Sending a gifted child to a preschool that will nurture their natural talents is a long and involved process that has many parents pulling out their hair in frustration. In fact, tuition is one of the lesser burdens at the most prestigious of these preparatory schools. This fact is remarkable indeed when one receives a preschool tuition bill higher than that of most universities.
Ethical Culture Fieldston School, the most expensive preschool in the US, includes supplies, books and meals in its $30,440 tuition. Founded in 1878 by Felix Adler, also founder of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, ECFS started out as Workingman’s School, a free kindergarten for eight children from impoverished families. Less than thirty years later, it had expanded to encompass a child’s entire pre-kindergarten through 12th grade career. On its 50th anniversary, the high school relocated to an 18-acre campus in the Bronx. Fieldston Lower remained in the school’s 33 Central Park West building, although a second Lower School was opened on the Bronx campus in 1932.
Their current mission statement describes a curriculum that emphasizes ethical learning, academic excellence and progressive education. The preschool, like the school’s other grade levels, is built around a single question, this one being: How do I work, play and learn in my group in school?
The parents of a prospective student at the most expensive preschool must first pay a $60 application fee. If all goes well, they’ll have the opportunity to schedule a playgroup for the child and a parent tour for themselves. The child must also take the Educational Record Bureau’s standardized Early Childhood Entrance Exam. Only then will the final decision on the child’s admission to ECFS be made.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
holy crap!! $30,000 for a 4 year old!!! that is wack.
what kind of freaks put a kid into a school for 30,000, you can go and take your kid to a church for free!?!
Rarified air school for the billiionaires who can afford it. A status symbol.
Im sorry to say this but its not a rarified air school for the billionares who can afford it. I attended there when i was young and my siblings had not attended ECFS. Now my parents regret not sending my other siblings there because they saw i had more educational advances. I attended Thomas Jefferson High School and now I am in my 2nd semester at MIT