Wow, I couldnt believe what I read, that was intense to see. Im kinda going to agree with everyone because at the place I train bb takes between two and three years, ots rare to never that a person takes longer to obtain bb in the Zanshin Karate system, Id say never actually unless you went away for awhile and came back. Thing that got me was the cost of your training, wow. I payed 100 u.s. dollars to join and got a t-shirt and a belt then it was 35 dollars a month. Testing rolls around every four months and costs 30 dollars no matter the belt, you get a rank certificate though so its worth it. Anyway just my twoo cents.
So there are many factors that go into the price of martial arts classes and I'm going to go ahead and deduce that they all are directly related to the location of the school. Everything related to overhead has to do with the location and going rates from rent for the school all the way to rent for the instructor's home. Something I've seen done to cut cost in some schools is the Instructor having a second job, renting their space to others when not in use, nickle and diming other (historically included) services, or using other people's space. So I'm going to assume your sub-$60/month tuition comes from one or more of these situations. And there are also people that are independantly amazing and set up non-profit schools.
:happy: ^Almost, plus much more than I was going to state^ There are some who get extra fees for things like stripes, and there are some who maintain a "semi or quasi commercial" value. And then there are traditionalists, that many still pay for lessons, but frown upon others trying to get additional funds If the students are enjoying themselves and there is a qualified instructor, then any curriculum set up, being stripes, inner school belt clubs, etc., along with fees, should not be a issue to a "outside" observer