Bounding Toward Hope: Dublin Resident and DCA Alum Pens New Book
February 6, 2026
Ways To Save
While Still Getting a Great Christian Education
With the cost of just about…well, everything going up in the last few years, it is easy to think that adding a line item to your budget like “Tuition for Private School” is unfathomable.
If you’re seeking a great Christian education for your family, we at DCA want you to know that a DCA education is accessible. We want to help you make it a reality!
This article will cover ways to curb tuition costs, school supplies, and uniforms, making it easier to say “Yes” to Dublin Christian Academy.
Don’t Let Tuition Costs Stop You
Inevitably, education costs are going up everywhere—we see it in the increase in our taxes, budget and curriculum cuts, more out-of-pocket expenses for parents and teachers, and of course, private school tuition.
At DCA, we have worked very hard to make tuition more manageable. One very popular tool at our families’ disposal is our tuition management system with customer payment plans. Rather than requiring families to pay the entire year’s tuition in one lump sum, we offer flexible payment options—our business department tries to accommodate and work with families to tailor payment plans to their specific needs.
Over the years, parents have found creative ways to supplement tuition costs, such as acquiring part-time jobs or side gigs. Examples include providing after-school care, babysitting, Instacart, Doordash, selling items on Etsy, etc. Opportunities right at DCA, like substitute teaching, can also help offset tuition. We also offer sibling discounts that reduce the overall amount each year with the admission of each additional student in a family.
Lastly, there are more financial aid opportunities available than ever. Many of our students and families take advantage of these programs each year. Check out our financial aid blog for a comprehensive list of ways to help you save.
How to Save Money on the Things You Need
Outside of tuition, other educational expenses, such as textbooks, supplies, uniforms, and transportation come with private education. However, our families have learned ways to save in each of these categories as well:
TEXTBOOKS
Textbooks can be a significant expense each year. Although we offer students a quick and easy way to order new textbooks and workbooks online, multiple used book options can provide substantial cost savings.
The top way to reduce the cost of textbooks is to reuse them. Families who pass textbooks on from one sibling to another, or swap back and forth with friends, save hundreds of dollars.
Online resources have been incredibly helpful in finding resourceful ways to purchase supplies. Websites like Thriftbooks.com, Ebay.com, and Amazon.com are all great places to look for used or discounted new textbooks. Even better, BookFinder.com is an online aggregator that returns new and used availability and pricing across Amazon, eBay, Thriftbooks, and other booksellers when you search by ISBN, title, or author.
A very popular Facebook group, the DCA Virtual Textbook Exchange, is a place where families of current and past students can sell or swap used textbooks still being used in the current curriculum. Books found here are often heavily discounted as parents look to quickly free up space on their bookshelves for next year’s textbooks. This group is helpful to find not only used textbooks but also DCA-themed attire (Stag Swag) and other clothing items.
UNIFORMS
Speaking of clothing, uniforms are a requirement for all K-12 DCA students. Like textbooks, uniforms can be purchased new, handed down from sibling to sibling, or, with a bit of digging around, can be found used for much more affordable prices.
Threads of Hope is a consignment store in Jaffrey, NH, that often carries a wide selection of high-quality, used DCA uniforms at very reasonable prices. Threads typically displays uniforms during the back-to-school shopping season in July and August, but even if uniforms are not out on the floor, they are available throughout the year. Threads has invited DCA families to ask about uniforms at the front desk during “off-season” times to see what uniform options may still be available.
To help our families save on new uniforms, we constantly seek out and share discount codes offered by our official uniform supplier, Lands End. As fellow New Englanders, we understand the importance of a good coupon or discount code to help put more money back in our pockets! We use Lands End to ensure the specific guidelines we are looking for. However, we do not check labels, so families can also save money by purchasing lookalikes from other uniform providers at places like Target, Children’s Place, and Burlington. Just make sure the items purchased look identical to the approved items on DCA’s Lands’ End shop.
TRANSPORTATION
Although you may pass those big, yellow school buses on your way in, you won’t find any of them dropping off students at DCA in the morning. A private school means no public transportation, so all our commuting students must be dropped off and picked up by car daily.
As students make friends during the year, families discover how close they live to other DCA families, and carpools frequently form.
Carpooling is not only a great way to save on fuel costs, but when parents find that the drop-off or pickup times don’t always coincide well with their work schedules, they can often arrange for another parent to transport their child(ren) during those times and return the favor. This is also a great way to get to know other families and fellowship with fellow believers.
Our Referral Program
Although tuition is being adjusted this coming year due to inflation, we are offering a new referral program for 2025-2025 to give DCA families additional opportunities to save.
When a current DCA family refers a new student from another family to DCA, and they enroll in the 2025-2026 school year, the referring family gets a $500 credit per new student or $1,000 per family (if the family enrolls more than two students). There is no limit to the number of families you can refer, but each new family can only list one referring family.
In addition to the savings for that referral family, this incentive encourages growth for DCA and the spreading of the Gospel in our region.
Our Goal: Making a DCA Education Possible for All
Even as budgets are getting tighter and tighter, we want to support our families however we can, from resources to cost-cutting tips, to always make DCA feel obtainable for any student desiring an education here.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about our tuition, payment plans, or any other expenses for the coming school year.
We never want money to be the primary reason why a student cannot attend DCA. As we look for and offer provisions for current and prospective families to attend our school, we are also reminded of how grace and every provision are given for every good work of the Lord:
“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8 (NKJV)
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