Since its founding in 1972, Wingra School has championed child-centered learning and social justice. Centrally located near the University of Wisconsin, Wingra emphasizes inquiry-based education to nurture critical thinkers and compassionate global citizens.

With a bold shift in tuition model, Wingra required an operationally sound and mission-aligned software to support their financial aid process.

“Starting in the 2022-2023 school year, we shifted our tuition model to be one that would make Wingra accessible to more families in the Madison community,” shared Torsie Judkins, Head of School at Wingra School.

“With that change, we needed a financial aid tool that would support the work we were trying to do.” 

“With our last system we used to get this huge disparity between what it said a family could pay and what a family said they could pay,” he continued.

“Right away with Clarity we got a much more accurate financial picture of our families. The formula customization has helped us close the gap between suggested tuition and what the family is willing to pay.” 

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More Accurate Budgeting and Awarding

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“Another thing Clarity helped us with right away was budgeting more accurately,” Judkins shared.

“We’re a little, non-profit school in a town that doesn't have a large independent school presence. Trying to convince families to come to a tuition paying school is already complicated enough.” 

“Tuition really drives our operating budget at Wingra. With our new tuition model we’re not bringing in as much revenue, so we need to have as accurate a picture as possible of our families’ financial situations.” 

“With Clarity, we've really been able to award more accurately.” 

“And because of that, we’re able to understand exactly how much revenue we’re going to bring in from tuition, and it’s also reduced the number of appeals we’re seeing.”

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Smoothing Out Audits

“Every year we get audited, and because of all of the information that Clarity collects, I already have everything I need to share with the auditors.” 

“The whole audit process has just become so much easier.”

“Keeping sensitive information secure is also a critical responsibility for us. We no longer have security concerns about families providing printed financial documents, or us having to scan them in our office. Everything is securely collected in Clarity.”

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Supporting the School Mission 

“The people that work at Clarity are people I trust because they have done this work at independent schools," shared Judkins.

I've never seen a company that provides a service for independent schools that knows what they're doing as well as Clarity does.”

We’ve seen the shift in our tuition model come to life in that we've certainly made an impact on the socioeconomic diversity at the school, and Clarity ensures we’re able to continue supporting our mission.