Those of us who attended Catholic schools in past decades are often surprised at the price of a contemporary Catholic school education. Even in adjusted dollars, our parents paid quite a bit less for our tuition than young families do today — and even those numbers were often discounted. Especially for large families, parents might have paid full tuition for the first or second child, but by the fourth or fifth, tuition was essentially free.

While family discounts still exist, the days of deep student discounts are largely over. The high costs of running a contemporary Catholic school, from faculty salaries to modern programming to infrastructure costs, frequently cause parents to think twice before choosing a Catholic education. No longer can the typical family simply assume they can afford to send their children to the parish school down the street.