Tuition

Introducing Our Sliding Scale Tuition Policy: Furthering Our Commitment to Diversity

When we launched Abrome, we endeavored to tear down the practices and structures of schooling that harm children and society. However, we knew that simply removing testing, homework, standardized curriculum, grades, age segregation, and other hierarchical practices would be insufficient. Emancipated Learning requires more than just the absence of coercion and hierarchy, it requires a supportive community of free individuals who embrace opportunities for learning and growth. In order to cultivate such a community, we must be fully committed to diversity.

Diversity of experiences open up opportunities for leaps in learning and understanding that cannot be provided through lectures or textbooks. Diversity of thought is a catalyst for creativity and innovation. Exposure to diversity amplifies empathy and inspires people to take action to address the ills of society. But diversity is difficult to incorporate into alternative, private, or progressive schools that rely on tuition paying students to fund their operations.

At Abrome, we planned to generously leverage scholarships to promote diversity and offset the cost of attendance for families that could not pay the full price of tuition. However, we received feedback from multiple families that our listed tuition discouraged them from investigating Emancipated Learning. Further, in speaking with other alternative and progressive school leaders throughout the country, we learned that the scholarship model of tuition assistance resulted in a "barbell" effect in which there were plenty of high income families, and some economically disadvantaged families, but not many in between. Finally, full-pay families sometimes gain considerable influence over school affairs whereas many scholarship families feel as though they are imposters in a privileged environment.

Wanting to ensure that all families who would benefit from the Abrome learning environment were encouraged to apply, we decided to review our tuition policy. We wanted our tuition policy to be inclusive of all families across the socioeconomic spectrum, promote the egalitarian belief that every child can lead a remarkable life, and eliminate social hierarchy among families based on their cost of attendance.

Effective immediately, we are implementing a new sliding scale tuition policy that eliminates the categories of "scholarships" and "financial aid," and replaces it with an income and resources based method of determining tuition for each family. While affluent families will still be expected to pay the maximum tuition, families with fewer financial resources will pay a smaller, but equitable, percentage of their income. The minimum annual tuition is $600 (or $50 per month). 

Sliding scale tuition policies are not typical among private schools, but they do exist. This policy is sometimes called “indexed tuition” or “flexible tuition,” and the degree to which schools graduate the expected tuition payments varies greatly. Perhaps the most notable example of a sliding scale tuition model is that of the Manhattan Country School which was adopted in 1970. Today, MCS has broad economic diversity and no racial majority, rarities in the private school education space.

Abrome seeks to provide an environment for learning and growth, whereby students are introduced to, welcome, embrace, and celebrate differences. Diversity is essential to that end. And our new sliding scale tuition policy demonstrates our commitment to cultivating such a space.

The Private School Tuition Criticism

American society has been trained to believe that schools are necessary vehicles of education. Without school, it is believed, one would not learn to read, write, find a job, or stay employed. And if we accept that schools are necessary for success in life, then we are left to ask, how would people of lesser means ever compete in a capitalist society without the benefit of schooling? The misguided conclusion that comes through generations of people being subjected to a monopolized and compulsory schooling system is that we need schools, and that those schools must be publicly funded.

This morning, a critic of alternative education reminded me that Abrome charges tuition, and lots of it. This was meant to be a trump card that should somehow lead to the false conclusion that we (and other alternatives to traditional school) are undermining education in society.[1] More specifically, this critic wanted me to blindly accept that the current institution of public schooling was inherently good for society, and that the real problems are that we criticize coercive schooling too much, and “white, wealthy parents” refuse to leave their children in district public schools (meaning they refuse to invest their children into the system to try to make public schools better, as opposed to investing in education for their children).

I cannot accept that the current institution of public schooling is an inherently good thing for society. As I have pointed out in the past, traditional schooling hurts students, their families, and society. Traditional schooling is inherently bad because it introduces coercion and illegitimate authority into the lives of children, it harms the current and future happiness and health of children, and it undermines the learning process. The practices and structures of traditional schooling were put in place for a variety of reasons, the bulk of which were nefarious (e.g., producing compliant industrial workers and obedient soldiers, promoting nationalism, destroying marginalized or oppressed cultures, sorting students to determine which ones received resources and opportunities, preserving class privilege, entrenching racial hierarchies). When the effects and history of schooling are highlighted to alternative education critics, they tend to double down on the funding mechanism of alternative schools as their proof of the superiority of traditional, public schooling.

Attacking progressive schools for charging tuition is an unfortunate but common tactic of alternative education critics. Like public schools, progressive schools need to be able to pay the bills (e.g., a living wage for educators, rent, utilities). How can anyone take seriously a public school advocate who believes that private schools should not be charging tuition, while also not being publicly funded? Their argument is less about funding and more about existence; they simply do not want viable alternatives to exist.

The one point this critic made that had some merit is that tuition-charging private schools are not an option for all families. But this critic took that to mean that unless every child has access to the same options, then no alternative options should exist. We fully agree that tuition charging private schools are not universally available to all students, but a non-coercive public school option is not available to any, much less all students. We acknowledge that there are disparities in access to educational options according to socioeconomic status (and geography). But because those disparities manifest themselves in both public and private traditional schools, it is left to progressive educators and radical communities to create alternatives in the here and now.

Abrome greatly values diversity within our learning space. Diversity strengthens the learning environment by way of promoting tolerance and empathy, increasing creativity and innovation, and reducing bullying. And we consider socioeconomic considerations to be central to our diversity efforts. Therefore, our full-pay families subsidize the cost of attendance for our lower SES families. But while alternative school critics feign indignation over our sticker price, they also make clear that even a $1 tuition would be too much, because they believe that giving “white parents of means” an alternative to coercive schooling is the reason public schools are not working.

While economic barriers to self-directed learning environments are unfortunate, it is worth pointing out that there would be no need for tuition funded alternative education options such as Abrome if public schools were non-coercive.[2] In fact, there are plenty of alternative education advocates who believe in public education, just not coercive public education.[3] But the only thing these critics seem to take offense to more than school tuition is the notion of self-directed learning. Perhaps that is because a belief in the need for publicly funded, coercive, compulsory schooling requires a belief in the superiority of those who work within the institution of schooling over what they believe are ignorant and incompetent children.

For those alternative school critics who argue that cost of tuition is problematic, I encourage them to expand their understanding of cost. The current cost of coercive schooling is a society that is filled with unhappy children and intellectually dead adults. A society that is deferential to authority and disdainful of those abused by authority. A society unwilling to learn from the past, live in the moment, or prepare for a complicated future. There is a mental health cost to coercive schooling, and it is paid in part through youth depression and suicide. There is an opportunity cost to coercive schooling, where young people forfeit their childhood and their future in order to participate in a race to nowhere. There is a social welfare cost to coercive schooling, where low SES families and people of color are repeatedly told that they are inferior, and where affluent, white families are convinced that they have a cultural or genetic right to the advantages that society unjustly provides them.[4] When all the costs of coercive schooling are compared to the tuition costs of progressive schooling, it becomes clear that coercive schooling is the one that produces a deadweight loss to society.

One final note: we do not criticize coercive schooling too much, but we are working on it.

 

1.  Although we are not undermining education in society, we hope to undermine the status quo of coercive schooling.

2.  Even the poorest families can provide their children with self-directed learning environments via homeschooling, unschooling, and cooperatives.

3.  We believe in voluntary, community education; not government funded, monopolized, compulsory education.

4.  It is ironic that the people who recognize the privilege that rich white families have in society are unable to acknowledge that the institution of coercive schooling compounds that privilege.

 

 

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