Rationale for charging students more for a yellow belt grading than a white belt grading?

[Rich Parsons]

This really surprises me because when I was child I attended a few schools in karate, judo, kung fu etc and never came across this type of pricing structure. Also as an adult I have sampled a fair few schools (5-6) before settling on my current jujutsu class and never came across this before. Like I said I always expect the dan grades to be priced differently as they have extra costs but I've never seen it done with kyu grades. Maybe I have just been lucky with the schools I encountered.



Again I am surprised as all the schools in my city that I've looked at seem to have a belt system! My older brother did kickboxing where I grew up and he had earned belts as well. I'm not doubting you Jarrod especially as everyone else seems to be surprised that kickboxing has a belt system on this thread as well. I'm just feeling a little confused though! From peoples responses I am feeling that I should be more concerned about the fact there is a belt system and the pricing is nothing out of the ordinary?

Kickboxing or is it really TaeKwonDo or TangSooDo or some other art, that is issuing the rank, but the premise for the club is to teach competing techniques for Kick boxing?


I have seen three methods for testing fees:

1) they are included in your Monthly fees, i.e. you pay your monthly fees when it is time to test you test and if you pass and your instructor gives you new rank you wear it.

2) Block pricing, i.e. All Color belt one price then a Big Jump for First Black, they may or may not jump more per rank in black.

3) Progressive cost increase based upon rank. Each step is smaller and less of a shock for the cost to the student.


Pros and cons of each

1) Pros: If you raise your Monthly fees you do not have to worry about testing fee increases as well. The parents do not have to worry about extra costs and feel like they are being nickled and dime to bankruptcy.

Cons: People do not always understand that the monthly fees cover testing fees and will go somewhere else to save $5 per month, but pay a lot more for testing.

2) Pro: This is simple as both the instructors and students know the price for a belt it is the same.

Con: If you have to raise the price, people remember the old price for YEARS and will always feel bad, or think they are being scammed. Not everyone but enough. This makes it more difficult to raise costs, assuming your cost for the test have gone up. This leads to many times increased costs in the Black ranks to compensate for the lower ranks being lost leaders.

3) Pro: If you raise it most people are not used to paying the same price for multiple tests of months or years. This allows for the memory of the student/customer to reset and go with the flow.

Con: People question the value of the increased cost and wonder if it just for money. The Variable scale can give the impression of buying rank, as it costs more per rank.


******


I cannot tell you which one is best. I think it would depend upon local market conditions and the customer expectations.

Our club uses method two, and has done so for years (decades). Not that it is the best method, but that it is what was done for a small club with a small amount of students. It might be difficult to overcome the "tradition" of it being there that way for so long.

 

[Cryozombie]

Weird.

The school I attend has no fees for testing and the monthly dues actually decrease as your rank gets higher.

The Bujinkan as a whole doesn't do it that way... I believe that you pay more for each Dan rank.

 

[MJS]

Hi folks, I am currently looking around my city for a kickboxing class on Fridays to replace my current boxing class and came across this school that is charging their students £10 for a compulsory pre-grading and then increasing the grading charges each belt so it goes:

White belt £20
Yellow £22.50
Orange £25
Green £27.50
Blue £30
Purple £35
Brown 1 £40
Brown 2 £45
Brown 3 £50
Black Price on application

http://www.kickboxingbristol.co.uk/gradings.htm

I must admit to being a bit confused about this pricing structure as I struggle to see the need to charge more for a yellow belt grading than a white one. I understand why Black belt gradings cost more because quite often it is a day long affair and involves paying outside assessors to make up the panel. I admit my first cynical response to this is that it is just a scheme to make extra money out of the students but I know that not being a school owner I may be ignorant to another valid reason. With this in mind I thought I would throw the question out here in case anybody has a more wholesome rationale for this type of pricing structure. Does anybody run a school that does something similar?

Oh and happy new year to all

As another poster stated, I too am curious about the belt rankings in kickboxing. AFAIK, there isn't any. Anyways, as far as the fees go, I've seen it done a few ways. 1) no fees for any rank under black. Once black is reached, fees start. 2) I've seen the same fee for all belts under black and 3) I've seen an increase for each rank as you go up. The fees could be charged for a number of reasons. I suppose the best thing to do is inquire with the inst. of the school.

 

[Kacey]

Charging more for higher ranks is done principally because they can. That's true of many businesses, of course. I have usually seen it only for the black belt ranks. It's partially a sign of dedication there.

It also gives the instructor something of perceived value for dedicated students as a giveaway--"Thanks for helping cover those classes last week for me; I'll waive your next belt test fee!"--which isn't bad business either.

Ranks like this for kickboxing are indeed uncommon. It isn't a red flag, but it's not the usual thing!

i charge my students a sliding scale for testing based on the belt level

the reason:
higher level tests take longer, and my time is valuable
and
at advanced levels, there is breaking involved, and i am not paying for the boards out of my own pocket, i shouldnt have to

I've seen all of the above, in various combinations. My class charges a flat fee for color belt testing, which includes all materials; any money left over goes into the class fund, which is used to buy things for the class. Black belt testings are run between multiple classes on an annual basis, and the cost is higher; the test is longer, more materials are needed, BB testings are held separately and sometimes involve a rental fee for the facility (color belt tests are held during the regular class time), and a portion of the BB fee goes to support the national organization. Also, for higher ranks we often have to import testing instructors from other areas; we don't test our own students, and the testing instructor has to be at least 2 dan ranks higher than the highest rank being tested for, so for more senior students' testings, we have to bring in another instructor, which also raises the test fees - although we offset that by having the visiting instructor teach a seminar after testing, for a fee, for any students who want to attend.

