In the United States, education is a public resource, available to everyone – for the most part. While it’s true that public education provides students with invaluable resources and learning opportunities, almost every other aspect of education is monetized. It’s common knowledge that university education is ridiculously expensive, and that student loans can change a person’s entire financial future, but for many, financial struggles are not limited to post-secondary education.
Even during elementary and high school, students have to struggle with purchasing school supplies. Although the purchasing of school supplies is not a significant issue for many, those in underprivileged areas often struggle with getting their children the supplies they need to guarantee a positive education experience. According to the National Retail Federation, families with children in K-12 schooling have spent $890 on school supplies on average in 2023, which is the highest average expenditure on back-to-school items ever. For many families, especially those who rely on seasonal income that dries up in the summer, spending almost a thousand dollars is simply not possible. Unfortunately, this fact means that children in low-income families are underprepared for their education in some of the most critical periods of their development.
Supplies are not the only costly aspect of a K-12 education. Most students seeking a university education in the future will have to take some form of standardized test, most commonly the SAT. Because of its importance and its commercial exploitability, the SAT prep industry has been overtaken by corporate entities that seek to prey on parents who attempt to secure better futures for their children. SAT prep courses rival college classes with respect to price; for example, a 1400+ SAT prep course from the Princeton Review retails for $1900. According to James Wellenmyer of MarketWatch, some parents can be spending even as much as $10,000 to prepare their children for the SAT. Once again, this over-monetization of the education market disproportionately affects low-income families. The students who live in families unable to drop thousands on test prep are extremely underprepared compared to those who did take classes. How is a person who had no opportunity for preparation before the test supposed to compare to someone who spent dozens of hours preparing for the exam with a professional tutor on their payroll?
A solution to this problem that many children and families face can be solved with the newly created organization, NJAEI. In a relatively affluent area such as Marlton, it’s difficult to imagine that others only a handful of miles away are unable to access necessary supplies to succeed in school, or that others are unable to get extra tutoring if they need it solely because of economic barriers. The services that the NJAEI provides allow us to tackle both the issue of school supply availability and SAT prep availability, as well as others.
To make school supplies more accessible to everyone, we hold school supply drives to provide local educational institutions, such as public schools or libraries, with additional school supplies that can be given to those who need them. Recently, we have just held a school supply drive in honor of the 2024 MLK Day of Service. By giving schools these supplies, we hope that those who struggle to afford said supplies will be able to access them where and when they are needed.
To make SAT prep more accessible to everyone, we offer free personalized SAT classes, both digital and in person, to guarantee that anyone who wants to be prepared for the exam can be. Classes are taught by students who received 1500+ or higher and are available to all who sign up. By doing this, we can make prep available to all high schoolers, regardless of their financial status.
If you are interested in any of the programs that we do, or you want any more information about the NJAEI, you can visit our website at www.njaei.org.
