Do private high school alums marry earlier?

[Anonymous]

Or are things just trending that way lately? We are blown away by how our oldest DD (age 25) and DS (age 23) friends are marrying soon after college. One or both of them have been invited to a wedding seemingly every weekend this summer and it's all friends from their private high schools. A handful of them are high school sweethearts!

[Anonymous]

Did they go to conservative or Catholic HSs?

[Anonymous]

WOW. I’m really shocked by that! Many want to go for advanced degrees right after graduation! But I guess if you find the right person better to lock them in early!

[Anonymous]

It might be the case because they come from wealthy families who help them out with a down payment on their first home or other assets.
I feel finances may stop many young people from getting married and that tends not to be as much of an issue with the private school alums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WOW. I’m really shocked by that! Many want to go for advanced degrees right after graduation! But I guess if you find the right person better to lock them in early!

I’d guess half of them are in grad or professional school. Many already have a master’s degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might be the case because they come from wealthy families who help them out with a down payment on their first home or other assets.
I feel finances may stop many young people from getting married and that tends not to be as much of an issue with the private school alums.

All of the couples are at least upper middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did they go to conservative or Catholic HSs?

Cathedral, GPS, and St Albans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might be the case because they come from wealthy families who help them out with a down payment on their first home or other assets.
I feel finances may stop many young people from getting married and that tends not to be as much of an issue with the private school alums.

Yes we have seen the same but not from just private high schools. Wealthy kids marrying or getting engaged at the end of college or some even before. Many are married in grad school. And yes school, living expenses are all paid for by parents. They also have no student loans. Most of the kids we know about who fall into this are not at least right now the idle rich. Two are medical school (so are their spouses). Several are in T14 law schools (so are their spouses). Others are working in NY, LA, and Atlanta. Not all married some just engaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WOW. I’m really shocked by that! Many want to go for advanced degrees right after graduation! But I guess if you find the right person better to lock them in early!

I’d guess half of them are in grad or professional school. Many already have a master’s degree.

I got married while still in law school. My husband defended his thesis when I was 6 months pregnant.

I went to a small private school, and mixed bag. Some of us got married a couple years post college but I'm in my mid 30s and I have friends from school who are not married or just getting married. No one got married before graduating college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might be the case because they come from wealthy families who help them out with a down payment on their first home or other assets.
I feel finances may stop many young people from getting married and that tends not to be as much of an issue with the private school alums.

Of course the families are helping (with engagement ring, wedding, down payment on house). There is nothing wrong with that.

[Anonymous]

When you find the right one, why wait?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did they go to conservative or Catholic HSs?

Cathedral, GPS, and St Albans.

Most of the alums from NCS and STA do NOT marry soon after college. OP's DD is not reflective of the norm. Yes, most do get married (as is the norm for the well-educated and wealthy), but usually in their late 20s/early 30s.

[Anonymous]

Maybe this is also generational for social media wave.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t go to private school but all of my friends from college did (or boarding school). In my limited experience, private school kids married younger. They had the financial resources to do so but they also had the advantage of meeting potential spouses at a younger age. I went to an Ivy and I have several close friends who met each other there on day 1 (they met through mutual friends while us public school kids were still figuring out people’s names) or they met each other’s college friends during undergrad at house parties and weekends away. I was just outside their larger social circle and was always invited to girls’ weekends at parents’ houses but never the co-ed events or things where everyone’s parents would be socializing, too. I pulled away from those friends in my mid-20s because that hurt.

At my DD’s private school, the youngest parents are alumni of the school. They are also the ones who have grandparents paying tuition and have moved into their parents’ houses when the parents moved into their weekend or summer places after retirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might be the case because they come from wealthy families who help them out with a down payment on their first home or other assets.
I feel finances may stop many young people from getting married and that tends not to be as much of an issue with the private school alums.

Of course the families are helping (with engagement ring, wedding, down payment on house). There is nothing wrong with that.

That's your answer. People get married young when they can afford it because their parents subsidize them or when their ambitions are low. Others know they need to establish careers in their 20s and can't afford to start a family yet