Tuition money does not go anywhere.

Like money received by the IRS, collections go into coffers unknown. Take for example, the education system of New York City, particularly Brooklyn. Public schools aside, parochial schools made a killing. Traditionally American schools were religious schools anyway. Why not focus on young, upwardly mobile families who needed to put their elementary age kids somewhere while they went to work?

This would explain all the yellow, Montessori vans driving around in the seventies. Let's lower the microscope to Brooklyn adventist schools, like Hanson place. Hanson place had a thriving church, meaning tithe payers, and a thriving school. Those tithes and that tuition had to go somewhere.

Only so much is allocated to operating expense, then there's what's left over. At least one innovative teacher started his own school. It was relatively successful, until he died. He had one illegitimate heir, for those unknown school fees. Instead he willed his money to his sister. They come from Bermuda, by way of Barbados.

Where do religious, private school tuitions go? To a little old lady, who lives by herself in the last house owned by my grandfather in Barbados. She has one son, my uncle, who waits for her to die.