Crypto News: The missing middle class

Welcome back to Pursuits Weekly! This week, Erin Hudson joins Annika Inampudi to discuss private school tuition discounts, and we provide a look at the world’s biggest culture stories, as well as ideas and recommendations about travel, dining and art. Sign up here to get this newsletter every Saturday in your inbox.

Back to school

Athletic fields at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. Source: Deerfield Academy Communications — Deerfield Academy has seen financial aid applications spike 30% since expanding its program.

It’s that time of the year again when America’s parents take a collective breath and ask: Is a private school education worth it? With tuition averaging almost $50,000 a year, even wealthy families are starting to balk at the sticker price.

I’m Erin Hudson, a reporter covering K-12 education for Bloomberg, and I write about the business of school, which has gotten more challenging in recent years as costs rise and the competition for a shrinking number of school-age kids heats up.

Schools around the country are competing by building new facilities and adding campus amenities, and more public money is being funneled into so-called school choice programs that give parents thousands of dollars to help pay private school fees. Meanwhile, with tuitions outpacing family income, it’s never been more expensive to attend one of America’s elite private institutions.

“Even if you’re making $200,000,” says John P.N. Austin, head of Massachusetts’ Deerfield Academy, it’s “a steep, steep price.”

Now that might sound to many like the world’s tiniest violin given that the median family income in the US is $84,000. But as I’ve learned in my years as a journalist, numbers are relative. Investment adviser SmartAsset estimates that a family of four needs roughly $200,000 a year to live comfortably in San Antonio or New Orleans. In New York, that figure rises to almost $340,000.

These costs have become an threat to the model. Although the schools are the stuff of dreams for parents and kids alike — think Gossip Girl’s Constance Billard School for Girls, Bel-Air Academy, Hogwarts — educational costs are changing the calculus for more and more families. To remain competitive, schools are now publicly offering the unimaginable: a discount, even for families earning as much as $500,000 per year.

The goal is to draw out “the talented missing middle” — middle-income families that don’t identify as the typical financial aid recipients but also can’t afford to pay full-freight either. Elite day schools from the Bay Area to Virginia, Texas to New York City, are advertising cost-of-living adjustments, awards and flexible tuition.

At Deerfield, kids from families that earn up to $150,000 pay nothing, and the school promises to charge tuition equal to no more than 10% of a family’s income when it’s above that threshold. For a school with 15 squash courts, a hockey rink, robotics facilities and a planetarium, that deal seems like a no-brainer for some parents.

For families that nab a free year at an $80,000-a-year private school, it’s all upside. “It has given my kids the opportunity of a lifetime,” said one Deerfield parent.

By the numbers

Elephants carry visitors during a new year celebration in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Photographer: Vishal Bhatnagar/NurPhoto/AP Photo — The best way to travel is by elephant.

9.15 million

The number of foreign tourists who visited India last year, according to its Ministry of Tourism. Despite its natural and cultural offerings, India lags similar-size nations in foreign tourism, writes Dan Strumpf.

150,000

The number of bird call recordings that biologists Vittorio Baglione and Daniela Canestrari have in their catalog, writes Morgan Meaker. The husband-and-wife duo are part of a growing group of scientists using artificial intelligence to translate animal noises to human speech.

$499

The price of Dyson’s new smart toothbrush, which uses artificial intelligence and a built-in camera to give users real-time feedback. The device follows a push by companies to normalize cameras in everyday products, reports Samantha Kelly.

121

The number of goals Lionel Messi has scored for Argentina. Two decades after his first World Cup, the billionaire soccer player announced his retirement from international play on Monday, Manuela Tobias writes.

Culture cancel

Just 31 days after the announcement, the Metropolitan Museum of Art preemptively canceled its Costume Institute exhibit honoring British designer John Galliano, which was supposed to serve as the theme of the 2027 Met Gala. The decision comes after widespread backlash over racist and antisemitic remarks the designer made more than a decade ago, reports Amanda L. Gordon.

The Met Gala, often lauded as a celebration of culture and art, has faced backlash in recent years for being an emblem of excessive wealth. This year’s event, whose theme was “Fashion is Art” drew protests after Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos was named as an honorary chair.

The British are coming

English breakfast. Source: Selvedge Inn — Not your typical beans on toast.

In an early scene of Apple TV’s Ted Lasso, the Midwestern football coach turned Premier League manager spits out a cup of English tea, calling it “garbage water.” Although British cuisine can be delicious and varied, as Kate Krader reports for our Five Top Tables series, the UK food scene remains the butt of endless jokes. But just as Lasso eventually gets charmed by British pub culture, so has America’s culinary milieu.

In the last year, several hot-ticket British restaurants have opened on the other side of the Atlantic, to critical and public acclaim, Oliver Guy reports. Rather than kitschy Union Jacks, these chefs celebrate their British lineage with elevated versions of Scotch eggs and meat pies. “There’s also something people really connect to in British food and pub culture,” said Jess Shadbolt, co-owner of the trendy pub Dean’s, in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. “When it’s done well, it feels generous and familiar at the same time.”

Cooling off

A water mist cooling system operates on the street in Wuhan, China, to provide relief from the heat for pedestrians on Aug. 7, 2026. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images) Photographer: VCG/Visual China Group — Chill out.

As climate change and extreme heat threatens to end American dreams of a “Euro-summer,” some cities are turning to innovative techniques to cool down large outdoor areas. Matthew Ponsford reports on a swath of new devices designed to provide respite from dangerous temperatures. The new technologies range from simple misting systems to geoengineered brighter clouds — and for everything else there’s a “coolcation.”

Same time next year?

YOSEMITE Photographer: Felix Uribe for Bloomberg — October is prime time to visit Yosemite.

Summer might be winding down, but there’s no time like the present to plan ahead for next year with our National Parks Visitor’s Guide. Gordy Megroz, Marie Patino and Denise Lu analyzed four years’ worth of weather patterns and data from hiking app All Trails to avoid choke points and get the most out of your vacation days.

One Very Specific Recommendation: Manufactum firewood bag

Utilities have the “last mile problem,” which is how to hook a house up to the main grid. Homes with fireplaces have the “last 20 feet problem,” which is how to get your firewood from the woodshed to your fireplace. You can try bringing pieces in your hands, one or two at a time, but that’s awkward, and if you carry more than that you’ll get your clothes very dirty very quickly.

Enter what Manufactum, Germany’s indispensable useful-things store, delightfully calls the “firewood bag linen” — basically a 3-foot-long strip of canvas with a woven handle at either end. Place it on the ground, put your firewood pieces on top, pick up the handles, and off you go. The perfect solution to a problem you probably never even thought needed solving.

At €139 ($160) the profit margin is surely astronomical, but it’s still affordable enough to make for a great house gift when you’re visiting your friends in the country this fall. Plus, it’ll last forever. Amortize the cost over decades of ferrying firewood, and it works out at just pennies per journey. —Felix Salmon

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