Private School = Investment!!?

[Anonymous]

We are considering applying to private schools in the fall. While I have cetain specific issues with our local public school (class size, over crowding, after school care/activities), I really think that our child will do fine in either setting. Anyway, given that we will need to make a decision in the next several months my husband and I have been having a serious of discussion about private schools. This weekend he said something that really took me by surprise. I will try to be as accurate as possible in recounting his statement. He thinks that the we should be willing to pay for a private school education if we think that we will get a good "return on our investment". When I pressed him on what he meant by "ROI" (his term), he stated that it does not make sense to spend $30K a year if our child is going to end up with a "bullshit job like trying to save the whales or work for greenpeace or something like that".

We have a very heated back and forth for about 1 hour about what he meant and what our obligations are as parents. Anyway, I came away from the conversation with the sense that he thinks that if we send our child to private school we have to "insist that she gets a "wealth building" (his term) career, and it left me a little confused. I am also a little bit worried that this is another sign of a values gap that I am starting to see between he and I - with him being focused on accumulating wealth for its own sake and me seeing money as a means to an end - with one of those ends being the ability to give our child a first rate education and giving her the freedom to use that education how she see fit - yes, I would be ok if she graduated college and went to work for Greenpeace.

I know that I am rambling, but I am at a loss at how to proceed. I know that we have to discuss this further, but don't know where to start.

Thanks for reading.

[Anonymous]

All I can say is, I'm with you. The only reason I can see for your husband's position is if private school will mean such financial sacrifice that you would be destitute in retirement. In that case, I'd say don't do it because you can't force her into a wealth-building career. But it doesn't sound like that's the case. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I really can't address your concerns with your husband. There is absolutely no way to tell what your child's ambitions will be, but IMO, if you push your child to pursue wealth, he'll probably end up working to save the whales just to spite you!

[Anonymous]

Our feelings are that, as parents, we want our child to have the best education we can provide. We live in a area with a great grade school, but I have concerns, expressed them with my husband, and he sees my view, but not totally convinced. We've come to an agreement to send him to a Montessori school, but I had to practically break his arm. I live by "If you find something you love, you'll never work a day in your life"-and hope to find something our child loves to do and give him an opportunity to excel. And it keeps a child out of trouble

[Anonymous]

Oh boy - my DH and I had a similar discussion years ago but talking about college for our kids (and they are toddlers at this point). I said I didn't see the point of sending our child to Harvard (assuming he/she could get in) if our child didn't want to work on Wall Street or be in some sort of job that required a Harvard pedigree. And for us - this would be a kind of take a loan against the house/parent loan - not oh here is the check - sort of thing. He got angry with me and said oh so teacher's should only go to state schools etc and shouldn't go to Harvard. Anyway - the argument was never resolved. My parents raised me sort of with that ROI mentality for college of going to state school and go private for graduate degree or if you are picking a private school it should be in the region you want to work in with strong alumni/guidance/program in that field. Anyway, seeing what college costs - I think we at least agreed that we would try to pay tuition for state school - hopefully be able to cover some living expenses and if our child wanted to go elsewhere - that's fine - but he/she would have to figure out a way to make up the $ difference and it would have to be worth the sacrifice to him/her. Anyway with private schools for K-12 - DH felt like we are paying all these taxes to be in a good school district - if we were going the private school route - we could have picked a less expensive house. I think if there is a really compelling reason - i.e. we found out the school truly would not meet our child's need maybe our child really needed the smaller classrooms to learn and was getting lost or needed had an ILP not being met by the school, or was so gifted the school couldn't find a challenge etc. we would re-evaluate but for right now - at 3 years old and younger - none of this is an issue yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really can't address your concerns with your husband. There is absolutely no way to tell what your child's ambitions will be, but IMO, if you push your child to pursue wealth, he'll probably end up working to save the whales just to spite you!

I agree!!