 

[myusername]

I should say that I have visited the school mentioned in the original post and it turned out to be very good! Nobody is made to grade and from what I saw not many people did. The instructor and training was sound, I got a good workout, he is producing a few full contact fighters and the class was very friendly. It appears I judged too harshly based on the grading pricing structure. My bad!

 

[jarrod]

glad to hear it! it's always worthwhile to see for yourself.

jf

 

[Aefibird]

In my local area (in the UK) the majority of kickboxing schools have belts and testing. Several of them, however, aren't just KB schools, they also teach another art such as Lau Gar, TKD, Wing Chun etc, so I suspect that more often than not the belts & ranking are for the other style, not just for the kickboxing.

There's a kickboxing & boxing club who train downstairs from my karate dojo and the trainer there has gradings and belt for juniors but not for adult students.

As for the grading fee, I've been at a school that charges a set fee for coloured belt testing and a higher price for Dan grading and I've also been part of a club that steadily increases the price for testing as you work through the ranks (as the gradings for each belt got progressively longer).

I have no preference for either system, but would probably feel a bit cheated to pay more for each coloured belt grading if I didn't feel that I was getting any more "testing time" for my extra few quid and that the test took the same length of time regardless of belt colour.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Hi folks, I am currently looking around my city for a kickboxing class on Fridays to replace my current boxing class and came across this school that is charging their students £10 for a compulsory pre-grading and then increasing the grading charges each belt so it goes:

White belt £20
Yellow £22.50
Orange £25
Green £27.50
Blue £30
Purple £35
Brown 1 £40
Brown 2 £45
Brown 3 £50
Black Price on application

http://www.kickboxingbristol.co.uk/gradings.htm

I must admit to being a bit confused about this pricing structure as I struggle to see the need to charge more for a yellow belt grading than a white one. I understand why Black belt gradings cost more because quite often it is a day long affair and involves paying outside assessors to make up the panel. I admit my first cynical response to this is that it is just a scheme to make extra money out of the students but I know that not being a school owner I may be ignorant to another valid reason. With this in mind I thought I would throw the question out here in case anybody has a more wholesome rationale for this type of pricing structure. Does anybody run a school that does something similar?

Oh and happy new year to all

The only thing that sticks out to me is the one for white belt. I've never heard of having to pay to be a white belt. Generally you start off as a white belt, or with very young kids (3-6), I've seen some places where the belt is witheld until they show that they are capable of actually taking the class, but there's no charge for it.

Otherwise, the price points look fairly reasonable.

Daniel

 

[shihansmurf]

I was in a system a long time a go that you had to test for white belt. I was taking Han Foo Wa, and as I recall the test consisted of being able to do a couple of punches, ogoshi, front and back rolls, and a front kick. I'm kinda fuzzy on if there were any other requirements as its been going on twenty years or so but in retrospect the idea that you have to test to get a white belt strikes me as odd, and I've even been through such a test.

Personally I test students through the following..

Start at

White
Yellow
Yellow/ 1 Tip
Yellow/ 2 Tip
Green
Green/ 1 Tip
Green/ 2 Tip
Brown
Brown/ 1 Tip
Brown/ 2 Tip
Shodanho
Shodan

The test fees are pretty straightforward. Yellow, Green, Brown, and Shodanho are $ 10. There is no charge for the tip gradings. The fees cover the cost of the belt.

Shodan has no testing fee. I promote so few people to shodan or higher the the occasion and the person are important enough to me that I buy their new belt for them.

I have to echo several of the other posters on this, though. I would be cautious of a school promoting anyone through a belt system in kickboxing. It raises serious red flags. If you really want a belt in kickboxing then train very hard, beat the snot out of someone, and take the shiny gold one that they carried out to the ring with them. The bragging rights are much better.


Mark

 

[myusername]

I have to echo several of the other posters on this, though. I would be cautious of a school promoting anyone through a belt system in kickboxing. It raises serious red flags. If you really want a belt in kickboxing then train very hard, beat the snot out of someone, and take the shiny gold one that they carried out to the ring with them. The bragging rights are much better.


Mark

I started a spin off thread on wether kickboxing should have a belt system and when researching the subject I found a few links that suggested this is perhaps a european thing. Which makes sense for me as pretty much every club, except MMA associated ones had a grading syllabus in my town. Therefore in England I don't view a kickboxing club with a grading system anything out of the ordinary. I have since visited the club in question and it turned out to be very good, nice work out and top coaching. Funnily enough nobody there seemed to be taking advantage of the grading system anyway. There were a few full contact fighters being produced. I'm in the process of making my mind up wether to join or stay with my current regular boxing class.

Here is a link to the spin off thread

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71463

My second post in that thread has the links suggesting that kickboxing belt systems are quite common in the UK.

 

[tellner]

You want the real reason?

If they haven't paid for a belt test they might balk at a high price.
If they've already paid for one they're emotionally invested and will pay more for each successive one.

"Boil 'em slow, and they'll never know."

 

[punisher73]

Being given something without sacrifice means nothing so some charge so students can self reflect about their sacrifice and it means more to them each belt level up. I have heard that the reason for the progressively higher fees is, it takes more time/effort on the part of the instructor to invest in the student as they get higher up.


Also, I think it does help to offset costs and help the school. Look at how many students join and make their first belt, then the next and so on. By charging a little bit more each time, you can still make money even though less people are testing for the higher rank because of dropouts.