If you made $1MM annually, would you send your kids to private?

[Anonymous]

Assume mortgage is paid off and you have three kids. Annual income is appx. $1MM, and outlook with current jobs looks good, but you never know for sure when one spouse could lose a job. Assume you live in a very good public school district and kids are middle school age. Would you switch to private for high school assuming it has the potential to accelerate your kids’ growth to a new level? Costs for each kid would be $50k/annually, but you also have to save aggressively for college, grad school, and you want to make a plan to pay for educations of future grandkids too.

What do financial advisers usually say about investing in private school? For any of you who have sent your kids to private, do you regret it as a financial decision? Felt it was a bad investment?

PS - I’m asking for primarily financial advice here, not trying to trigger the public v private debate that would be more appropriate in the education forum.

[Anonymous]

You make a million a year with housing paid off. You can comfortably pay out of pocket for private, college and graduate school without missing the money. How is this a question.

[Anonymous]

We can’t give advice without knowing the specifics of your situation. What your kids are like, what they need, what the public can provide and what the private can provide.

I will say we have $800k HHI, live in an excellent school district, and send our two run-of-the-mill NT children to private LS since pre-K. I don’t expect some amazing ROI but we have a lot of money and I would like to allocate some of it to current quality of life (which I feel we get more in private school) rather than saving it.

[Anonymous]

There are no “very good public school districts” in the DC metro area.

[Anonymous]

No, probably not. I think it's important that kids see and learn from others - good, bad, and/or ugly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, probably not. I think it's important that kids see and learn from others - good, bad, and/or ugly.

OP is in a very wealthy neighborhood & school I assume. No more noble than private.

[Anonymous]

We were at that point when we moved (one kid in 10th, one in 8th and one in 6th). We chose to stick with public schools. make $1M, 500K is going towards retirement savings and TAXES. I'm not inclined to spend $150K ($50K per kid) to send them to private HS when we live in a great district. The incremental increases in learning would not be that much. My kids were already all highly motivated and good students. Instead I chose to spend on tutors for the one who needed it and a College counselor for 2 of the kids for the college process. No regrets with saving that $200K/kid for the HS years. We go to a HS where 88% of kids go onto 4 year colleges, another 6% go to our excellent CCs and transfer to the state flagship, over 50% graduate with a 3.75+ UW gpa (and there is no grad inflation, just smart kids with highly educated parents who value education and the kids know they are going to college from time they were toddlers).

Yes, it would have been nice to not have 30 kids in classes sometimes, but for 2 of my kids it was not an issues---they thrive in any environment. And the other did just fine in HS as well.
But at the smaller privates, my kids would have missed out on band---a HS with only 400 kids simply cannot have the same quality band/orch/chorus program that one with 3K kids has. And they would have been going to school at least a 45 min drive from where we lived---so nowhere near most of their friends from HS. My kids wanted and deserved to be nearby friends. And the elite smaller privates do not always have as many course options as our large HS has. We had almost every AP course imaginable, with great teachers.

[Anonymous]

It just depends what your priorities are. If you want to retire early, don’t do it.

[Anonymous]

Does the private offer something that would make life better for my family? Then yes. Are the kids doing great and you like the community? Then no. On $1m with no mortgage you have so much money I’m not sure what else you would spend it on that would be more important than your kids educational happiness.

[Anonymous]

I was making just under $1 million a year when my kids were in school and never even considered private. What’s the point? It’s not like it gives you an edge with Harvard, and I’d prefer that my kids get exposed to other kids from all walks of life - which you don’t get at a 50k a year private.

My kids went from public schools to state colleges (UVA, William & Mary, and VCU) and I retired nearly 15 years early with plenty of money. There’s no way I’d give all of that up just for some private school bumper sticker to put on the back of a Volvo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, probably not. I think it's important that kids see and learn from others - good, bad, and/or ugly.

OP is in a very wealthy neighborhood & school I assume. No more noble than private.

Yup. Public schools in “good” triangles are demographically similar to top publics. Except probably less ethnically diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, probably not. I think it's important that kids see and learn from others - good, bad, and/or ugly.

Actually, I'm not OP, but we chose to stay public and lived in an area with great schools and a bit of economic diversity. Our town has the main part of town where there are a lot of low income and middle income (just above qualifying for free lunches)---and most of those are families who choose our area because of the schools---so involved parents (at least at home, not always time to be at the schools) who value education and are living in the HCOL area just to have the great schools. I actually liked that my kids went to the ES/MS/HS in this area---the ES was 30% FARMS. I liked that my kids had friends who do not go to Europe or Caribbean or Hawaii every school break. Yes they had friends who got brand new fancy cars for their 16 bday, but they also had friends who take the bus everywhere because the family only has 1 car and that's for the parents to get to/from their job(s).

[Anonymous]

We make a million and we had both in public until HS junior year, when we sent the eldest to a private. It was her idea. We will offer the youngest the same option.

I would generally be led by the kids on this. If they are doing well, and happy, and seem to be interested and learning, I would not send them to private. If they are having issues, or interested in options that are difficult to meet in public schools, or you have serious concerns about the quality of their education, I would switch to private.

I don't think it makes sense to be dogmatic either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, probably not. I think it's important that kids see and learn from others - good, bad, and/or ugly.

This is how DH feels. We have a kid in private now and DH wants to move her out for this reason as much as cost. I want to keep her in and if I had $1M I would be immovable on that point.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I would.