After-School Program Cost Calculator

They're mathematically the same calculation viewed two ways. Cost Per Student/Month is Total Monthly Expenses divided by Student Count -- the average cost of serving one student. Break-Even Tuition/Student is the tuition rate that would exactly cover that same average cost. Since both are defined as Total Monthly Expenses / Student Count, they always match; the second label exists to frame the number as a pricing floor rather than just a cost metric.

No -- it's this calculator's illustrative planning assumption for after-school program staff pay, not a wage survey result or a minimum-wage figure. Actual pay varies widely by region, staff credentials, and whether staff are part-time hourly workers or salaried teachers picking up after-school hours. Substitute your program's real hourly cost (including payroll taxes and benefits) for a more accurate estimate.

Staff cost, rent, and the admin/insurance allowance don't change with enrollment in this model -- only the supplies and snacks line scales per student. So as Student Count grows, those fixed costs get divided across more students, pulling the average cost per student down toward the marginal per-student supply cost. In practice, a real program would eventually need to add staff to maintain required child-to-staff ratios, which this calculator doesn't model.

Yes -- Staff Count is multiplied directly into the staff cost line (and indirectly into the admin/insurance allowance, which is 10% of staff cost plus rent), so more staff means higher Total Monthly Expenses and a higher Cost Per Student/Month, all else equal. This calculator doesn't automatically size staff to enrollment; you need to enter a staff count that reflects your state's required child-to-staff ratio for the age group you serve.

It doesn't model state-mandated staff-to-child ratios (which set a floor on Staff Count for a given Student Count and vary by state and age group), background-check or training costs, food-program compliance costs, or seasonal enrollment swings. Treat the Break-Even Tuition/Student figure as a starting point for a budget conversation, not a finished pricing model.