ELON Musk’s “genius academy” is losing $2,000 for every student it recruits – despite charging $ 2,100 an hour for classes and being dubbed the “world’s most exclusive school.”
Astra Nova School has been losing hundreds of thousands despite the extortionate tuition fees, according to records.
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The Tesla founder claims that Astra Nova School will attract the best 200 young brains in the US – who all have to pay up to $33,000 per year to study an Elon-style curriculum.
Astra Nova is a non-profit and proclaims on its website that it’s an “experimental online school for kind, independent, and daring kids,” ages 10 to 14.
Because it is tax-exempt, it publicly declares its annual return on a 990 form.
From July 2022 to June 2023, it lost $399,966, or $1,999.83 per student.
From July 2021 to June 2022, it was $69,074 in the red.
In total, Astra Nova has lost just shy of half a million dollars during its two years in existence.
According to the IRS, it became a tax-exempt organization in February 2021 – opening its doors five months later.
The figures show that the school is only profitable after being propped up with $1.5 million in cash assets.
But it’s not known where this came from, although Elon is worth a cool $266 billion, according to Forbes.
Despite the hefty price tag, the school has made it clear on its website that anyone who can’t afford the steep fees will be given special dispensations stating that “family finances should not prevent a child from attending.”
The school’s curriculum is ever-changing and is being run by education expert Joshua Dahn, supposedly focusing on constructive disagreement, collaboration, and decision-making.
Applications are currently open, but children must solve conundrums related to titles such as “Future of Rockets” and “NASA.”
The U.S. Sun tried to apply for the school, which only asks for the parents’ personal details and to upload the child’s “conundrum” – that’s it, no further questions.
Prior to Astra Nova, which is solely online, there was Ad Astra, which was founded in 2014 after Musk pulled his five kids out of school, saying, “They weren’t doing the things I thought should be done.”
The Washington Post called the first incarnation “a secretive laboratory school for brilliant kids who love flamethrowers.”
Ad Astra, meaning “to the stars” in Latin, provided free education to a small group of students, mostly Musk’s own children and those of SpaceX employees.
ELON MUSK’S ‘GENIUS ACADEMY’
ELON Musk founded a non-profit online school Astra Nova School, a successor to Ad Astra.
- In 2014 he launched Ad Astra meaning “To the stars” in Latin after pulling his five sons out of school.
- He hired Joshua Dahn to design the school and teach a small group of students including his own children and those of SpaceX employees for free.
- It left the SpaceX campus in June 2020 when Musk’s children graduated and he relocated to Texas.
- In August 2020, former Ad Astra faculty and students created the non-profit Astra Nova School.
- The school is currently run by Joshua Dahn and co-founders Dr Rosemary Rohde and Tara Safronoff.
- It accepts students aged 10-14 and currently has between 200 and 300 students from around the world.
It focused on STEM subjects, with no foreign language studies or music lessons, and no grading system.
The school left the SpaceX campus in June 2020 when Musk’s children graduated and the billionaire relocated to Texas.
“They were there until they were about 14 but then I thought they should be introduced to the real world for high school,” Musk said in Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography of the tycoon.
“What I should have done is extend Ad Astra through high school.”