Personally, I would not, at least for ES. I’d potentially plan on it for high school or 7-12. Some questions to consider Is $185k one income or two? How much are you paying currently for daycare? How much of the tuition is being paid by grandparents vs. financial aid? If you have a SAHM, and they will definitely return to work after the baby enters K, then maybe? You will lose financial aid though. If the financial aid piece is small and the grandparents contribution large, you shouldn’t have a problem with the second warmer clearing the $30-$60k tuition. We do it though for middle and high school on an HHI of about that amount for two kids, Catholic schools, and no grandparent help because both have special needs. We have $1.8m saved for retirement, two pensions, and a less expensive house. It’s very tight though. |
You could send one to private and two to public. |
We really like the private school that the oldest got into and it is highly competitive. The logic behind sending the oldest to this private is that (1) turning it down now might doom our chances of sending any of the three there, ever, and (2) having a sibling there could give the other two kids an edge in the admissions process if they want to transfer there, as it is very difficult to enter after K when there are few spots available. I think our public ES is fine, but our public MS has a lot of issues. |
Teach me your ways! It sounds like we have a similar lifestyle, though. (Our car is ancient, and we don't take vacation trips). |
Are grandparents committed to that level of support for all three for k-12?
One option is to do it for kid #1 for a few years and see where you are income-wise and FA-wise. If your income hasn’t gone to “3 kids in private” levels (in many places that’s twice what you’re making now) then move to a district where you would be happy with the public option for k-12 before kid #2 starts K. |
If you really want this, you need to get serious about being super-frugal and shoveling money into a 529 plan starting today. And one or both of you needs to increase earnings, stat. You definitely cannot send all three unless you're willing to sacrifice pretty much everything else. |
Not only is it a no, it’s an emphatic no since you work in academia. The potential upward trajectory doesn’t sound significant enough. And as everyone else already mentioned, expect tuition to rise, possibly much faster than general inflation. As an example, I have a kid in private school. When he started 6 years ago, the K tuition was about 26k. It is now 35k. |
An academia-type field where no one retires and you think your HHI is on an upward trajectory strong enough to support 60k/year in education costs alone in 10 years. This is magical thinking. You cannot afford this, and if you try to do it anyway you'll be explaining to your high school students that there is no college savings for them because you really didn't want to leave the grandparents' generous offer to fund part of private school on the table. |
Sophie’s Choice? |
Send the first one to private and see how it goes and if your income goes up. When it's time for the next one to start, evaluate then. If it doesn't make sense to send both kids, then both transfer to public. Sounds like you are only outlaying $10k for a few years until you have some time to make that next decision. |
We do it for one kid on same income as you and same cost.
We couldn’t do it for 3 kids and we can’t do it for HS. |
So, I'm a huge advocate of public school plus 2x / week weekly tutoring. We pay $175 / hr for our tutoring (he's amazing! - massive test score increases and progress for my kid), and we probably see him 30 weeks out of the year. Probably comes out to close to $10k / year (maybe get Grandparents to pay for this instead and save yourself the $40k / year associated with private school). |
This is so true. I pulled my kid out of private in middle school so I could stockpile savings while he was in high school. We are a full pay public college family. We were making what you were making when we let other people talk us into private. It was the worst financial mistake of our adult lives. If you can’t afford the full COA, the schools will incentivize you to make bad financial decisions to qualify for aid or the yearly COA will outrun your income as your aid dries up. |
If you want to send them to private, send them all to private. Sending only one to private and the others to public is unfair. That’s bad parenting. Your kids will hate you for that. Don’t destroy your family.
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Send one to private only if the child needs it, not you. This private is all for you and/or for grandparents.
My elementary school kid has as much in assets as you do. I'm just as excited to have their assets grow as you are sending your child to private. What would your child choose? I'd invest the money for all three and re-evaluate after elementary. |