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Beginning the school search process is a lot of fun. Those beautiful photographs of tree-lined campuses and sports activities, the candid shots of classroom scenes portraying kind, patient teachers, the history of the school and its many accomplishments over the years, as well as all those famous graduates - it is all very impressive. So, you list the schools you want to examine in greater detail. At this point in your school search process, the question that I posed in the title of this article begins to surface.

I can hear you wondering how you will compare schools objectively when the costs seem so different from one school to the next. One boarding school charges $56,000 for tuition, room and board, while another school in the same state lists its tuition, room and board as $28,000. Why do some schools cost so much and some cost so little?

Boarding schools

Your costs for schools that charge the most for their services range from $45,000 to $65,000. These schools are residential schools or what we commonly call boarding schools. As well as charging for tuition and related expenses, these schools must bill for room and board. You will notice that some schools offer two types of boarding arrangements. One is the customary seven-day-a-week boarding; the other is a five-day boarding scheme where the students reside at the school during the week and return home on the weekends. The five-day boarding scheme costs less than the seven-day version. It

Vouchers have been a fact in American private school education since 1989 when the State of Wisconsin passed a voucher program which aimed to help students from low income families in Milwaukee. Since then 39 voucher programs have been set up. According to the the following states now have some form of voucher program:

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Florida
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• Utah
• Virginia
• Wisconsin

Vouchers

What exactly are vouchers? The simplest definition is using public funds to pay for a private school education. Voucher programs take many forms and we will look at those later in this article.

How many students nationwide benefit from voucher programs? In 2014 were recipients of some kind of tax dollars in voucher programs or variations thereof. That is 0.006% of the K-12 public school student population which was approximately 50 million at the beginning of the 2014 school year. The actual expenditure is in the millions of dollars which like the number of students in voucher programs is tiny.

What is the future of voucher programs? As of 2015 voucher programs are state-sponsored, state-managed and state-funded programs. Some politicians, however, would like to see federal funds used for . Why? Because their constituents are disatisfied with underperforming public schools.

What does the public education community think about vouchers? Needless to say, voucher programs in all their forms and variations are complete anathema to the teachers unions and the supporters of public education.

You and I can understand the average cost of tuition of private schools as detailed in ²ÝÁñÉçÇø School Review by being aware of a couple of factors. We will take a look at those factors and also show you how the cost of a private K-12 education varies from region to region. That way, if you have to move from one location to another, you will have a general idea of what to expect as far as your private school expenses go.

We will begin with a look at how the cost of elementary schools compares with schools offering high school grades.

Costs subsidized by religious organizations

Let's examine one reason why average tuition costs can be less in one area than in another. That has to do with the number of religious schools included in the statistics. I am not being negative here. Just factual. Faith-based schools, be they Roman Catholic, Jewish or Christian, or any other religion, tend to be subsidized by their religious organizations. For example, a temple that establishes an elementary school will do so to serve its congregation in the first instance and then as an outreach to the wider Jewish community in the second instance. The tuition generally will be discounted for families who are members of the temple. This practice is similar to how state universities charge less for students who are state residents as opposed to students who are from out of state.

This video offers an overview of

Comparing private school tuitions from one school to another is in so many ways the classic apples to oranges comparison. Why? Because each private school is unique. Each school has its own expenses and sources of revenue. But the variables implicit in the calculation of tuition cost are what drive the numbers. Income and expenses are unique in the same way each private school is unique. With that apples to oranges analogy in mind let's look behind the numbers we see on Average ²ÝÁñÉçÇø School Tuition Cost here on ²ÝÁñÉçÇø School Review.

Understanding tuition

In its simplest form tuition is the amount of money that a school charges for educating your child. Tuition is revenue or income on the school's balance sheet. This is the dollar figure which a school has to charge per student in order to offset all the many and varied expenses of running the school.

To arrive at the amount to charge per student the school has to add up all of its expenses. From that total, it subtracts any income from investments, endowments, and gifts. That net expense is what our tuition charges must offset. To remain viable a school simply must balance its budget. It cannot spend more than it takes in. If it does, it will soon go out of business.

The number of students for which a school has places is the next part of the calculation. For example, if you only have places for 350 students and your

Opinion

²ÝÁñÉçÇø school vouchers are available in one form or another in thirteen states and the District of Columbia. That being so, I wondered whether schools which accept vouchers are subject to state regulations over and above what they normally would be subject to. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a useful which allows you and me to compare the various programs.

Background

Currently thirteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws which provide scholarships for students meeting specific conditions so they can attend private school. These scholarships are generally referred to as vouchers. Do these private school voucher programs give parents' the choices they desire? Do private schools' give up their most cherished feature, namely, their independence? How are these programs working? What results are they achieving?

John Stoessel and others make the case for vouchers.

Most voucher programs have good intentions. They seek to give parents options in a specific set of circumstances. Sometimes the state voucher law is written to give vouchers to students with a learning disability. Other laws are written with low-income families in mind. Interestingly enough there seem to very few conditions which the private schools accepting vouchers have to meet. If the school merely accepts students without being concerned as to the source of their funding, the school apparently does not have to sacrifice any of its