Catholic Tuition - Wichita - Cost-Based - HELP!

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Our Diocese wants to move to a “cost-based” tuition system, where the families attending school pay 100% of the cost of the tuition, salaries, building operations, etc. with no subsidy from the parish. The schools will be fully funded by the people attending them. Needless to say, many people are fearful this will have a devastating effect on our Catholic schools where tuition is already high even with parish subsidies.

Two questions I need your help on asap:

Is anymore familiar with this system? Where is it currently being utilized, what are its effects?

Second, I’ve heard the Diocese of Wichita is a model for Catholic Schools in terms of discipleship and parishes strongly supporting their Catholic schools, regardless if they have children attending or not. Is anyone familiar with Wichita, their school system, and how it is working? Is Wichita a diocese with a strong (and faithful) Catholic identity?

Thank you!
 
This article is 5 years old…does anyone know if it’s still accurate?
How is Wichita doing?
 
catechizeme said:
This article is 5 years old…does anyone know if it’s still accurate?
How is Wichita doing?
Click to expand...
I have no first-hand knowledge to share, but the Diocese website has this to say:

Parishes committed to funding a Catholic education for every active Catholic parish family regardless of family income. The Fordham Foundation report concluded that “Wichita is the best example” of how to make a quality Catholic education available to every family.

cdowk.org/offices/schools/

Hope this helps!
 
You can call the Wichita diocese. Someone from our school did - they were very helpful over the phone, I hear. The Catholic schools are still free, I know that much.

Our pastor has told us the parish’s finance council wants us (a K-8 school) to become completely self sufficient ASAP. They’ve cut our subsidy by 25% and we’ve managed. With no subsidy we’d need a miracle. There’s just no way to bake sale your way to support an entire school.

What I don’t understand is no other ministry of our parish is being asked to even hold a simple fundraiser.

Good luck to you. Maybe you can hold them off by asking them to ease you into it until you figure something out.
 
catechizeme said:
Our Diocese wants to move to a “cost-based” tuition system, where the families attending school pay 100% of the cost of the tuition, salaries, building operations, etc. with no subsidy from the parish. The schools will be fully funded by the people attending them. Needless to say, many people are fearful this will have a devastating effect on our Catholic schools where tuition is already high even with parish subsidies.

Two questions I need your help on asap:

Is anymore familiar with this system? Where is it currently being utilized, what are its effects?
Click to expand...
Our diocese runs most of the schools this way. The inner-city schools are the only ones that get help from the diocese. Some of the parishes subsidize but it isn’t required. I understand that the school where my kids attend used to have a subsidy from the parish but it doesn’t now. I was not here when the change was made so I can’t testify accurately about the effect but it is a constant struggle to keep enrollment up. Parents don’t bear all of the costs since we have fundraisers and some generous donors. But the school also has financial aid for those in need and that cast is spread accross the rest of the families.

This is a very hard situaion and I don’t have much advice to give. 😦
 
HouseArrest said:
You can call the Wichita diocese. Someone from our school did - they were very helpful over the phone, I hear. The Catholic schools are still free, I know that much.

Our pastor has told us the parish’s finance council wants us (a K-8 school) to become completely self sufficient ASAP. They’ve cut our subsidy by 25% and we’ve managed. With no subsidy we’d need a miracle. There’s just no way to bake sale your way to support an entire school.

What I don’t understand is no other ministry of our parish is being asked to even hold a simple fundraiser.

Good luck to you. Maybe you can hold them off by asking them to ease you into it until you figure something out.
Click to expand...
I hear ya. . .our diocese has cut financial support to Catholic high schools down to nothing. I have a child who is about to go into that age group. I’m so frustrated with the response I’m getting—“we brought in this advancement consulting group to help”—I’ve sat in the advancment consultant’s training sessions—he’s looking for us to buy his services basically. He’s giving us ideas that would take 100 years to implement in order to be “fully funded” and by fully funded—that’s maybe 8% to 10% of the schools budget a year at best.

Their answer is to go out and solicit donors—this guy even suggests we get wealthy elderly supporters and make sure we’re in their will???

The result is going to be upset Catholic school supporters now vowing to NEVER contribute to Catholic Charities again.
 
I was born and raised there and all my family still live there. I only live a few hours away from Wichita, but am currently in another diocese.

It is still completely tithe based. There are 32(I think) elementary schools and four high schools that run totally on the tithing system. I believe it is a great model of what a diocese can do. It’s been this way since the late 80’s and had only gotten stronger. The parishes are full and so are the schools.

The schools in the poorest areas still bring in at least 13K a weeks and the wealthy neighborhoods bring in 75K regularly. All parishes ask 10% of their parishioners but do not verify. They only have families fill our a pledge form each year so the parish can make a budget. The parish then gives 10% to the diocese and the diocese helps the poorer schools. While the diocese sets certain requirements, each parish-school is runs on what it brings in. So the wealthy schools have better buildings, pay teachers more etc. although, educationally it’s they all have the same standards.

The diocese has created their own religion curriculum to be more orthodox and thorough.

Ummmm, I don’t know the specifics about how it started. But if you have any other questions, I’d be glad to answer. Also, they are really helpful if you give them a call. Check out their website www.cdowk.org
 
We are currently looking into this model as well and what we have found is that there are very few schools that implement this model in its entirety. There are many good elements of this model: identifying the “true” cost of educating a child and communicating this to the parents, using an external source to identify financial need of applicants, the parish subsidy and other funding sources (many have endowments or a source of funding that comes from the Diocese in addition to the support of the Parish) are used for financial assistance. What seems to be the biggest variable is the part where tuition is actually set at the true cost of education a student. There is an article that does a pretty good job of explaining this tuition model: “Catholic Elementary School Funding; One Size Does Not Fit All”.
One thing to keep in mind is that moving to a cost-based, needs-based tuition model does not mean that the parish no longer supports Catholic Education. What happens in this model is that the support from the parish is used for the “needs-based” portion of this model. Catholic education is a ministry of the Church and so just like the Church supports their other ministries, it must also support this ministry. If you look on the website for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and follow the link “Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary & Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium” it states that Catholic schools will be available, accessible, and affordable and that the bishops will launch initiatives in both the private and public sectors to secure financial assistance in order to make this happen. Parish support is still a very important part of financing Catholic education.
 
Wichita is so well known for this, if you call them it is likely they will have someone who can explain how the system works.
 
Good For Witchita. Here we pay tuition and the Parish offers a subsidy to the School. With families now having two incomes and two children the tuition is affordable to that mindset but has become unaffordable to the big family. Some of us have opted to Home School the rest of our children, simply because we have run out of money to continue educating our children in Catholic Schools. Seton has proved to be a wonderful alternative. Indeed Homeschooling is very rewarding.
 
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