This article is not for those paying full tuition. To you the mosdos and the entire community are grateful. This article is for those paying minimum tuition or getting partial reductions.

I am not suggesting that you pay a dollar more than you’re paying now. Tuition for numerous kids even the minimum amounts is already astronomical. Income is tight bills are high and getting higher — what can you do?

The answer is attitude. You can change your attitude.

A man asked Rav Yisrael Salanter “I have half an hour per day to learn what should I learn?” He replied “Mussar.” When his students later asked “What about Gemara Chumash halachah? Mussar is important but how can it replace the essentials?” Rav Yisrael explained that someone who learns mussar will quickly discover that he has more than half an hour per day to learn. It’s all in the attitude.

I’m a CPA. I help people pay the minimal amount of taxes possible. It’s great — they’re happy and I’m happy. Who wants to pay more taxes than necessary?

The problem is that I often see the same attitude applied to tuition: What’s the least I can get away with?

Do I have to tell them about the gifts I receive? The inheritance? They want my tax return —why should I mention the other nontaxable non-findable income?

We have other questions. Why do mosdos ask so many personal questions? Why do they pry into my private affairs? Why is it their business whether I bought a new car remodeled my kitchen put away money into IRAs how much I spent for vacation etc.?

I have seen the books of many mosdos. In the best of times most of them barely make it. In difficult financial times they are near bankruptcy. They try to raise as much as they can from the general community. They are open to any new ideas and they are always trying to improve on what they are doing. But being a fundraiser is a thankless often demeaning job. How many times can you be turned down thrown out and be called a schnorrer?

As for mosdos expenses I have reviewed various budgets and expense reports and so have many others. If there is anything to cut it is minor and service will drop as a result. Parents want more from schools not less.

So how can a school cover its deficit? The staff works hard to come up with creative ideas — about one in five help maybe one in ten significantly so. Ultimately they have no choice but to look towards parents for more help. That’s why tuitions are going up — including minimum levels — and reductions are being cut. School administrators are truly pained by this situation but outsiders like me have convinced them that they have no choice.

What is a “tuition scholarship”? When I went to college I got several scholarships — but those represented real money paid by someone other than me. A tuition scholarship from a mossad is just a euphemism employed to avoid embarrassing people. In essence it’s not a scholarship at all — it’s a reduction.

Do you ask the supermarket for a reduction? The clothing store the butcher the auto shop or the gas and electric company? If the answer is yes this article is not for you. But if you don’t take charity and would never request a reduction from any other vendors why is it different when it comes to mosdos?

In generations past parents would sacrifice everything to pay for their children’s education. My rav told me about the founder of a cheder in America a generation ago who paid full tuition for his children. His salary was meager and he was poor. Yet his first priority was paying for his children’s chinuch. Everything else would have to be paid from the remainder. (I later confirmed this story with this cheder founder’s son.) We may not have this man’s level of emunah and bitachon but we have much more money than he and his kinfolk in the previous generation had. Can’t we try to give more?

Perhaps paying mosdos is so vitally important that the yetzer hara pushes it to the bottom of our priority list.

Any accountant helping a client with a budget gets to see the “priority list.” It is similar for 95 percent of us. Mortgage (or rent) food personal items utilities car expenses medical bills clothes tzedakah (this could be higher or lower depending on the people involved) life insurance gifts cell phone vacation house repairs tuition retirement fund a few extras a few upgrades.

Why is tuition so low on the list?

What would happen if we decided that paying full tuition or the most (not the least) that we could is a priority? No we wouldn’t wind up in bankruptcy. Maybe we’d get a smaller house eat out less change the temperature in our house and cut utility bills by 30 or 40 percent drive less hold onto the (cheaper) car longer update our wardrobe less frequently spend less on gifts make modest simchahs spend our vacation camping out or with relatives rather than in a hotel etc.

No one is wasting money but most of us could spend less on things — many of us a lot less.

Chazal teach that Hashem replenishes money spent on chinuch. I have met parents who pay more tuition based on this Chazal but only a few.

If we try to ease the burden of mosdos by paying the most possible tuition rather than the least possible won’t Hashem help us just as he does in all other areas?

It all depends on our attitude!

Chanan Shugarman a CPA for over thirty years specializing in taxes and nonprofit issues delivers presentations on nonprofit issues. He is the of Baltimore’s citywide Agudah Community News for three decades.