[Anonymous]

OP - My husband and your husband think exactly alike! And I think like you - I believe that you should only go the private school route if you can afford it (really afford it) or you are in a situation where the child has special needs or the area you live in has terrible schools (then I would try to move - or hopefully get financial aid...) Anyway, my husband believes private school = connections as well as better education - which leads to better college - which leads to better job. not always. We argue this point ALL the time.....If we lived in Bethesda or CC or any community with highly rated public schools - I think it would be ridiculous to pay for private. I supose if have the money - and all your friends kids go there, etc - fine. But to kill yourself and sacrafice retirement security for it - no way.
But this is a never-ending debate for a lot of people - and on these boards, too.
As for th eothe rposter who said she would only send her kid to Harvard if he/she wanted to be a stockbroker or something - that doesn't make sense, either. Harvard has so many great programs in the Arts, Philosophy, Public Health, etc.......it's actually a great, great place for someone who is looking for a more liberal career.....IMO. And Cambridge is a great place to live for liberal-minded, free-spirited types, too.

[Anonymous]

And harvard has so much endowment and opportunities for scholarship and financial aid......don;t rule it out. Most of the people I know/knew at Harvard were from middle-class families, on financial aid or scholarships.......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh boy - my DH and I had a similar discussion years ago but talking about college for our kids (and they are toddlers at this point). I said I didn't see the point of sending our child to Harvard (assuming he/she could get in) if our child didn't want to work on Wall Street or be in some sort of job that required a Harvard pedigree. And for us - this would be a kind of take a loan against the house/parent loan - not oh here is the check - sort of thing. He got angry with me and said oh so teacher's should only go to state schools etc and shouldn't go to Harvard. Anyway - the argument was never resolved. My parents raised me sort of with that ROI mentality for college of going to state school and go private for graduate degree or if you are picking a private school it should be in the region you want to work in with strong alumni/guidance/program in that field. Anyway, seeing what college costs - I think we at least agreed that we would try to pay tuition for state school - hopefully be able to cover some living expenses and if our child wanted to go elsewhere - that's fine - but he/she would have to figure out a way to make up the $ difference and it would have to be worth the sacrifice to him/her. Anyway with private schools for K-12 - DH felt like we are paying all these taxes to be in a good school district - if we were going the private school route - we could have picked a less expensive house. I think if there is a really compelling reason - i.e. we found out the school truly would not meet our child's need maybe our child really needed the smaller classrooms to learn and was getting lost or needed had an ILP not being met by the school, or was so gifted the school couldn't find a challenge etc. we would re-evaluate but for right now - at 3 years old and younger - none of this is an issue yet.
My husband went to an Ivy without any notions of the job he is in now. He could not of been hired without an Ivy school degree, silly, unfair but so true. He was hired at age 45, you never know. I would love my children to get the best possible education from preschool on up. Life is easier with an education. A great education is even better. I wish I could give my children the lives of trust babies, but that isn't going to happen, so the best in education will be offered, if they can get accepted.

[Anonymous]

Here's an interesting article:

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/college/careers/CEOs/news4-7-05.htm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard has so many great programs in the Arts, Philosophy, Public Health, etc.......it's actually a great, great place for someone who is looking for a more liberal career.....IMO. And Cambridge is a great place to live for liberal-minded, free-spirited types, too.

Very true. I went to a very expensive private school for HS where there was a girl in the class ahead of me who went to Harvard and majored in Welsh. I wonder what she is doing now...

[Anonymous]

On one hand, I look at my siblings who are saving whales, they are poor.
Am I any happier?...a little bit.
Would they do it differently if they could start over?...yes.
Did they need to spend $100 k of our father's money getting an education to save whales?...no.

