Do not starve families out

Just because you've given a family enough aid to convince them to enroll doesn't mean you have given them enough to survive. It is essential for a school to budget tuition aid adequate to enable families to pay without sabotaging their family's financial health.

A good, workable percentage for a financially healthy family to spend on tuition is around 5%. If tuition represents more than 5% of their budget, they must cut somewhere to fit you in. There's a typical protocol for how families cut, but they usually begin by cutting retirement or savings.

If your aid package is such that they're forced to cut on essentials, or if your aid package pushes them too close to the limit, then eventually something will happen that requires them to take tuition money and pay something else. At that point it's just a matter of time before they are forced to leave.

Feel free to contact us for a copy of "Tuition Aid and Financial Health." In this white paper you will learn line-by-line what happens to a family's budget when they enroll in your school.

Help Families Find Additional Income

It is not unusual for a school to not have enough tuition aid money to help all families to the extent that they need help.

Many schools have addressed this problem by reserving part time employment opportunities within the school for applicant families. At least, give them a hiring priority. There are numerous jobs that could be reserved for these families, such as: housekeeping, teacher's aid, maintenance, kitchen, bus driver, special school projects, or special maintenance projects.

Schools can also minister to these families by developing a system for keeping tabs on part time employment opportunities within the community. There are many ways to do this. One suggestion is to ask either your church families or your school families to complete a form that tells you about opportunities they are aware of, along with a contact person and phone number.

You will need to be diligent to keep these up to date, asking for these referrals on a regular basis. These can be posted on your website for any family needing a little extra income to view.