How Schools Make Money

This article describes a school's profit-making model: partnering with travel companies to organize parent-child trips. Parents pay large sums under the guise of "educational travel." Driven by Chinese culture's tendencies toward conformity, social pressure, vanity, and peer exclusion, most families feel they have no choice but to participate. A single trip can cost tens of thousands of yuan, and some schools organize four or five such trips per year. If a child were truly outstanding, they could earn scholarships and go for free. Otherwise, why not take your family on a more comfortable independent trip during summer break instead of paying a premium for an organized group tour?

Expensive Elite School Study Tours: A Scam That Preys on Parents and Tortures Kids