Tuition Chokehold: The conversation continues 

Our cover story, Opening the Books in Issue 1030, about how today’s frum schools are collapsing under historic deficits while families are buckling under unprecedented tuition bills, drew vigorous and passionate feedback, Here is a sampling:

Are We Aiming High Enough?

› Jonah (Yoni) Halper, MPA, president of ALTRUICITY and author of Date your Donors

Back in February, Mrs. Ruth Gottesman, former professor and the 93-year-old widow of a Wall Street financier, made a stunning $1 billion gift to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, ensuring that current and future medical school students will never have to pay tuition again.

A remarkable achievement, and one that raises a question for us: Why don’t we see gifts of that magnitude in the world of yeshivah education? What makes our yeshivahs and day schools different?

Is our mission less important? Are our fundraisers not as skilled? Do our donors not have the capacity to give large gifts?

In truth, the issue is, in most cases, much more fundamental: we aren’t thinking big enough. Instead of setting ambitious goals that can inspire significant donations, we tend to stick to incremental improvements, like slowly increasing the payroll or covering basic operating costs. But as your article explained, these aren’t the kinds of goals that excite donors to make transformative contributions.