Sophia Hollander reports in the Wall Street Journal:  Leman Manhattan Prep School Goes International With Boarding

Hollander notes that Leman is opening NYC’s first international private boarding school, with Avenues shortly to follow.

Clearly this is excellent business practice.  The wonder is only that somebody didn’t do this earlier.

With

  • The explosion in Manhattan of affluent international families buying up real estate
  • Asian students flocking to many American boarding schools and colleges
  • More and more international students seeking an American college education and
  • Manhattan now widely perceived as safe and glamorous

Of course foreign high school students are going to want to study in Manhattan.  This is a no-brainer.

The challenge for Leman and Avenues is to make international students think that the American educations they are offering are top-notch and college preparatory.  If they can do this, their boarding rolls will be filled.  I expect that a large fraction of both schools’ high schools will one day be composed of international students, with a significant percentage from China.  If I ran Dwight (another for-profit school which offers a well-regarded international curriculum, the IB), I would think about this profitable direction too.