Until last month, the Ramaz School had plans to build a 355-foot mixed-use tower with 18 floors of luxury condominiums atop a newly built Lower School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a project with a lofty budget of $60 million. But at the end of September, as the real estate and stock markets plummeted and the government proposed a $700 billion bailout of the financial system, Ramaz quietly cancelled its building plans, choosing instead to modestly renovate its existing building. “In the current economic situation, even if we were successful in raising the funds for a building ... it would not be appropriate for these economic times,” Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, senior rabbi at Ramaz, told The Jewish Week. “Our funds have to
>
be used to help middle-class families who cannot afford the rising cost of a Jewish education,” Rabbi Lookstein continued. “That’s what we’re going to fundraise for.” Kenneth Rochlin, director of institutional advancement at Ramaz, agreed, noting that scrapping the building plans was directly correlated to the state of the economy. “We should be focusing [money] on people, specifically children,” he said. “We need to educate and not spend on bricks and mortar.” While it is still too soon to predict the end results of the current crisis, administrators at many area day schools said that as parents who work on Wall Street and in other financial services have lost jobs or undergone salary cuts or loss of assets, requests for financial aid have spiked while some donors have already experienced a decline in their portfolios that might make fundraising difficult. Rochlin said that Ramaz has seen a rise in the number of financial aid requests, while fundraising for the annual campaign has been a challenge. Some of the school’s funders, he added, said that as their foundations’ assets have gone down in value they will either have to stay where they are or decrease their donations. Dennis Eisenberg, executive vice president at the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn, said his school was also feeling the impact of the recent financial downturn in terms of scholarships and fundraising. “We certainly had a rise in our tuition assistance program this year, by the number of families requesting and the amounts that were given,” said Eisenberg. The number of families receiving tuition assistance has risen from 371 two years ago to 412 this year, Eisenberg said. In all, 35 percent of the approximately 1,200 students receive financial aid. Eisenberg noted that tuition, which at many day schools is outpacing the rate of inflation, is already high and that “people who earn six-figure incomes still cannot afford to send” their children in some cases. The recent trends in day school tuition mirror an uptick in requests for financial aid for Jewish camping this past summer, when the UJA-Federation of New York alone increased its budget for overnight camping scholarships more than 25 percent, to $550,000 from $400,000. For Asher Abramovitz, principal at Kinneret Day School in Riverdale, the past weeks have seen parents hoping to transfer their children to his elementary school, which at $12,500 a year is a bargain in a city where tuition at the most expensive schools can top $30,000. “We are being flooded with phone calls from multiple parts of the city asking for space for next year,” he said. Abramowitz added that the frenzy might just be an immediate reaction that won’t result in a spike in applications next year. “Certainly you hear concern in people’s voices for what’s to come,” said Abramovitz. “People anticipate lesser income and thus already are trying to line up some kind of reduction or scholarship. It’s more based on what they think is coming down the pike than what’s happening right now.” He also said that since summer, donations to the school are coming in at a rate of about 10 percent less than usual. Administrators at several other area day schools noted to varying degrees that they were worried about the impact the economy will have on their financial aid and fundraising capabilities, but would not speak on the record about specific impact, citing that it is too early to assess. But Marvin Schick, an educational consultant for the Avi Chai Foundation, said a negative impact is already being felt, with fundraising down and requests for scholarships up in every school he has been in contact with in recent weeks. “Almost every school believes that what lies ahead is possibly going to be disastrous,” he said, noting that more schools than average might close this year due to the economy and that parents in less religious communities might choose to send their children to charter, public or other private schools instead of Jewish day schools. “The less Orthodox you get the more likelihood ... parents will say, ‘If we had the money we’d choose a Jewish school; now that we don’t have the money and face hardships, we’ll go in a different direction.” School administrators hope that whatever the economic climate, Jewish education will remain a priority. Rabbi Joshua Elkin, executive director of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, a national organization that works to strengthen day schools, said that in past recessions, day schools have proved resilient by maintaining strong relationships with donors and preparing to receive increased requests for financial aid. He also stressed the need for schools to think about alternative sources of income, like renting space out or running summer camp programs, all while maintaining an excellent day school program on which parents come to rely. Additionally, said Rabbi Elkin, schools can look to community endowment programs, an increasingly popular model where federations and other donors in communities band together to increase affordability and academic excellence. The MetroWest Day School Campaign, a recently started example of this growing source of funding, aims to allocate a total of $50 million to three New Jersey day schools. “For people in day schools, they are committed and will make a Herculean effort to make [schools] a part of their lives,” said Rabbi Elkin of the needs for communities and schools to see money as a quilt that can be stitched together from various sources. “Parents will stretch considerably to weather challenging times.” Eisenberg said at the Yeshivah of Flatbush it is “unfortunately common that people need relief in the middle of the year,” but that the school plans to work with families to ensure that students can stay in school and that donors continue to feel the obligation to support Jewish education. “We don’t want to lose kids to the public school system,” he said. “People shouldn’t feel stigmatized by having to apply for assistance,” he added of parents facing job losses or diminishing assets. “No donors have come to us and said that they can’t redeem their pledges, but it puts a larger onus on us to make the case. ... We’re going to be as aggressive as we can to making the case to those who can still afford Jewish education, but there’s no doubt that the economic crisis today will have an effect, I don’t want to minimize that.” Rochlin of Ramaz agreed that the current economy poses new questions that remain unanswered. “For many of the younger families who haven’t experienced this kind of a downturn before, people are having to ask for the first time for financial aid.” But he noted that the school would work to ensure that students aren’t turned away because of their family’s economic situation. “Yeshiva education at a time like this shouldn’t be the thing people stop,” he said. Staff writer Tamar Snyder contributed to this report.; E-mail: Carolyn@jewishweek.org
Print this Page
