FAQs: Making High Meadow Affordable

Four factors determine financial aid grant allocation:

1. Self-reported income and asset holdings. HMS classifies families with the following financial resources into the following need tiers. In the fall of 2024, the school raised the caps of these tiers to be more inclusive of our area’s cost of living and the resources of our families:

• Highest Need: Family Resources assessed by FACTS to be under $99,500 (previously under $89,500)

• High Need: Family Resources assessed between $99,501-$125,000 (previous range from $89,501-$110,000)

• Moderate Need: Family Resources assessed between $125,001-$150,000)  (previous range from $110,001-$130,000)

• Low Need: Family Resources assessed between $150,001-$175,000 (previous range from $130,001-$150,000)

• No Qualifying Need: Family Resources assessed above $175,000 (previously above $150,001)

What are Total Family Resources?

Total Family Resources are determined by adding together the applicant’s Adjusted Taxable Income, Nontaxable Income, and Contribution From Assets. These resources are the total dollar amount the family has available to them before considering any expenses.

2. Self-reported additional circumstances that may weigh on a family’s financial picture, such as having multiple children, temporary unemployment, medical expenses, relocation expenses, support of adult dependents, etc. These factors may reclassify families into a different need tier.

3. Access to additional resources to pay tuition, such as a family trust, 529 plan, or another family contributor who provides tuition assistance.

4. The ability to meet the enrollment goals and areas of growth for the school, including:

• Ensuring access to our school’s program for students from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds whose identities may make them part of a protected class via race, skin color, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexuality, disability, or national origin.

• Filling seats to meet a critical area of need in one grade, such as a need based on the number of available seats, building enrollment to form a critical mass of students based on specific identity markers such as gender or race, etc.

The financial aid committee includes the Head of School, the Director of Admissions, Retention, and Outreach, and the Director of Finance. The team uses the FACTS Tuition Management System software to analyze and create a recommended aid package based on the family’s income, asset holdings, additional resources, and additional circumstances that could weigh a family’s monthly expenses against the school’s needs classification tiers. The committee then looks at the recommendation and sometimes makes adjustments based on what the family reports they can reasonably pay and their reported additional factors, such as hardship areas, increasing access to marginalized populations, or meeting enrollment targets for critical areas of need to ensure that the school gives the best package offer possible to each student.

The school allocates approximately 10% of its yearly income to financial aid and work exchange. Additionally, the school provides student remission to High Meadow School employees as part of their compensation package. 19.03% of the school’s yearly income funded the financial assistance program in the 2024-2025 school year. From the New York State Association of Independent School’s point of view and the viewpoint of our school’s auditors, this amount is seen as an aggressive approach to financial assistance, given our school’s size and our overall resources. Given our mission, we will continue to think about how to gather more financial support through fundraising and grants to expand our ability to award financial assistance.

Our school’s financial assistance program has fluctuated in several ways since 2018, but we have made changes and have seen promising feedback for programmatic stability in the data. Since a historic low in applicants to our financial assistance program in 2021-2022, we have adjusted to return to allocating more of our school’s income to our assistance programs. This year, 19% of our school’s income is funding financial aid grants, scholarships, work exchange, and tuition remission for HMS staff. Currently, 52 families, roughly one-third of our school’s student body, receive financial assistance from the school.

Yes, you may file a financial aid grant application after January 20th, 2025. However, your application will be considered after all applications that are received by the deadline, and you will not receive priority that is given to families of returning students. The school will not be able to guarantee that a package will be awarded, and the package may be smaller than needed after the filing deadline has passed.

It is the school’s goal to ensure that the entire budget for financial aid grants is used on a yearly basis, and we give until our budget line runs out. After the re-enrollment deadline, we will reallocate financial aid grants and work exchange money for students who received packages but did not enroll. We will add it back into our financial aid grant and work exchange budget lines. This money will be used to award financial aid grants or work exchanges to other applicants. If there is still money in the budget when a family changes their mind, there is a chance that they could be awarded their original package, but there is no guarantee that money will be left.

