November 11, 2026|א' כסלו ה' אלפים תשפ"ז The Hidden Cost of the Tuition Crisis: Our Daughters' Torah By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

We talk endlessly about the yeshiva tuition crisis. We talk about families stretched to the breaking point, about parents working second jobs, about couples deciding how many children they can afford. All of that is real. But I want to point to an impact of the tuition crisis that we rarely discuss, one that I think is hiding in plain sight.

Its name is Stern College for Women.

I have not conducted a scientific study. But I teach as a rebbe in a girls' yeshiva high school, and my son is a rebbe in a boys' yeshiva high school. Between what we see in our own schools and what we hear from colleagues at similar schools, we have a good sense of what happens to our students after Israel. I am not talking here about young people, men or women, who want a full secular campus experience. That is a separate conversation. I am talking about young women who want to remain in a religious environment after seminary, and the families who support that choice. What I see is that our community sends a different message to these girls than to boys about what comes after the gap year.

Dovid HaMelech gives us a two-part formula for spiritual life: sur me'ra va'aseh tov, turn away from evil and do good (Tehillim 34:15). Both halves matter. Avoiding what pulls us down is not the same as actively building ourselves up.

For our boys, the message is clear, and it applies to both halves. We expect them to grow religiously in yeshiva high school, and then to grow even more during a year or two in yeshiva in Israel. But the expectation does not end when they come home. Even after Israel, we want them to keep growing within a yeshiva framework. That is why there is such a strong push toward places like Yeshiva University, which combine college with a serious commitment to Talmud Torah. The point is not only sur me'ra, keeping our sons away from the distractions of a secular campus. It is also aseh tov: continuing to build themselves through learning, years after the gap year has ended.

For our girls, the first part of the story is the same. We invest enormously in their religious growth in high school and in seminary. In those years, they have so many avenues for growth, and above all, Talmud Torah. That is aseh tov in the fullest sense.

But after seminary, something changes. Stern College has a thriving beit midrash, a wide range of challenging Torah classes, and real opportunities to keep growing. Yet I don't hear that it is where our daughters are expected to go. Instead, the goal I hear about is to finish college as quickly as possible. Some young women choose an online degree or one of the frum colleges in our area. Others attend a local public college while living at home, which is affordable and keeps them close to family and community.

These options meet real needs, and I respect the families who choose them. But when my students explain why they are considering them, they speak about a frum environment, a lower cost, finishing quickly, and staying close to home. Continued Torah learning is rarely part of the conversation. The question is not whether one setting is frum and another is not. It is whether continued growth in Torah is something we are actively choosing for our daughters, or something we have quietly stopped expecting.

Some will say the difference is really about marriage. Many young women come home from seminary hoping to marry soon, and college becomes something to complete quickly before that next stage. That hope is beautiful, and I share it for my students. But it does not explain why their learning should stop. We want our sons to build a serious Torah life before they marry, precisely so that they bring it into their homes. Why would we want anything less for the women who will build those homes alongside them?

Others will point to halacha. Men are obligated in Talmud Torah in a way that women are not. That is true, but it cannot explain why serious learning stops specifically after seminary. The same halachic distinction applied when our daughters were in high school and in seminary, and we still invested enormously in their learning, because we know how profoundly Torah study shapes their religious lives. Their yirat Shamayim, their connection to mitzvot, and the homes they will build are all nourished by serious learning. Whatever the precise level of obligation, the value of Torah in a woman's religious life does not expire when she comes home from Israel.

So why the difference? I believe the tuition crisis plays a central role.

Stern College is expensive, considerably more expensive than the other religious options available to our daughters. Parents who have already paid tens of thousands of dollars a year for yeshiva high school, and then for seminary, have made enormous sacrifices for their daughters' aseh tov. By the time seminary ends, many are worn out. Sur me'ra at a lower price feels like enough.

But the tuition crisis does more than drain our resources. Look at what happens within a single family. I know many families who send their sons to YU and their daughters to a local college or an online program while they live at home. Same parents, same values, same budget, and Stern is part of the same university their sons attend. If these families can find a way to pay for YU for their sons, then Stern is not simply out of reach for their daughters. They are deciding where to spend limited resources. This is the hidden way the tuition crisis shapes our daughters' futures: it forces every family to choose, and our choices reveal what we value. Too often, they reveal that we value our sons' continued growth in Torah more than our daughters'.

There may also be a cultural factor, and here I am less sure. I wonder whether part of the difference comes from the top down. At Yeshiva University, so many young men are learning in the semicha program after college that it shapes the expectations of our entire community. Because serious post-college learning for men is so visible, we take it for granted that a young man returning from his gap year should attend an institution like YU, where serious Talmud Torah remains part of his daily life.

For young women, the picture is different. Stern's Graduate Program in Advanced Talmud/Tanach Studies, GPATS, is wonderful, but it is small, and a small program cannot shape communal expectations in the same way. Without a large, visible community of women learning seriously after college, our community feels less of an expectation that a young woman returning from seminary should choose an institution where serious Talmud Torah continues.

Culture and cost reinforce each other. A weaker expectation makes it easier to decide that the expense isn't worth it, and every family that makes that decision weakens the expectation a little more. In the end, a community's priorities show up in what it is willing to pay for.

I don't have a complete solution, but there are places to start. High schools can present serious post-seminary learning to our daughters with the same conviction we bring to our sons, and guidance conversations can treat it as a priority rather than an afterthought. Parents can ask their daughters directly, when they weigh college options, where they will keep learning. And those who care about this issue can support scholarship funds that make serious post-seminary learning affordable for young women, so that cost does not quietly make the decision for us.

Above all, we need to ask ourselves some honest questions. If we believe that serious, structured religious growth, and especially Talmud Torah, is a primary vehicle for building a committed Jewish life, why should it continue for men after the gap year but not for women? Are our daughters really finished products when they return from seminary, while our sons are still works in progress? Or have we allowed the cost of tuition to make that decision for us?

We have spent years talking about what the tuition crisis costs our families. It may be time to talk about what it is costing our daughters.