Public middle and high schools are generally free in the U.S and that goes a long way into helping parents save money. Although it is true, there are other costs related to public education that are exponentially increasing. These costs cater to covering the necessary costs to procure textbooks and partake in extracurricular activities.
The case of rising costs of education is worse when considering the private educational institutions around this country. Some parents prefer these schools to teach their children because of the smaller classes, which makes it easier for the kids to understand concepts faster and easier. Those institutions have increasingly higher costs than the public schooling system.
Why have these costs risen over the years? Here are a few reasons for the rise in the costs of education.
Public schooling system
The public schooling system is free but there are fees that still need to be paid to take care of certain expenses. The expenses are mostly for the material that is going to be used like textbooks, technological developments in schools, classroom supplies, physical education, and other related costs. Textbooks, for example, have increasingly become more expensive and due to that, the fees charged by the schools have also had increments.
To address the matter of economically disadvantaged families failing to pay for their children’s education, there are certain fee waivers that apply to them. The fees get waived when the family is homeless or otherwise economically disadvantaged.
Some students have even opted to sell textbooks that they used in previous years to make some income. BooksRun.com allows students to buy and sell books with buyback facility and also offer great discounts from time-to-time. That has helped some students get textbooks at a lesser price or rent ebooks if they need it for a short period of time.
Extracurricular activities
In public schools, the fees also increase when the child is engaged in extracurricular activities. Children shouldn’t be discouraged to choose an extracurricular activity because it helps them improve their cover letter for college placements. The costs range across different prices, dependent on what activity the child is engaged with.
It could be drama, sports or debate and these activities may require traveling to other schools and its respective equipment. The prices of fuel have increased exponentially over the years, and this has been one of the causes for the rise of fees related to extracurricular activities. It is important that parents set apart some money for their children’s chosen extracurricular activities.
Private schooling system
The private schooling system is independent of the government and thus doesn’t receive federal grants and financial aid like public schools. The fees for attending these independent schools are usually very high. It ranges between $5,000 to $35,000. Factors that are considered in the decision of pricing the fees include the number of students in each class.
The location and school’s reputation also factor into that decision but the fees payable by the parents have increased very much, why is that? The reason is that the majority of the fees go to paying the teachers their monthly salaries. As the costs of living increase, the salaries are bound to also, which effectively affects the fees.
Boarding school
Boarding schools for students in the U.S can cost anything between $20,000 to $75,000 and sometimes even more. The reason behind that is quite clear - there is more money needed to take care of the students.
They have their meals at the boarding dormitories allocated to them and use lights and water from the school. The fees constantly increase because they have to have a contingency plan for whenever there are inflation and other financial emergencies. To ensure that there is enough, parents have to pay more for their children.
