What kind of income do you need to put 3+ kids in top privates from k-12?
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Anonymous
| I know families like this and I’m just curious. This would add up to at least $2M. |
Anonymous
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Most people who do this likely make $1 million and up. But there are exceptions. We make $425k and have grandparents that pay for 3 kids. If we were paying ourselves we would need to make $200k more than our current income so $625k. We could easily pay for 3 within an income of $625k. The issue being that most people don't want to pay this large a percentage of their income on school, even if that income it's quite large.
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Anonymous
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You may wish to check out this enlightening thread:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1051439.page |
Anonymous
The thing is that a lot of people who have grandparents help with tuition also have gotten other help from parents (help with down payment, no student loans) so in truth they would have to have more than just enough extra income to cover tuition if their parents had few resources. of the people I know with 3+ kids in private with $40K+ tuition, most have some family help with tuition. Those that don't make closer to $1 million (these are people I know from work so I have a good sense of their incomes) and they did not start private until after elementary. My family makes $650K and I would not feel comfortable paying three Big Three tuitions - even though I currently save enough to cover that tuition each year in non-retirement savings. But I want to have a big base of savings in case of a layoff -- something I wouldn't worry about so much if we had family to fall back on. |
Anonymous
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All the financial aid goes to someone....
though it disproportionately goes to upper school, someone in lower school is also getting it. Probably faculty kids. |
Anonymous
| At least 50% of families its an education trust making those eye-watering tuition payments at the top privates. So, other peoples' money. |
Anonymous
Nobody is getting financial aid for three kids in private for 13 years each. |
Anonymous
I’ll play. Let’s say there’s 3 kids in a family looking to go to private k-12. The private is $50k year. Let’s say they get 50% FA per kid (they won’t). So it’s 25k x 3 kids x 13 years. Which comes out to $1,000,000. |
Anonymous
| We are doing it right now. No grandparents or family trust. Just writing a check out of earned income. Together we make 900K so it’s not making things tight but it’s a big check to write every month and as people who didn’t grow up with money and both went to public school it seems crazy sometimes. But, we can’t take the money with us and have plenty saved for retirement, a big house and a manageable mortgage, and a lot in the 529 plan for each kid, so it is an expense we are willing to pay. We did try public school with our oldest and were not happy with the education. We are very happy with our current school, but all kids are still in the lower school. Maybe we will try public again for high school. We live in MCPS and don’t think we will go back to public unless we move to a different state with town-based districts like we grew up with. |
Anonymous
Yep, isn't paying for private school education a popular way of passing down generational wealth? Even if the parents can afford it if the grandparents have enough wealth for there to be estate tax implications then paying private school tuition is a neat way to "give" money to their kids without actually giving them money. Private school tuitions/summer camps and expensive family vacations are the two examples of this I've heard. |
Anonymous
Medical expenses are the other way that avoids gift tax implications. |
Anonymous
In some cases, yes. In our case, no. We have the $425K income and this (3 tuitions) is the first money we have ever accepted from our parents. Not that it's not significant but they have not helped us in other ways. We both had merit scholarships to college (back in the day when that was easier). So we would definitely just need to make $625K to maintain our exact lifestyle (which is really quite a good one) and send 3 kids to a Big3 school. However, most people with incomes of $500K and up bank on (literally) saving a large chunk of that income. Case in post a previous poster who makes $650K and SAVES (outside of retirement) enough for 3 tuitions each year but does not feel like he can (or wish to) spend it on private school. So the whole "can you afford the tuition" is all relative. To many high earners, "affording" it doesn't mean they can't "afford it". It means, they might have to decrease their savings which they do not want to do (fair enough). |
Anonymous
Then I have a lot of questions for someone I know...teacher at the school, husband is also a teacher at another school. HHI can't be more than $140/150 |
Anonymous
Teachers can be an exception but not all private schools provide a tuition break to faculty. |
Anonymous
| At today's prices, you'd need an extra $300k a year just for tuition. |