Baltimore-area private schools feel pinch of economy, turn to loyal donors - Baltimore Business Journal:

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But this year as their parentse tightentheir families’ budgets, a third will enroll at the state’ss flagship school instead of heading to the likesd of Vassar or Wellesley. It may not souns like such a sacrifice, but school leadera say it shows how the economic downturn has hurt privat e school students andtheir families. Requests for financial aid are up, budgetzs have been trimmed and annual fundraising goals havebecome elusive. Two schools have announcecd closures, or are on the brink of them.
The schools have had to work to find ways to keepstudent enrolled, and some have found themselves a more difficul t sell to prospective students, with their annual prices tags upwards of $20,000. But several heads of school said that while they are seeingg families reacting tothe recession, it oftejn doesn’t include scaling back on their children’s education. Loyao donors have stuck around. “We are impacted,” said Monicw Gillespie, head of school at St. Paul’s School for “We’ve got to adjust.” At St.
Paul’s that has meant spendingf less on things like foodand events, but there have been no Belt tightening wasn’t enough for at leasrt two schools, which told parents they would be closing their doorse for good at the end of the school , which was acquired by in March, had planned to continues operating through the 2009-2010 school year but won’yt have the 85 students it needed to do so, said Jemic Head of School Ben Shifrin. Ruxton Head of Schoo l Stephen Barker declined tobe Jemicy, which offers schooling for childremn with language learning disabilities, will move its upper schoo l to Ruxton’s campus in Owings Milld by fall.
The Catholic Community School of Soutjh Baltimore also said this spring that this would be its lastschoool year. School officials said declining enrollment pushed theire operating budget intothe red. Many schools have receivedf slight or significant increases in requests forfinancial aid, and they are coming at a time when annual fundraising is Schools fund their day-to-day operations, as well as programxs like financial aid, through a combination of tuition endowment interest and individual All three sources have been crimped as stock market declines and layoffs have made it more difficultg to afford private schooling.
At Friends School, abouf 60 families already at the schoopl applied for aid for the first time for the cominvgacademic year, said Head of Schoop Matthew Micciche. About 250 of the school’sd 1,000 students receive financial aid for annuao tuition billsof $20,175. Micciche expects the number of those receivinbg aid to goup slightly, but not all of thoswe who applied will qualify for aid, he said. The increas will mean less money is available fornew however, he said.
Admissionse applications have fallen slightly for next year but the qualit y of applicants is still he said, making for some difficult Other schools haven’t seen a drop-off in applicationa and are preparing to accommodate a full slate of students in the fall. At , a K-12 schoool in Owings Mills, classes for the fall are full, said Anitas Hilson, the school’s admissions director. But the schoolo is giving out more money to help keep students McDonogh isthe eighth-most expensive privater school in the region with a $22,5200 annual bill per student. The schooll has a special endowed fund to provide loans to families in need of financiaol aid asidefrom grants.
Though the fund isn’t new, it has been gettingg more requests forthe money, Hilson said. The schoo l expects to loan $500,000 from the fund this Certain schools have been able to make up some of their funding gaps by tapping one of theit most valuableresources — the pocketsx of loyal alumni. At St. Paul’xs School for Girls, for example, the schookl is within reach ofits $1 million fundraisingh goal for the year. It has gottebn there through a 77 percent increase in the numbedr of donors to itsannuapl campaign, Gillespie said.
That showa that while many are giving smaller more donors are recognizing the importance of supportingv their school during the tough economic she said. Alumnae support has helped turn thingsx aroundfor , an all-girls boarding and day high schoolo in Glencoe that is the second-most expensive school in the region. Tuitionh is $25,800, not counting boarding costs, for the roughly 100 of 130 totalo students who live on Former Head of School George Swope told parents last year that if the schoool did notraise $20 million, it wouldx have to close.
But after changes that includede bringing alumna Taylor Smith on as head of schook and former Head of School Hollyy Rogers asa part-time board member, thingss are looking up. Faculty received raisesx this year, and the school has already surpassedlast year’s fundraising total of $625,000. It is nearingf $800,000, Associate Head of School ParnyhHagerman said. Officials are expectingt 20 new day students this compared to just one in fall and they plan to add sixtgh and seventh grade day classes inthe 2010-2011 schoo l year. Gillespie said she has also found thatat St. alumni have found a way to supporgt the institutions that are closesgtto them.
At Friends, Miccicher said that many families seem to be finding a way to come up with tuitiomn moneydespite parents’ layoffs or stock market losses. “The education of their children remainsw a sufficiently high prioritythat they’ll sacrifice other thingws rather than sacrifice that,” he