Originally Posted by Hunni Bee:
The preschool I work for now (I don't even feel right calling it a center or daycare) charges almost as much per week as my old one was getting per month per child. And all the classrooms are completely at capacity, there's a waiting list, and I see families touring everyday.
All of the families happily fork hundreds of dollars over, and sign up for extracurriculars, and at least half have 2 or more kids enrolled.
I really wouldn't believe it if I wasn't seeing it. The parents at my old center were nearly all on assistance and were paying pocket change as copays...most had no copay at all. The ones who were paying out of pocket paid a discounted rate on top of it being dirt cheap anyway. And it was like pulling teeth to get them do even this.
Not that the services they were receiving was all that great, the basics were covered. But what we could get them to pay barely kept the lights on and paid the skeleton staff.
I guess it is like Daycare's dcm said. You want quality, you pay for it.
The first year I was in business, I actually lost money. My tax advisor said, "Well, according to your receipts, you lost money, is this correct?" I said, "Well, I knew there was a reason that I felt broke all year!" I raised my rates, and guess what, I actually got a better group of families than I had in the beginning! When I say better, I mean...they paid on time, they picked up on time, etc. I think that people really do equate quality with higher rates....coarse this isn't always the case....I still have two openings
