My urban Philadelphia parish pays over $1 million annually towards the running of its 950 child school - that's 3/4 of the parish budget -, which school educates around 2/3 of the children in the neighborhood and almost all of those belonging to the parish.
$8000 per month contribution is a joke. That isn't even $100,000 per year.
I think you should take into perspective the size of the school before you make such slams, kwim? Firstly, as I said, we have THREE sponsoring churches and our school is approx 1/3 your size with students. That $8000 momthly is only from one of the churchs. Obviously your school is going to cost more money to run. Also, you in an urban area, I'm in suburb NJ, in a good school district, it's hard to convince parents that they should pay for a Christian education when their overpriced taxes will give them a good education. In our case, a Christian education supercedes that.
Your parish gives 3/4 of its budget to the school? Unbelievable! I hope you're seeing some return on your money, if not vocations, at least in parish retention. Our parish gives less than a quarter of its budget to the school, and a lot of that is grey area - groundsmen, janitorial staff, etc.
Do you send your kids to the parish school? Did you know that there is a new private Catholic school in Wyndmoor (just outside Chestnut Hill) at the old Seven Dolors parish school that teaches the children of orthodox Catholics in the classical tradition? The kids start learning Latin in the primary grades. It's a little pricier and certainly not a great commute from the Northeast when you compare it to your parish school, but you might find the sacrifices worth it just to keep the "Brittany Spears" factor away from your kids.