diversity at moeller...

[Wheelman]

Without divulging too much information about St. X and their enrollment I will say they have no intention to grow beyond their current enrollment of 1450. I'd also like to point out that the selectivity of St. X, as you have incorrectly suggested, has not decreased. More than 60% of their incoming class scored a 90 or higher on the entrance exam. There has never been a year where you needed to score a 94 to be admiited. Again, myths created by people unaware of the St. X admissions process.

I happened to be around for a conversation between two friends, one went to X and played sports and is still very involved with sports at X. He has a kid at X and a couple that have graduated. All played sports. The other is a black guy who played football at UC and has a young son that is a good football player. He told him to have his son take the X exam and if he passed the tuition would be taken care of. He didn't say if it would be 100% taken care of but just that it would be taken care of. He said he has also spoken with other black guys that we work with that have kids that play ball and has told them the same thing.

(If my using the term black instead of African American offends some people I'm sorry but the term African American offends me. We're all Americans)

 

[MOEFAN]

X has a $250,000 endowment fund each year for minority students. I know this as a fact from one of the top X administrators. I don't have a problem with that, but it sure helps X's "recruiting".

 

[IVYcrusader]

As usual Ivy, you try and bring the realism to the argument with numbers... I applaud the effort and expect nothing less from an ivy leaguer... except I disagree with your numbers a little bit in specific areas.

First, lets actually call the amount of debt repayment a year around $700,000... I think that is a more realistic figure... but even that may be high...while to a business who is constantly expanding their bottom line this might not be an issue and actually a good earnings to debt ratio... this is borderline death for a school. Every year before money can be earmarked for books, facilities etc... you are 700,000 in the hole... unacceptable...

The easiest analogy I can make to the real world is that every GM car that rolls of the line is already $1800 in the hole due to pension plans and health benefits... you see what its doing to them.

Second, you leave out the biggest cash hog of them all... the laptop program. I can't even venture a guess how much of the total budget this bad boy is but I would be willing to bet it is NOT self-sufficient... i.e. tuition dollars alone pay for this thing.

Next, don't even mention the Archdiocese... the only thing they contribute is hassle!

Finally, don't forget when all of these new facilities came on line something comes along with it... OPERATING EXPENSES... just imagine the cost of cleaning, air conditioning, and lighting all the new square footage.

I am not trying to paint a dark picture here... things aren't gloom and doom in my opinion I would just like to see priorities rearranged...

To my point, MoeFan makes it exaclty... Moeller is in the TOUGHEST school market bar none, they have the highest number of Excellent public schools coupled with St.X... the MoeFans of the world are exaclty who Moeller has to market and why I believe the price point is TOO high.

For instance, Moeller has a "base", a core constituency, if you will who will pay whatever the amount. Thats good but it will probably only get you to about 150 kids per year. The rest you have to fight tooth and nail for and price is a BIG part of that.

Moellers strengths and what differs it from ANY other high school experience in the nation include
1. Sprituality (family atmosphere, you aren't going to get lost in the shuffle)
2. Athletics (every program is competitive at the state level)
3. Academics (you want to go to Harvard? Moe can get you there)

Now, Moeller does these three things better than any other public school in the area regardless if Ohio calls them a Super Duper Excellent or whatever the tag is...

But when people like MoeFan who are Catholic and want there children to go to a catholic school start questioning whether or not 8500 a year is worth it when the pay property taxes in excess of 5k a year... the first thing I do is look at my price point. But hey, thats just me and you can disagree

Monte -

Since I have no clue exactly how much debt moeller is under I just picked a round number higher than $10MM to work with. Realistically I think the number is right around 10. When I talk about interest payments, i'm not including principle repayment in that number (pure interest on debt outstanding). I don't know what kind of debt moeller is holding, but they're probably only making interest payments until some date further in the future (at least they better be).

