My proposal: Supplement the traditional development model with a new pricing model. During the admissions process, along with quoting the stated tuition, the school should inform all families of the real costs of operation on a per-student basis and, further, tell them that they will be expected to fill as much of the gap between tuition and cost as they are able with a donation. To determine this number, the same level of financial disclosure currently asked of financial-aid applicants will be asked of them, and a means-testing exercise will be used to determine capability. Any family not willing to provide such disclosure would simply be told that the school expected the full gap to be met with a donation.

It is commonplace today for schools either to claim a “need blind” admissions policy or to aspire to one. I recommend replacing the term “need blind” with “means based.” (One school in New York City, the Manhattan Country School, is using such an approach.)

The numbers are purely speculative, but I have created a model using conservative assumptions that indicates that, for a small school like Groton (where tuition last year was $49,810), the impact of the change I am recommending could be a net annual revenue gain of $2 million. (And assuming a 5 percent draw rate on endowment principal, this would be the equivalent of raising an additional $40 million of endowment.) Of course, the bump in revenue would be larger for larger schools.

A critic might worry that such a policy would drive applicants to competing schools offering the more forgiving standard tuition structure. But many of the more prestigious private schools routinely have applicant pools that are many times larger than the number of slots available. (For day schools, this is largely a result of a stunning increase in affluence in many of the areas they serve. Boarding schools now market themselves to families not only across the United States, but worldwide.)

Given the strength of the educational product offered by these prestigious schools, not to mention the prestige itself, I think that for every affluent family scared off by the new policy, there would be another of equivalent means — with an equally desirable child in tow — willing to pay full cost.

Would this spell the end of traditional fund-raising? I don’t think so. I have been on the receiving end of many pitches. If I heard that the playing field had been leveled and that each family was paying its fair share according to its means and that the institution I cared so much about still needed help — well, I would be inclined to give more, not less. I think others would join me.