Mike Dwyer has an interesting blog post about the evolution of Catholic schools. Many Catholic schools are shutting down across the country, because they can’t afford to operate without the cheap labor of nuns. The Catholic schools around here are prospering, including the one my niece attends, because they are specializing in sports and academics. They have turned themselves into elite schools that can charge huge tuitions. This is a long cry from their original mission of serving immigrants and the poor.
I’m going to try this brussels spouts recipe tomorrow.
Yeah, it’s happening. Universities are dealing with their rocky finances by cutting entire departments like English and Political Science.
Apt. 11d 
Even without the nuns, the Catholic schools here in the parishes that still have parishioners are still going strong in the same old roll. They’re not serving the kids of factory workers but there aren’t any factories. The schools in the neighborhoods where you used to have factory workers are closing, but so are the parishes.
There are three parish schools within a quick drive of my house and all are about $4,000 for elementary school with a cap of a $8,000 per family. That’s not nothing, but it is still very reasonable. Leaving aside religious reasons for wanting a Catholic school, plenty of people spend way more than $10,000*13 years on extra housing costs or commuting costs to get into the elementary school they want.
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There is no bacon in that Brussels sprouts recipe. That is just wrong.
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I went over and read the Mike Dwyer article. I think you may have misunderstood what the mission of Catholic Schools was and still remains. It is to promote a CATHOLIC education. While it served many immigrants it was with the intention to preserve their Catholic faith in the midst of a Protestant majority population. In fact being Catholic was often a hurdle for immigrants and native born Catholics to overcome in terms of employment and social advancement. The financial and social incentives to leave the Church was tremendous. Catholic schools still serve the poor and are often the only option for quality education in some of the poorest communities in this country. Tuition is remarkably low considering the cost of living today. When comparing costs it would have been helpful if Dwyer had converted all costs to today’s dollars. Tuition has never covered the true cost of running the schools. Parishes and Dioceses have always contributed to keep costs low. Scholarships have help many families pay for Catholic education and discounts for multiple children are common. Secularization and (as Pope Francis would say) the worship of wealth has much more to do with the decline in the number of Catholic Schools than anything else. Just as it has caused a decrease in the number of parishes with resulting consolidations. I agree that there are many reasons why their are fewer people who feel they have a vocation, either to be a priest or a nun but that is another issue altogether. JMO
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Carosgram,
I mentioned the reason for Catholic schools being founded i.e. a ‘defense’ of Catholicism from the Protestants in my post. Also, regarding the cost conversion, my alma mater charged about $150 it’s first year. In today’s dollars that is around $1,300. Likewise, it was about $2,700 to attend my senior year in 1993. That would be around $4,200 today. We had about 10 priests out of a teaching staff of about 50 so it wasn’t helping a whole lot to have clergy on staff. The total school population is just a little bit larger today than when I was there, with no clergy teaching, and costs have risen to about $12,000 in the last 20 years. That’s a jump that can’t be blamed on inflation.
I think Laura is right in that these schools have gotten so expensive because they have become very elite prep academies. The academic offerings and quality of everything is dramatically different than my day. The truth is that this trend will continue and the only thing that will help mitigate it is a very large endowment fund. That’s why i am working so hard today as an alumni/volunteer/board member to help with fund raising.
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There’s a very interesting group of new Catholic schools called Cristo Rey that has been in operation since the mid-90s. Bill and Melinda Gates seem to be very keen on the network, which was founded by a Jesuit priest.
http://www.cristoreynetwork.org/page.cfm?p=367
The Cristo Rey schools are college prep aimed at disadvantaged youth.
“Father Foley and his team created an audacious plan – to implement an innovative business model whereby students work five days each month in an entry-level job at a professional company, with the fee for their work being directed to underwrite tuition costs.”
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A good friend from high school works in Cleveland at one if these schools. Their graduates do go on to college, and many do quite well. It would be interesting to see statistics for their graduates.
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Just the jobs themselves are probably very educational and provide a lot of valuable networking opportunities, even if the kids weren’t going on to college.
(I don’t normally like using the term “networking opportunities,” but you can imagine how important the job placements are for kids who don’t know anybody.)
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Our catholic schools in raleigh are expensive and have long waiting lists. Are they pricey like the protestant private religious schools? No. But they still are any where from 6-8k a kid. Catholic schools in NE are cheaper than here. We will be considering one for middle school, by that time the Parish will have built a huge new 90 million dollar cathedral with a new state of the art school attached. I think the church here is doing just fine, we have so many northern transplants and a huge hispanic population that is the driving force for a new Cathedral.
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