Private school or not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

We bought our home 9 years ago when older kid started kinder for $600K. Right now the house is valued per redfin around ~$900K, our total mortgage plus taxes is under 3K per year, total outstanding mortgage is $350K. BTW, our HHI went up just 2-3 years ago, and we are able to save 250k towards retirement every year. Out total NW is $4.5M, so I do think we can afford private school if we really want to for our two kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Private schools have more diversity than public schools in wealthy enclaves.”

Having a bunch of 1%er kids who have light brown skin isn’t diversity. Have your private admit 20% FARMS kids, half of whom don’t speak English and the other half have behavioral problems because of fetal alcohol syndrome or childhood trauma - then we’ll talk.

I’m one of the PPs above. Our public option has no economic diversity. It has a 0% FARMS rate. It also has no brown kids, light skinned or not.

I’m a brown person and grew up treated like sh!t because if it (in the south). My high school had a high FARMS rate and ESL population and I got an awesome education. I was still treated badly because of my brown skin because I was the only brown person in the honors/AP classes. Diversity doesn’t always result in integration or acceptance.

I’m not repeating that experience for my kids, and at their independent school they are one of several brown people, even in small classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

We bought our home 9 years ago when older kid started kinder for $600K. Right now the house is valued per redfin around ~$900K, our total mortgage plus taxes is under 3K per year, total outstanding mortgage is $350K. BTW, our HHI went up just 2-3 years ago, and we are able to save 250k towards retirement every year. Out total NW is $4.5M, so I do think we can afford private school if we really want to for our two kids.

Adding in .. we bough a smaller home (by Texas standards, 3000 sq foot). Plenty homes in our neighborhood are 4k + sqft and $2M+ but are zoned to the same public schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that private school is for families with 800k+ HHI. I know that in ten years children will be mostly attending the same schools and in twenty years most of them will be working at the same places making similar salaries. But both child and I LOVE the school. We are a fed family so making 300s. Market has bumped up our retirement to 1m and brokerage to another 1m. Some 529 that can also be tapped. Home is almost paid off and 2 investment properties. Can we afford 60k tuition and fees for 4 years for one child? Obviously no FA.

OP, I really believe you should think twice about private school. Everyone that sends their kids to one openly talks about more opportunity, better education, fewer distractions, and more comfortable alignment with upper class families. The reality is, however, that most of those same people are actually using private school as an opportunity to isolate their children from people of color and low income students. It is truly saddening to me that we still live in a society that practices such obvious discrimination in a deceptively concealed manner. Is this the person you want to be, OP? Please rise above it and take the higher ground.

This is just 100% wrong. We are zoned for a very good public elementary and it is completely white. Truly. But our private school is almost 50 percent POC. That’s an antiquated view of private. The true bigots isolate themselves if rich white enclaves and then pontificate about the benefits of public schools. And then they send their kids to mathnasium or kumon to teach their kids math. I see you guys…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that private school is for families with 800k+ HHI. I know that in ten years children will be mostly attending the same schools and in twenty years most of them will be working at the same places making similar salaries. But both child and I LOVE the school. We are a fed family so making 300s. Market has bumped up our retirement to 1m and brokerage to another 1m. Some 529 that can also be tapped. Home is almost paid off and 2 investment properties. Can we afford 60k tuition and fees for 4 years for one child? Obviously no FA.

OP, I really believe you should think twice about private school. Everyone that sends their kids to one openly talks about more opportunity, better education, fewer distractions, and more comfortable alignment with upper class families. The reality is, however, that most of those same people are actually using private school as an opportunity to isolate their children from people of color and low income students. It is truly saddening to me that we still live in a society that practices such obvious discrimination in a deceptively concealed manner. Is this the person you want to be, OP? Please rise above it and take the higher ground.

Totally wrong.

People are isolating themselves from the kids of poor families who have a different value system - they want their kid to be surrounded by families that value education. My kids go to different privates - one is more diverse than our public in terms of colors of the rainbow and cultures - there is no economic diversity there. Another of my kids attends an Episcopal school where it feels like everyone is a rich white kid and my kid is in the minority for not wanting to bleach her hair blonde, or at least highlight it. To be honest they both get a great education. After 16 years in the private system, I have older kids too, I’m a bit over the showiness and competitiveness and snobbery. One of my kids just applied for a selective public school. When we went to visit our white hispanic skin (yes, hispanics come in black, white, and brown) was the only white to be seen! The school says there is 15% white kids, but none of them came out for the visit day, so I’m not so sure. Even looking around there most of those “brown” kids were asian, so again not so diverse. I do think there was more economic diversity though. There was ZERO academic diversity - it was a gifted school! I am coming to the conclusion that a well-rounded student body does not exist in this country!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

We bought our home 9 years ago when older kid started kinder for $600K. Right now the house is valued per redfin around ~$900K, our total mortgage plus taxes is under 3K per year, total outstanding mortgage is $350K. BTW, our HHI went up just 2-3 years ago, and we are able to save 250k towards retirement every year. Out total NW is $4.5M, so I do think we can afford private school if we really want to for our two kids.

Based on your house price you bought in an above average school district, not a top one. Clearly you did not have the income/cash flow to finance private school for multiple kids at your HHI and I'd argue you probably don't have it at your current HHI. People who can comfortably afford private don't have to think much about tradeoffs. Their lifestyle is also commensurate with paying for private , meaning they have the nice big house, expensive cars, vacations, activities etc.

Can you swing private? Sure, like many posters here (me included). Can you comfrortably afford it? No, not really.