Offsetting Tuition Costs

Hudsonville Christian School provides students with an educational environment committed to academic excellence and faith integration. To help reduce the cost of tuition, parents have been using gift cards for their Tuition Reduction Incentive Program (TRIP) since 1995. 90% of the rebates a family earns with TRIP goes toward their tuition cost and the other 10% goes toward school initiatives.

TRIP helps offset tuition from preschool through eighth grade—and families also use it to save toward high school Christian education. Some families have paid for their entire preschool tuition this way. Others have started raising funds before their children are in school, and as a result, have paid for their kindergarten tuition in advance.

"The program brings in about $200,000 a year for families and an additional $25,000 for the school."
- Beth, program coordinator

The program has allowed the school to make additional tuition assistance available for more families and its widespread impact has been experienced by many. In fact, there are a lot of participants whose own children have graduated, but they continue to purchase gift cards to save up for grandchildren or to give to the tuition assistance fund.