Groton School's Commitment: A Focus on Affordability

Groton School is ready to welcome the first group of students admitted since a groundbreaking initiative, announced last November, cemented the school’s commitment to making Groton accessible to families in all income brackets, including those neither high- nor low-income.
The GRoton Affordability and INclusion (GRAIN) initiative froze tuition for three years, increased the number of students on financial aid, and guaranteed that Groton School would consider all applicants without regard to their ability to pay.
 
After one year of the three-year freeze, Groton’s tuition retreated from the #1 to the #14 position among peer schools. More importantly, the school's board of trustees approved funding models for GRAIN that recognize the importance of providing financial aid to those in the middle income or professional classes—those who typically assume they will not qualify for aid. 
 
A $5 million gift, from a supporter who wishes to remain anonymous, kicked off GRAIN last November. Since then, the initiative has raised more than $14.5 million, and fundraising continues. Another early supporter of GRAIN, alumnus Pete Briger '82, explains why GRAIN is resonating within the Groton community. “Groton is appropriately focusing on the future rather than the past,” he says. “GRAIN allows for more flexibility in the financial profile of applicants in the admissions process, making it more likely that we will have an impact on the future leaders of tomorrow.” 
 
The board of trustees deliberated over several months to create funding models that would allow for the tuition freeze and the increased financial aid to support GRAIN. Underlying the discussions was recognition that while freezing tuition has a cost, so does raising tuition. “A tuition freeze isn’t a cost, it is a forgone revenue opportunity," says Groton School Trustee William Gray P'15. "Raising tuition also has a cost, mainly in the form of a more restricted applicant pool.”

The GRAIN announcement generated considerable attention among applicants and other independent school leaders. Applications to Groton increased from both financial aid and full-pay families (bucking a national trend that shows declining applications from those who can afford full tuition). The total number of applications to Groton for the 2015–16 school year was about 8 percent higher than the number submitted for the previous year. The school's acceptance rate has remained among the most selective: 12.4 percent of applicants were accepted for the 2015–16 school year.
 
Groton's board of trustees has deemed GRAIN the school’s number-one strategic priority. “The trustees unanimously had no doubt that making Groton School accessible to all without regard to their ability to pay should be our top priority,” says Board of Trustees President Jonathan Klein P’08, ’11, ’18. “The best education in the land should be available to all who meet the standards for admission, and that is exactly what GRAIN aims to achieve."
 
GRAIN and the school’s broader focus on affordability and inclusion rest upon Groton’s desire to be a community based on fairness and equal opportunity, and upon an overarching goal to provide students with the best secondary school education possible. 

“Inclusion in all respects, including socioeconomic inclusion, is an important ingredient of an outstanding education,” says Groton School Headmaster Temba Maqubela, who has stressed the importance of an inclusive community since joining the school in July 2013. “The board of trustees recognized that steadily rising tuition had contributed to the school’s applicant pool becoming increasingly concentrated in the extremes of the socioeconomic spectrum. The more perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences our students bring to Groton, the better a Groton education will be.”
 
GRAIN has sparked discussion about affordability at other boarding boards—another goal of the Groton initiative. At least one other independent school did not raise tuition between 2014–15 and 2015–16, and many are discussing ways to increase middle-income representation.
 
GRAIN tackles the reality that the cost of a top-level education has substantially outpaced income growth. An independent school education has become increasingly unaffordable, even to those who could afford it a few decades ago. In 1983, according to U.S. census data, Groton’s boarding tuition equaled 38 percent of the average U.S. household income. By 2013, it was 76 percent.
 
“We are trying to attract talented students who wrongly assume they cannot afford to attend Groton,” says Mr. Maqubela. “We have fully funded students of modest means for many years and will continue to do so. Middle-income families need to get the message that we understand that they are saving for college. We will help put a Groton education within their reach.” 
Back