Sticker Shock Doesn't Keep Student From School of Choice
Ijada Fields, 9, uses a maraca during Spanish class with teacher Elsa Greno-Jimenez at the Lowell School, where Ijada's mother was surprised to learn that her federal voucher of $7,500 was not going to cover tuition.
(By Juana Arias -- The Washington Post)
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Delores Fields was so delighted to find a place for her fourth-grade daughter at the Lowell School, which looks like a Spanish castle on its verdant Northwest Washington campus, that she did not immediately realize her federal voucher of $7,500 was not going to cover the annual $18,000 tuition.
It was a shock to learn that she would have to pay the difference of $10,500 out of her own pocket. But Fields decided that Lowell was too good to pass up. The D.C. social worker, whose $38,000 annual salary supports five people, borrowed the money from her credit union.
A report on the D.C. voucher program issued last month by the U.S. Department of Education said that, "with a couple of exceptions," the participating private schools have agreed not to charge students more than the $7,500 maximum value of the voucher, although federal law allows them to do so.
Lowell Director Abigail B. Wiebenson said Fields's daughter, Ijada, was admitted at the last moment, after the school had committed the $750,000 in its financial aid budget to other families. But next school year, Wiebenson said, there will be enough scholarship money to keep Fields from going further into debt.
-- Jay Mathews