Moe does have an expanding "top" line (revenue) because tuition keeps on rising. I think I paid $5.4K for my senior year ('00, '01). Now tuition is $8.5K for '05-'06. That's average tuition (revenue) growth of 10% a year. That may seem kinda high, but it'd be interesting to see how much moe's tuition increased from '90-'00. If anyone has that info, I'd be interested to know.

By definition, a "non-profit organization's" bottom line is always going to be zero. They're not supposed to be making money off of us are they? Every year all tuition dollars collected should be going to provide the best possible education for those who paid.

Laptop's are paid for by students right? The network that runs the laptop program was probably a substantial one time cost partially funded by the debt we have outstanding. I can't begin to approximate the incremental cost of maintaining the network (upgrades, fixing glitches, etc.), but I don't think it'd be much more substantial than electricity and utilities. I could be way off here as I have zero technology IQ.

Last thing is...I don't think the pricing point is too high yet. If we still admit 250 per year, then 250 families are willing to make the sacrifice. If all of a sudden 250 goes to 200 or 150 then our pricing point is too high. It all comes down to what you think is important. If you want new fields, parking garage, science wing and state of the art library, new gyms and showers, new AC then the only way that's getting funded is by more debt and higher tuition. If you want to maintain the status quo, then we could probably take tuition back down to 5k.

 

[Wheelman]

Maybe when Brackman signs he can "throw" some money Moeller's way!

 

[DeMaunn]

X is now under 80% catholic......

I apologize that I continue to come on this board and correct the consistent erroneous and ridiculous statements that are made.....BUT

ST. X IS NOT UNDER 80% CATHOLIC. If you really would like to educate yourself so that you discontinue making false statements -- St. X's student population is 83% Roman Catholic. Next time you'd like to know something about St. X, please just ask me and I'll help you out.

 

[DeMaunn]

X has a $250,000 endowment fund each year for minority students. I know this as a fact from one of the top X administrators. I don't have a problem with that, but it sure helps X's "recruiting".

Untrue statement yet again. And I don't care who you spoke to. I'd assure you that I'm much more in the know than whomever you spoke to. We allocate funding to ALL eligible students based on their financial need and we don't distinguish between if they're black, white or blue.

And by the way, St. X's endowment is upward of $30 million dollars. That helps with assisting (not recruiting) students/families who would like to attend the school.

 

[MOEFAN]

There is a specific amount for minorities in addition to your 30 million endowment for all students. This comes to me from very high up in the X administration. He(She) also told me this is no secret.

 

[DeMaunn]

There is a specific amount for minorities in addition to your 30 million endowment for all students. This comes to me from very high up in the X administration. He(She) also told me this is no secret.

Listen, whatever you'd like to believe. I'm telling you there isn't. And I am not just some smuck on here who think he knows what he's talking about. I am a part of the allocation process amongst other things. TRUST ME MY FRIEND.

 

[leatherhelmet77]

I apologize that I continue to come on this board and correct the consistent erroneous and ridiculous statements that are made.....BUT

ST. X IS NOT UNDER 80% CATHOLIC. If you really would like to educate yourself so that you discontinue making false statements -- St. X's student population is 83% Roman Catholic. Next time you'd like to know something about St. X, please just ask me and I'll help you out.

wow.....I missed it by 3%...................lighten up Francis.

 

[FrancisXavier99]

haha, yes I know. Its rumored you now have to be an official member of mensa to be accepted to X.

But, what I said was that St. Columban didn't send any of their smart '07 boys to X... that I know of.

they're trying to cut down on the lower level mensa......they couldn't keep up. But I know for a fact you are wrong about St. Columban sending smart kids in the '07 class.

And where did this perception come from that St. X is cold and unfeeling?

 

[MOEFAN]

Demaun, you are not my friend!

 

[DeMaunn]

Let the St X elite say what ever they want about the academics..........they are hipocrites....3 boys on my sons aau team have already been told by "Mr Felmers" at X they can come there free.....there is NO WAY they could pass.

"Mr. Felmers" doesn't make the decisions so he can tell you what he'd like...