By: Mason Rosse
Being new to this school, I’ve seen a lot of similarities between this school and my last one. One of these is the classic private school tuition joke when I hear someone comment on how we should have better this or better that because the school’s tuition is so high. Even though it was a joke, it sparked a simple question: where does the school tuition go? I decided to investigate. To do this, I talked to Josh Marks, CFO (Chief Financial Officer) at LREI. Marks explained a couple main ideas before getting into the specifics. The school is a nonprofit, meaning that any money the school gets goes back into the school, not to shareholders. All the money from tuition goes into teachers’ salaries, school supplies, financial aid, and many more categories that will be explained later. If there is influx cash from donations or benefits, it goes into a bank account and is saved for future projects, such as the remodeling of the high school happening now.
Balancing the school’s budget requires expert maneuvering to account for each year’s needs. Of course, there’s some room for unexpected changes, but most of the numbers are very specific. Currently, at LREI, salaries and benefits take up 63% of the budget. Financial aid, the second largest part of the budget, uses 19%. The remainder is allocated as follows: 15% to educational and administrative costs, 2% in debt service, 1% in the reserve fund, and less than 1% for Irwin Scholars. The extra room in the budget comes from the reserve fund and pays for one time expenses (repairs, field trips, etc.). These numbers are from last year, and all of the percentages came from a total gross (cash coming in) of 29 million dollars. The high school brings in 40% of the gross, meaning around 11 million dollars was paid to the high school in tuition last year. A fun fact is that the Thompson Street Gym costs $355,000 a year to rent and even that is cheap for a year of good rental space. So while the school costs a lot, every cent is used to make the school the best place possible.