Punahou leads
increase in private
school tuition

Kindergarten next year will
cost $11,200 -- and more if you
pay by monthly installment

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By Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.com

Several private schools are raising their tuition by up to 6.2 percent next year, citing factors ranging from pay raises for teachers and staff to the rising cost of liability insurance after Sept. 11.

At Punahou School, tuition for kindergarten to third grade will increase by $650 to $11,200, which makes for the school's biggest increase at 6.2 percent. Grades four to 12 will pay $11,400. That's up from $10,750 currently for grades four to six, and from $10,950 for grades seven to 12.

Moreover, Punahou parents will also be required for the first time to put down a $500 deposit for returning students. And parents who pay on a monthly basis will have to buy tuition insurance, not required for parents who pay yearly or by semester.

School spokeswoman Bonnie Judd said the tuition increases will not be used to pay for a new middle school, which is in the planning and design stage. She said a separate capital campaign is in the works for that.

"I think we're all aware of the economy nationally and locally, and we are committed to the financial aid program to help the students that deserve to be here to be here," Judd said. "So, while the tuition is going up, financial aid will also be increasing next year from $2.1 million to $2.4 million."

About 10 percent of the school's approximately 3,700 students receive financial aid, she said.

At Iolani School, parent Lucy Kagawa will be paying $1,500 a year more to send her three boys, age 11, 12 and 14, to school. Iolani is raising its tuition by $500 across the board to $10,300 next year.

"I don't know where the bite (in the family budget) is going to occur ... (but if) that's your priority, you're just going to sacrifice wherever you need to meet that tuition," Kagawa said.

Kagawa, president of the school's parent organization, Iolani Ohana, said the tuition increase was worth it to retain "the best and brightest teaching talent in the state."

"I see it as a justifiable increase," she said.

The six private schools contacted by the Star-Bulletin said the increases will go toward paying competitive salaries during a time of a nationwide teacher shortage. Schools such as Iolani and Hawaii Baptist Academy said some of the increase would go toward covering liability insurance increases of as much as 30 percent.

Several schools said the increase in tuition comes with increasing financial aid for students.

"We realize the needs are there, and that would help us help more families," said Burton Tomita, principal of St. Louis School. He said the school offers more than $500,000 in financial aid a year and will look at increasing that through the help of the school's foundation and alumni association.

The school's increases of $400 per child for high school and $350 for the lower grades are "about normal," he said, and will go toward everything from boosting curriculum to subsidizing the rising cost of college courses some 70 students a year take at the adjacent Chaminade University of Honolulu.

Currently, high school student tuition is $7,000. For sixth through eighth grades, it is $6,550.

Punahou and Iolani said the cost of their tuition covers only a part of the total cost of an education. The difference is made up by such things as endowments and fund raising. In fact, it was primarily due to slumping returns from its endowment that Iolani decided to raise its tuition by about 5 percent, the highest amount in at least three years.

"The endowment return hasn't been as good in the last two years as we have experienced in the last five years," said Iolani headmaster Val Iwashita, adding that the actual cost of educating one child exceeds $14,000.

He said a recent $1 million endowment grant from the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation will help boost the school's financial aid budget.

Many schools cited the cost of maintaining buildings.

But at Le Jardin Windward Oahu Academy, where no building is older than two years, the 3 percent increases will mainly go toward paying staff and teacher salaries.

"I would probably have liked to have done a bigger increase ... (but) we're talking about being a little patriotic," said Headmaster Adrian Allan, who said no programs had to be cut or delayed to keep the increase to a 3 percent level. "Everybody's being screwed by 9/11; it's necessary to be sympathetic to that. It hasn't been a great year for Hawaii, has it?"