The Hard Decision of Public Over Parochial - a guest post by Michelle Hughes

Recently, we decided that our children will attend public high school. We’d been discerning diligently for the past 7-8 months, but the hope of providing Catholic high school education to our children had been on our minds for even longer than that. There were many things we considered as we discerned. I’ve been able to compartmentalize them into three main categories: the expense; the extra-curricular opportunities (sports, clubs, etc); and the environment (Catholic and otherwise). Our comfort levels with different aspects of all of those were based on our experiences. Craig attended Catholic school all the way through high school. I attended Catholic school from grades 1 through 8. After that, I attended public high school.

For the purposes of this post, I am going to focus on the financial expense of providing a Catholic high school education. It seems, unfortunately, that Catholic high schools in most of our country have gone the way of being “Private Schools with Mass.” The tuition to attend the Catholic high school in my area is pretty close to what it costs to attend any other private high school in our city. It might be a little less expensive (by $1000-2000) but when you’re talking $10-12,000 per year, that’s not that much of a discount. Many families like mine – those who have accepted alarger-than-average amount of children, often expand the family beyond theability to provide Catholic education through high school. I’m not even going
to touch the college expense. My kids will know from the get-go that paying for college will be largely on them.

To hear many Church leaders (Priests, Bishops, etc) speak, you would think that the Catholic Church wants to provide a Catholic education to anyone who wants it. And I do think the desire is there. The problem is that a Catholic education is exclusive to those who can afford it, and sadly, many families cannot justify $10,000+/year tuition for four years for each kid in high school for a family the size of mine. I also know of families smaller than mine, for whom the Catholic education is out of reach. I know of families larger than mine that make it work, too. I think that’s great and God has blessed them abundantly for their sacrifice.

Our diocese is building a new Catholic high school about an hour southeast of where I live. I signed up to contribute to this effort. I made a 3-year-commitment of 1% of our take-home pay for this campaign. At the time, we were still thinking that our kids could perhaps attend Catholic high school. But now that the decision has been made to send them to public school, I can’t help but note the irony that I am helping pay for a new Catholic high school to which I can’t even afford to send my kids.

There has been much said to me and around me about the financial assistance available for Catholic high school, but the reality of the matter seems to be that there just isn’t that much to go around to everyone who needs it. Even if the first year was made doable, the following years could crush us financially, and once your kid has started going somewhere for high school, you really don’t want to move them, so we’d be stuck if we started…at least for our oldest. I’ve heard that endowments for the private schools in our city are much bigger than what is available at the local Catholic high school, which only puts added pressure on the finances (of both school and families).

One of the most familiar commentaries I have heard from older parishioners who have already put their children through Catholic high school is that it was worth the sacrifice. I have no doubt that if I were able to sacrifice a reasonable amount without hurting my family in the process, I
would also find the sacrifice to be worth it, edifying even. I understand that the people who encourage me to send my children to Catholic high school and “trust God” and that “it is all worth the sacrifice” mean well. For them, the sacrifice was doable. I don’t know what most people make, what their financial commitments are outside of Catholic high school tuition and all that stuff. Therefore, I can’t give an opinion on whether the sacrifice they made and what would be required of me would be similar or not. I can only speak to our situation and believe me when I tell you that the amount of money I was putting away simply for Catholic High school was preventing Club volleyball, guitar lessons, ballet, among other activities that I had wanted to provide my kids. I was looking down the road and seeing 16 years of nothing outside of school-related activities and tuition in the budget and I was getting down about not being able to provide some experiences for my kids that I think are important to their growth.

An additional consideration for a family like mine might be that we’d be able to provide Catholic high school for one, but not all of our children. Saving the money I was to put towards tuition – for as long as I was looking at having to do that – was putting our family into a delicate position should a job loss occur or any instance that could happen causing either my husband or me to be without an income for any period of time. I’m talking – beyond the emergency savings – how could we continue to provide this if some tragedy befell our family? And even if no tragedy befell us, but life happened and the amount we’d saved couldn’t measure up to what was required – what if we faced the possibility that our children could not continue at the Catholic high school and we provided for one and couldn’t provide for all? Plus we have spaced our children to the extent that we will be paying for preschool for our youngest during our oldest child’s first two years of high school. Preschool is a necessity for us as it doubles as our childcare; our daily childcare expense won’t diminish until our youngest enters Kindergarten.

The balance in these things is critical in our relationship as a family, I think. Rather than face the insecurity of being unable to provide this for all five of our living children, it seemed the more prudent approach to continue to save the money knowing it could help provide things like Club volleyball, Swim team, music lessons, tennis lessons, and other extra-curricular activities that will provide value down the line. It seems more prudent knowing that money will be available to buy a new-to-us car if the time comes, without taking on the burden of payments. Perhaps we will pre-pay preschool tuition to get a discount. Perhaps the next round of orthodontic treatment won’t be such a hassle.

Once the decision was made, a huge load was lifted from my chest. Yes, sadness prevailed for a little bit. It’s hard to admit that you can’t provide your kids with their desires. And the disappointment in the fact that the Catholic Church can’t fulfill her desire to educate all those who would want to come to a Catholic school is still there.

Did the Catholic Church intend to go down this route? I doubt it. The reality of the situation is that Catholic schools are no longer run by Religious (nuns or priests). Paying competitive salaries (and benefits!) for laypeople as teachers and administrators has driven the cost to the point that it is difficult to see a difference between a Catholic school and a private school. The main difference being that at a Catholic school, religion class is a requirement, a chapel/place for daily prayer is available and Mass happens on at least a semi-regular basis. Add to that the fact that Catholics in this country do not support the Church to the level required to provide a Catholic education to all. And – to be fair – most Catholics who are paying tuition to the rate of $10,000/year/kid feel the obligation to pay that and probably believe this IS their financial support for the Church. I know that if I were to pay tuition for Catholic high school, my “first fruits” contribution would most likely have to diminish to cover the cost. Obviously, that’s backwards because it turns my “first fruits” contribution into something else.

I do think something should be figured out. I think there is  something wrong when a Church encourages the faithful to be generous an embrace new life into their marriages, but then shuts the door on those families when it comes to education. I know parents are the primary educators of children. Parents should not drop the kids off at the door of the Catholic school expecting all the magic to happen there, and at the end of 12 years, POOF! a well-formed Catholic with brains to match magically appears. But I also recognize my Church’s call to support Catholic education in all ways, including financial. A little more financial support as well as a bit of emotional and spiritual support from the Church with regard to this issue would be most appreciated.

Michelle is a Catholic, wife and work-outside-the-home mom five children on earth (+1 in heaven). She enjoys exercising (especially Crossfit), reading (especially thriller/mystery type novels), playing with the kids and an occasional date night with her husband, particularly those which include a Margarita. She enjoys blogging (in her "free" time) at Endless Strength about daily life, Catholic and motherly reflections, and weight loss. You can follow her on Instagram or Twitter (both handles are @michellephughes) or "Like" her Endless Strength Facebook page.