What would a handmade car cost?
A common piece of folk wisdom in the independent school world is that a year's tuition should cost about the same as the family Ford automobile. Despite the obvious problems with this old saw (pointed out quite cogently by Pat Bassett in his blog here), I think a more apt and illuminating comparison would be with the cost of a handmade automobile. You see, car manufacturing has been in the lead in reducing costs using technology (think better assembly lines, robots and just-in-time parts distribution), whereas private, independent education continues to follow an ancient, handcrafted production model. It is part of what attracts customers to our schools, given an increasing scale of one form of industrialization in public education.There are a few handmade cars in the world, but a particularly useful comparison might be to the Danish Zenvo ST1, about which Forbes had this to say:
hand-made, with a 1,250-horsepower 8-cylindar engine that goes 0-60mph in 2.9 seconds, ST1 has a top speed of 233mph. It has a wicked rear-wheel drive on a 7-speed manual transmission. The entire body is carbon fiber.Only 15 of the ST1 will be made, with three slated for U.S. showrooms. Those specimens have already generated plenty of interest from high profile figures, as you can well imagine, but the bulk of the buyers will remain anonymous.“We’ve already got a waiting list,” Khan says.It’s just as well: That US$1.8 million for the Zenvo ST1 is for the base model. Upgrades like ceramic brakes, paddle-shift transmission, carbon wheels, a roll-cage, a car cover and customized leather interior cost much, much more.
By this standard, the cost of our product doesn't look so bad. But the makers of the ST1 aren't trying to sell 1,000,000 of the cars, only 15. Even at half price, the market would still be excruciatingly small--no doubt this is part of the appeal. Auto production is one place where technology not only enables cheaper production, but also better production, meaning that most people would probably prefer the ease, cost and quality of something more mass-produced. To justify the hand made price, the makes of cars like the ST1 add features and materials that are neither part of older hand made cars nor essential for automotive functionality.Independent education is a hand made product in the extreme. It should cost a lot since the production model hasn't changed; paradoxically, if anything, it has become even more hand made. Given the escalating income polarization in the U.S. (and in much of the world), it is reasonable to conclude that so long as we don't over-produce (add too many seats), a robust market may persist well into the future (on a national level, because individual markets may experience otherwise).The problems with this are at least two-fold. First, few assume that a school populated entirely by the children of the wealthiest families (the fabled 1%) is a good school. While its academics may be incredible, most educators and families alike believe school is also about learning to live in our diverse, pluralized world. And, secondly, customers will at some point (I think we are already here) demand that we add ever more bells and whistles like the ST1.%%anc%%There will always be a small niche market for ST1's and school counterparts, but it will be very small indeed and not really all that good from a social/emotional perspective. The trick is for the rest of us to figure out how to build private education cheaper AND better. The market for that is enormous.