OU announces contest on day school affordability

You have a solution on curbing astronomic day school tuition? Send it to the Orthodox Union. This week the national organization challenged schools and communities to come up with “innovative and replicable solutions to address day school affordability,” offering challenge grants ranging between $50,000 to $150,000 for up to three-years to implement the winning plan.

“The OU believes we must support efforts that challenge the status quo and develop innovative approaches to address the affordability challenge through experimentation with different revenue and cost control models,” said Yehuda Neuberger, chair of the OU’s Tuition Affordability Task Force. In Neuburger’s words, the contest is intended to “catalyze new community thinking, encourage thinking out of the box, develop ideas which have broad communal support, that can be implemented and likely replicated in other communities.”

The rising cost of Jewish education is a top concern for OU President Dr. Simcha Katz, who took office in January. “There is no question that one of the most daunting challenges facing Jewish communities in North America is the high cost of living an Orthodox lifestyle,” Katz wrote. “Particularly in these difficult economic times, when so many are either unemployed or underemployed, the financial demands seem overwhelming.”

Katz argues that the leading expense in most Orthodox households is tuition. “Consider a family with four children earning $200,000 a year. Only 3.5 percent of Americans earn more, and yet such families are having difficulty paying tuition bills that typically exceed their mortgage obligations!”