Monthly Tuition

 

Training cost per month?

 

To preface, I would like to make it very clear that any dollar amount used is approximate and should not be taken to heart. The focus is to give students a clear break down of cost - something many of them aren’t aware of. Students often just look at the lump sum. I know many highly qualified Sensei who charge significantly less than the values used here, and I know of a few who should be charging considerably less.

It is important to understand that the monthly tuition charge should not be used as an indicator of the value of what you are getting as a student. You must look at it objectively; like a gym member ship fee.   Except with Karate training, there is no additional cost for the “personal trainer” i.e. the Sensei.

At a gym you work out solo, and the monthly membership fees range from $30-$50. There is usually an additional cost for a personal trainer which can range from $50-$80 an hour. So I think it’s fair to say that for Karate lessons one should be paying around $60.00-$100.00 per month depending on the amount of class time offered and type of facility.  Even at $100.00, if you calculate that out at 4 days a week, and assume at least 1.5 hour per class time, that means you’re paying your instructor $4.17 per hour of instruction.... minimum wage anyone? If you have a class of more than 15 people this could be a decent price – mutually beneficial... but when there are fewer students you get more personalized attention. Often, more traditional Dojos try to practice this concept of having fewer students with more personalized attention. Quality over quantity. Further, the $4.17 is gross; net will be significantly less. Even if the dojo is a space inside the Sensei’s home think about the extra water, electricity, heat, and dedicated space he wouldn’t otherwise need, that is being used for you.  Any additional amenities which have been added to make it a more pleasurable place to train further erode profits.

What is the point? We often overlook the expertise of our own Sensei. Some of us search for years to find what some of us stumble upon and take for granted. Many of the people teaching you have been studying, training, and practicing their budo longer and more intensely than most secondary education teacher and some college professors.  Granted, those institutions bestow a degree that can help make us more employable. But I think it’s important to give this some thought and ask ourselves if we show our instructors the proper gratitude and respect. After all, many traditional budo instructors don’t teach for a living.  And often, they don’t even use it as a supplementary income. In recent conversation on this topic, fellow instructors indicated they take 75-80% of the paid tuition and put it back into the dojo – supplies, additional group activities, etc.

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