The pandemic has driven many schools to take a long hard look at what affordability in education really means for students and families. At Stoneleigh-Burnham School (SBS), a private girls school serving grades 7-12 in Greenfield, Massachusetts, it’s a conversation that has been years in the making.
This year marks another ambitious step from SBS to prove that a private school education can be affordable for families of all income levels. In 2019, the school announced it was reducing tuition for its local day school students by more than 40 percent. This year, the school is extending its “tuition reset” to its boarding students—reducing tuition by 16 percent for the
“It was always the plan to reduce both day and boarding tuition, and I am immensely proud that the School’s new tuition rates will make an SBS education possible for more students,” says SBS Head of School Stephanie Luebbers.
According to SBS, the new boarding tuition rate will be about 10 percent lower than the average US boarding school tuition—a move that will increase affordability for the SBS students who hail from over 15 states and more than a dozen countries.
Expanding its already-diverse community is just one of the benefits of the tuition reduction. As a college preparatory school with numerous on-campus activities, increasing affordability will give more young women access to prestigious programs like the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program and the British Horse Society Certification—the latter offered only at SBS at the US secondary school level.
Providing young women the resources to thrive after graduation has been central to SBS's mission for more than 150 years. It's what continues to drive the school to play a role in reversing the course on the rising cost of education. According to SBS's Assistant Head of School for Enrollment & Strategy Kristen Mariotti, "We are committed to taking the lead in addressing the tuition crisis in the United States by making an SBS education a possibility for a much wider range of students.”
