In a surprising twist, some educators at prestigious private schools in New York City find themselves earning less than the tuition fees paid by the students they teach.
An investigation by The Post has uncovered that at several elite K-12 institutions in the city, full-time teachers can earn salaries that fall more than $17,000 below the tuition costs for kindergarteners. Meanwhile, these schools boast substantial endowments and often pay their school heads salaries exceeding $1 million.
Blythe Grossberg, a former educator at the esteemed Collegiate School on the Upper West Side, shared her financial struggles with The Post. “Living in New York was incredibly financially stressful,” she remarked. “Surviving on my salary was nearly impossible—there just wasn’t a feasible way to make it work.”
At Collegiate, substitute teachers in the lower school could earn between $25 and $50 per hour, which is less than what Mayor Mamdani offered emergency snow shovelers this winter. The annual tuition there stands at $68,900.
Grossberg, who holds a Harvard degree and a doctorate in learning specialization, began her teaching career at elite New York City prep schools, including Collegiate and Packer Collegiate Institute, with a starting salary of $55,000 from 2005 to 2018. This salary was insufficient for living in the city, particularly as she has a son with autism requiring special services.
Grossberg, a Harvard-educated learning specialist with a doctorate, says she started at $55,000 when she worked at elite NYC prep schools including Collegiate and Packer Collegiate Institute from 2005 to 2018 â hardly enough to get by in the city, especially because she has a son with autism who requires services.
“I basically was tutoring around the clock just to pay the mortgage slash rent slash expenses,” she recalled. “[My colleagues] were always either tutoring or working in summer school. They had all kinds of side gigs.”
But not everyone. Grossberg realized that many of her colleagues could get by, thanks to their own privilege.
“I think the dirty little secret, at least in my experience, is that a lot of the teachers also went to private school, so some of them have trust funds, basically,” she said. “And then, it’s helpful if they have a very rich spouse.
For those without a rich spouse or family money, the salaries can be rough â and totally incongruous with the wealth that fills NYC private schools.
At Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, students pay $59,000. And yet they could be taught by a lower school associate teacher of Spanish, music, or art making only $52,000 to $60,000 a year.
Meanwhile, the head of school was raking in $1 million, between $983,000 base pay and $192,000 in other payments in 2023, according to tax filings.
At the all girls Nightingale-Bamford School on the Upper East Side, a Kindergarten associate teacher could make as little as $54,000 and only as much as $60,000, according to a recent job posting.
Tuition is $71,600 for the very Kindergarteners they teach. Their Head of School also pulled in more than $1 million in salary and other compensation in the 2024 school year.
Many private school teachers make less than their public school counterparts. Starting salary without teaching experience in public schools is $68,900 with a bachelors degree and $77,500 with a master’s degree.
That minimum starting salary is pushing the maximum of some private school job listings. At Dalton, prospective 1st and 2nd grade associate teachers are being offered between $66,000 and $69,000. Tuition at the Upper East Side school is $67,500, and the head of school makes more than $1 million, according to tax filings.
Emily Glickman has spent 27 years advising families on admissions to New York City private schools. She says there’s a total disconnect between what families assume their teachers are making and reality.
“Thereâs definitely a perception gap between what families are paying and what teachers are earning,” she said. “Families assume tuition is going to teachersâbut a significant portion supports the broader institutional structure.”
Grossberg saw this firsthand while teaching middle and high school students at Collegiate.
“Some of the students ask me, like, Dr. Grossberg, where are you going this summer? And I was kind of like, you know, to my apartment in Brooklyn to vacuum,” the teacher recalled. She’s the author of a book about her experience teaching in private schools called “I Left My Homework in the Hamptons.”
Glickman says parents “assume that their $70,000 tuition means private school teachers are being paid at a completely different level from public school teachers.”
At Brearley, an all-girls Upper East Side school, a lower school associate teaching job was recently listed for $63,700, while tuition is $66,800.
Ethical Culture Fieldston, a “progressive” K-12 school that describes itself as “cooperative [and] student-centered” was recently ripped by Town and Country for advertising a role for associate teachers with a $60,200 salary, compared with a $68,200 tuition price tag.
A spokesperson for the school told The Post the median teachers earn is higer, at $137,000. Fieldston’s top earner is their CEO, who made $949,000, in 2024, according to publicly available filings.
The Post reached out to Brearley, Dalton, Collegiate, Nightingale-Bamford, Riverdale, and Grace Church School but received no reply.
Paul Rossi, a former high school math teacher at the Grace Church School from 2012 to 2021, said that private school teachers might start approaching public school salaries, but it takes a long time to catch up.
“For teachers with more than 20 years experience at the ‘elite’ privates in New York, salaries may approach that of public teachers,” he said, noting that’s in part due to the strength of public school unions.
At Grace Church School, a Lower School and Early Childhood associate teacher can expect to make only $60,000 to $62,000, while tuition was $68,500 for the 2025-2026 school year.
Rossi points out private school teachers are usually making a conscious choice to accept less pay.
“It can be a source of frustration, but it’s more like a tradeoff,” he said. “Public school teachers who move to private schools often frame the decision as getting less pay for a more desirable work environment. You might take as much as 20k less per year but you escape the bureaucracy and terrible discipline issues.”
He added, “Generally most private school teachers just accept getting lower pay than public as a ‘fact of life.’ For most of them, I think they see the higher pay in public school like a form of ‘hazard pay.’ The difference between drilling a regular oil well and an offshore one.”
