools. Charter schools can be found in most major urban areas. Some of them are well-run and funded adequately. Others have been a financial disaster. Charter schools tend to be small and have small class sizes.

Vouchers
The idea behind vouchers is to give lower income families an alternative to poorly performing public schools. Vouchers are a lightning rod in educational circles. Teachers unions universally despise them. Politicians avoid them. In places where voucher programs have taken hold, such as in Milwaukee and Cleveland, the response has been positive. The points of contention have to do with the use of public funds to pay parochial school fees and the diversion of public funds from public schools.

What vouchers are really all about is an attempt to provide some kind of school choice for parents with children in poorly performing public schools.

Tuition at private schools ranges from $5,000 a year for primary grades in a parochial schools to over $60,000 a year for boarding school. Like the wide range of private schools available, the costs vary greatly for several reasons. Sound management and healthy endowments are two major reasons some schools seem to be able to offer more for less.

Remember: American private schools receive no state funding, yet they must comply with all the laws and regulations which affect their daily operation. Retrofitting older buildings with new technologies, maintaining extensive physical plants, coping with soaring health and liability insurance, legal, and energy costs are just a few of the factors which come into play in determining tuition fees. While private schools are theoretically exempt from property taxes, most of them make substantial contributions to their local towns and cities to help offset the cost of maintaining police and fire protection. The overhead at a private school is enormous and complex with all the attendant impact on fees.

There are a host of ‘extras’ which also must be factored into the cost of an American private school education. Text book and academic material fees, sports fees, clothing, uniforms, transportation to and from school, application fees – the list seems endless. Most schools will provide a breakdown of the ‘extras’ for you upon request.

Financial Aid

Financial aid for expats is generally not available. The assumption is that your company will pay for your child’s education as part of your

You have just paid $45,000 for a year's tuition and fees at St. Sedgewick's. You are all set, right? Not exactly. What happens if your child suddenly takes sick before the end of the school year? What if circumstances beyond your control force you to withdraw her from school in March? What if he is expelled? In brief, you are obligated for the entire year's tuition and fees regardless of whether your child completes the year or not.

What Are My Options?

The only remedy you have is to sign up for the school's refund plan. It typically acts like insurance in the event that your child withdraws before end of year. The insurance plan will pay for the unused/remaining portion of your child's time at the school. You contracted to pay for an entire year when you signed the contract with the school at the time she was accepted. You do not want to be out of pocket. Neither does the school. This is why tuition refund insurance is an important part of your planning for a private school education. Tuition refund policies are in place at every private school regardless of whether it is day or boarding, large or small, elementary/nursery school or high school.

St. Mary's policy is the sort of thing you can expect at most schools:

"To minimize the loss to a family due to early departure or change in boarding status, Saint Mary’s School has established a Refund Plan. Under ordinary circumstances,

Private School May Be Free If You Make Less Than $100,000

Over the past two decades, private schools have developed very generous financial aid programs.

• This has happened for a variety of reasons.
• But the most compelling reason is that private schools want to diversify their student bodies.
• They want to attract academically well-qualified applicants whose families cannot afford the enormous expense of sending their children to private schools.

Generous financial aid programs are one way of helping schools achieve that goal.

Here's how Exeter describes why it offers the very generous financial aid it does:

"Socioeconomic diversity has been a characteristic of Phillips Exeter Academy from our founding. It's built into our ethic—to attract and teach 'youth from every quarter'—and it's crucial to the nature of our community and our classrooms."

St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, expresses its commitment to financial aid as follows:

"We are committed to making St. Paul’s an affordable option for families."

To honor this commitment, we will:

"Consider a household income of $80,000 per year or less as qualifying for full financial aid. Families with an annual income of less than $200,000 will not pay more than 10% of their income toward tuition per year."

Deerfield Academy explains its financial aid as follows:

“Deerfield’s commitment to affordability and access in the form of need-based financial aid is historic, deep, and central to its educational