Over the years, many jobs have been done through our work exchange program, including the following:

• Developing and/or writing curriculum

• Administrative Assistance

• Communications support

• Grant Writing Assistance

• Event Production Support: Lighting sound, recording, etc.

• Carpentry Projects

• Parent Group lead facilitator

• DEIJ coordination Support/ Committee Participation

• Library curation and literacy instruction

• Leadership or Administrative Coach/Consultant Roles

• Marketing Support

• Landscape and Building Maintenance Support

• Community Outreach

• Faculty Professional Development Coach/Consultant Roles

• Strategic Development Coach/Consultant Roles

• Photography/Video Production

• Nursing Office Support

The school will be giving the following roles priority in the 2025-2026 school year. These roles will be offered again to people already within the program before accepting new applicants:

• Parent Group Lead Facilitators (3 roles)

• Carpentry and Building Maintenance Support (2 roles)

• Arts Curriculum Development and Support (1 role)

• Leadership Coaching and Support (1 role)

• Production Support: Video and Sound (1 role)

• Nursing Office Support (1 role)

These roles will be seeking new applicants for 2025-2026:

• Production Support: Lighting: This job would support curating and working the lighting system for up to ten productions in the 2025-2026 school year.

• Campus Event Photography: We are looking for a professional or advanced amateur photographer to take shots of our school’s special events, including all-school gatherings, performances, afterschool events, and yearly traditional events. This role would include availability on select school days, evenings, and weekends and would amount to roughly ten events per year.

• Marketing/Branding: We are looking for someone who can provide our communications coordinator with support in creating graphics, logos, and branding support for larger school events and auxiliary programming.

If you have an idea for a work exchange or job but it is not in the listed priorities above, please feel free to submit an application with your idea! We are happy to hear what other areas of support you can provide to the school.

To align with tuition payments, the work exchange term for work completion runs on an April-to-April calendar to align with when families begin to make tuition payments for the following school year and when they conclude payment. This allows for projects to stretch over the summer as well, which is a rich time for planning, professional development, and facilities projects.

Work exchange packages are calculated based on an hourly rate for contribution. The hourly rate and number of hours awarded are based on the projected time it will take to complete the project and the market hourly compensation rate for the job being performed.

Last year, we separated our jobs into two hourly compensation tiers: a $50 per hour tier and a $75 per hour tier. After trying this system out this year, it was brought to our attention that some of the jobs are paying far beyond the market rate while others are paying far below the market rate, depending upon the type of work and the person’s professional experience. The two tiers also are well above the range that we pay our full time staff, whose rates fall between $25-$60 for all faculty and administration. For 2025-2026, we will evaluate each work exchange candidate based on their professional experience and determine an hourly rate based on the job being performed and our school’s budget. Hourly rates for work exchange will be at least $25 per hour and will increase from there. We hope that this system will allow people to feel fairly compensated for their time and experience.

The following considerations are made when determining whether to offer a work exchange to a candidate:

• What professional support is most needed by the school at this time?

• Can the school afford this type of professional offering, or is the market rate for this type of work beyond the school’s budget? Does the school have the budget for any additional materials or equipment needed to complete this project?

• Does the candidate applying for the work exchange have the time, experience, and skill set to best perform the job?

• What are the financial needs of the family?

It is important to note that work exchange is considered compensation and must be reported as non-compensation income on an individual’s income tax return. To facilitate this, HMS issues a 1099-NEC form in January to those who receive work exchange packages and complete their work exchange hours.

In the summer of 2024, the school investigated with their financial auditors whether work exchange could be considered a tax-deductible donation of service to us as a nonprofit organization. Unfortunately, this option is not available to us because there is a clear exchange of tuition credit for the professional services rendered.

Yes, individuals who are interested in providing additional work services to the school can apply for this opportunity. The school evaluates each request to determine the need for such services. If the request is deemed appropriate, an individual may be offered work exchange for tuition credit, which can help reduce their tuition payments.