Loans for Prep School Parents

In more and more U.S. cities, middle-class parents have examined the sad state of public schools and decided that private schools are a necessity rather than a luxury. But soon only the very rich--or the very poor--may be able to afford those schools.

Take an executive earning $40,000 a year. On paper, his family is richer than 98% of U.S. households. But, after taxes, food and mortgage payments slash his disposable income to about $16.000. If he has three children, he is likely to pay private schools at least $5,000 more. Though he has only $11,000 left--before meeting scores of other expenses--his gross income makes his children ineligible for one possible break: a private-school scholarship. Moreover, the bulk of the scholarship funds his children's schools have available are quite likely to be pledged to promising ghetto students.

Now a way out has been designed by Massachusetts' coordinate boarding schools, Mount Hermon (boys) and Northfield (girls). The schools have already earmarked 20% of their operating budget for scholarship aid to almost half their students. Unwilling to "shunt the middle-income family aside," they have now allocated $110,000 (to be quadrupled in four years) for longterm, low-interest (5%) loans to families with yearly incomes of $15,000 to $20,000. Borrowers will not be obliged to start repayment until their children finish college or graduate school. Help is becoming available, says Dr. Howard L. Jones, head of the schools' joint administration, "for increasing numbers on the lower end of the economic scale, while those on the upper end can take care of themselves. Our greatest concern therefore, must be for the broad sector in between."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.