[Anonymous]

Well the truth of the matter is, if you only care about ROI, it is unlikely you'll get into an Ivy League school or similar institution anyway. You don't get a great verbal score on your SAT by studying flash cards--you get it because you love to read and can't keep your nose out of a book if you tried and bug your mom to take you to the library every weekend, even though you've already read every book in the kids section and have now moved on to the adult section. You don't win a Westinghouse prize because your parents goad you into studying--you win it because you are so curious about something that you are absolutely driven to learning the answer. The students I went to school with at my Ivy League college were uniformly committed to learning for the sake of learning. They had a wide and eclectic variety of interests and were passionate about these interests. Sure, many of them went on to very lucrative careers (others not so much, but are otherwise compensated) and there were the ones who were just there for the "status" but I assure you that the vast majority were not. My college experience was not about job preparation. It was about sitting in the most gorgeous library, reading great books and learning about art and economic theory and world religion and chinese history and the human genome project. It was about meeting kids from all over the country and all over the world who opened my eyes to the variety of human experience. It was about my hallmate from a fishing village in Ghana, who was the shining hope of his village and whom had been sent there by the whole village in the hopes that he'd return some day as a doctor. He knew French poetry and could recite his entire family back 12 generations and was on a team that engineered and built a solar car, and he gave me a glimpse of Africa that I otherwise would not have had. This is the stuff that matters. Having a great job and making tons of money isn't going to get you through your mother dying, or your boyfriend breaking up with you, or finding out that your best friend has a serious disease. But Mozart might. Aristotle might. Poetry might. So what if you have all the money in the world and can take a 5 star vacation in Rome and Florence if you don't understand what you are seeing? You may as well just go to Busch Gardens Europe.

The thing is, you either get this or you don't. The ones who don't, they are the ones who try so so hard. They are the ones who talk about the great "connections" their kids will get if they go to Yale, and how they will have so many opportunities and it will "open so many doors." They are the ones who get rejected and then complain about how you only get in if you have money or connections. Just remember this. I do admissions interviewing for my school, and the ones who aren't in love with learning, aren't passionate about something, will never get the green light from me or the people I interview with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well the truth of the matter is, if you only care about ROI, it is unlikely you'll get into an Ivy League school or similar institution anyway. You don't get a great verbal score on your SAT by studying flash cards--you get it because you love to read and can't keep your nose out of a book if you tried and bug your mom to take you to the library every weekend, even though you've already read every book in the kids section and have now moved on to the adult section. You don't win a Westinghouse prize because your parents goad you into studying--you win it because you are so curious about something that you are absolutely driven to learning the answer. The students I went to school with at my Ivy League college were uniformly committed to learning for the sake of learning. They had a wide and eclectic variety of interests and were passionate about these interests. Sure, many of them went on to very lucrative careers (others not so much, but are otherwise compensated) and there were the ones who were just there for the "status" but I assure you that the vast majority were not. My college experience was not about job preparation. It was about sitting in the most gorgeous library, reading great books and learning about art and economic theory and world religion and chinese history and the human genome project. It was about meeting kids from all over the country and all over the world who opened my eyes to the variety of human experience. It was about my hallmate from a fishing village in Ghana, who was the shining hope of his village and whom had been sent there by the whole village in the hopes that he'd return some day as a doctor. He knew French poetry and could recite his entire family back 12 generations and was on a team that engineered and built a solar car, and he gave me a glimpse of Africa that I otherwise would not have had. This is the stuff that matters. Having a great job and making tons of money isn't going to get you through your mother dying, or your boyfriend breaking up with you, or finding out that your best friend has a serious disease. But Mozart might. Aristotle might. Poetry might. So what if you have all the money in the world and can take a 5 star vacation in Rome and Florence if you don't understand what you are seeing? You may as well just go to Busch Gardens Europe.

The thing is, you either get this or you don't. The ones who don't, they are the ones who try so so hard. They are the ones who talk about the great "connections" their kids will get if they go to Yale, and how they will have so many opportunities and it will "open so many doors." They are the ones who get rejected and then complain about how you only get in if you have money or connections. Just remember this. I do admissions interviewing for my school, and the ones who aren't in love with learning, aren't passionate about something, will never get the green light from me or the people I interview with.

OP here. PP, you and I are on the same wave length - you just expressed it better. I will print your post and show it to my husband.