Hales Franciscan
- Thread starter ignazio
- Start date
I know we have heard talk for years about a handful of closings but everything I'm hearing about the Hales situation now is not good
From the article: “We need to fix things so that this doesn’t happen year in and year out,” said Nate Minnoy, a 2005 graduate and former Sun-Times Class A Player of the Year. “The biggest way to do that is to make sure the enrollment goes up.”
Yes, Nate, we need to fix things. But, increasing enrollment isn't going to help. Without increased charitable support, increased enrollment is going to hurt Hales, not help it. You see, Hales operates at a deficit. Tuition revenue does not cover the total cost of educating the students. That's true at Hales and at other Catholic schools like Ignatius and Loyola. Adding more than a handful of students paying below cost tuition, without a corresponding increase in non-tuition revenue, will increase the operating deficit because Hales would need to hire additional teachers and staff to educate and support those additional students. As long as expenses exceed tuition revenue, adding additional students will not "fix things" at Hales. What is really needed is for the Hales fundraising effort to raise more charitable support from Hales alumni like Nate Minnoy and from the local and national funding community.
From the article: "We are a small school that really has a family atmosphere,” said Hales boys basketball coach Gary London. “I literally know every kids name in the building. You just don’t get that at a larger school. A lot of parents count on Hales for an affordable Catholic school education.”
If the tuition at Hales were really affordable, there would be more kids enrolled. As it is, whatever tuition that is being charged is not affordable for HALES to keep charging. It is not enough to meet the school's expenses, even with whatever other fundraising is being done.
From an enrollment perspective, what is happening at Hales (and at lots of Catholic schools) is that the market is saying is that it can't afford the tuition and/or that it doesn't value the education enough to make the sacrifice and find a way to pay the tuition.
From the article: “There is a lot of pride at Hales,” said (Matt) Humphrey. “Every man I run in to that went to Hales has a swagger about him. It’s time for guys like myself that reaped the benefits of Hales to get involved. If they want to get people off the streets and change Chicago and stop people from killing each other how about we help this all-black, all-boys school?"
Apparently, Matt Humphrey didn't get the memo that Hales has been a coed school since the beginning of the 2013-14 academic year. Unless his quote was made years ago and was popped into this article written on May 7, it might be indicative of part of the problem. Does Matt Humphrey not know that his alma mater is coed? Or was the all-boys school descriptor an honest mistake? I'm not going to hazard a guess. But, if he really didn't know about Hales being coed, then I have to question the effectiveness of the communications efforts at Hales. If the author of the article could get a quote from a 2008 Hales alumnus who played D1 ball and who has a masters degree (perhaps Hales even put the author in touch with Matt Humphrey), one has to wonder why he doesn't know that his school has been coed for the past two years.
If you question the communications efforts, you have to also question the fundraising efforts. Sure, MJ wrote a $5MM check to the school in 2006. That's ancient history. Whatever they have been able to raise more recently is apparently insufficient to keep the school solvent.
Yes, Nate, we need to fix things. But, increasing enrollment isn't going to help. Without increased charitable support, increased enrollment is going to hurt Hales, not help it. You see, Hales operates at a deficit. Tuition revenue does not cover the total cost of educating the students. That's true at Hales and at other Catholic schools like Ignatius and Loyola. Adding more than a handful of students paying below cost tuition, without a corresponding increase in non-tuition revenue, will increase the operating deficit because Hales would need to hire additional teachers and staff to educate and support those additional students. As long as expenses exceed tuition revenue, adding additional students will not "fix things" at Hales. What is really needed is for the Hales fundraising effort to raise more charitable support from Hales alumni like Nate Minnoy and from the local and national funding community.
From the article: "We are a small school that really has a family atmosphere,” said Hales boys basketball coach Gary London. “I literally know every kids name in the building. You just don’t get that at a larger school. A lot of parents count on Hales for an affordable Catholic school education.”
If the tuition at Hales were really affordable, there would be more kids enrolled. As it is, whatever tuition that is being charged is not affordable for HALES to keep charging. It is not enough to meet the school's expenses, even with whatever other fundraising is being done.
From an enrollment perspective, what is happening at Hales (and at lots of Catholic schools) is that the market is saying is that it can't afford the tuition and/or that it doesn't value the education enough to make the sacrifice and find a way to pay the tuition.
From the article: “There is a lot of pride at Hales,” said (Matt) Humphrey. “Every man I run in to that went to Hales has a swagger about him. It’s time for guys like myself that reaped the benefits of Hales to get involved. If they want to get people off the streets and change Chicago and stop people from killing each other how about we help this all-black, all-boys school?"
Apparently, Matt Humphrey didn't get the memo that Hales has been a coed school since the beginning of the 2013-14 academic year. Unless his quote was made years ago and was popped into this article written on May 7, it might be indicative of part of the problem. Does Matt Humphrey not know that his alma mater is coed? Or was the all-boys school descriptor an honest mistake? I'm not going to hazard a guess. But, if he really didn't know about Hales being coed, then I have to question the effectiveness of the communications efforts at Hales. If the author of the article could get a quote from a 2008 Hales alumnus who played D1 ball and who has a masters degree (perhaps Hales even put the author in touch with Matt Humphrey), one has to wonder why he doesn't know that his school has been coed for the past two years.
If you question the communications efforts, you have to also question the fundraising efforts. Sure, MJ wrote a $5MM check to the school in 2006. That's ancient history. Whatever they have been able to raise more recently is apparently insufficient to keep the school solvent.
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