Tuition in private schools

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do stress about the cost of tuition. However, I sleep better knowing my kids have been in a smaller, nurturing environment, have made great connections with teachers who really care, rarely come across a bad teacher, are exposed only to kids who work hard and are ambitious, have learned to think critically, not just take tests, have gotten tons of writing practice, are regularly exposed to the arts, don’t walk through metal detectors or have safety concerns at school. In pretty much every aspect, I think my kids have had a better experience K-12 than they would have had in public school and that has been one of my top priorities for them.

Just chiming in to say that other than the smaller, nurturing environment, my kids have gotten every single one of these priorities at public. We don’t have metal detectors! The teachers, with the exception of one, have been top notch. Our arts programs are outstanding because we have a critical mass of students for things like a marching band or high level theatrical production. It is not perfect, but as far as the things you specifically care about, I think your perception of public doesn’t match reality.

Yes! There are lots of great public schools in the area with a vast variety of opportunities, academic and extracurricular, if your child is motivated enough to take advantage. The cost of private in this area is so high, you really have to wonder if the tuition is worth it.

Anything above 30k is not worth it.

If you are poor, save your money for essentials like retirement and college tuition.

If you have the money like we do, we would be willing to pay a lot more for what we are getting out of private school. Worth every penny.

I visited a 60k school today and really couldn’t tell the difference with my public school in terms of facilities and teachers. It’s good that is worth it for you, but not for me.

How unsophisticated of you, if you think families are paying for better looking teachers and landscaping. Public school sounds like a good fit for you anyway.

I think there are absolutely a large number of families who trade functionality for aesthetics. Granted, part of that is that education can be opaque, and assessments shoddy, so they look for proxies.

I just care about the quality of education and in several open houses I couldn’t really see the value of a private school. In the elite schools maybe ncs and st. Albans i saw some value not in the other private schools. I do have money to pay for private school, but don’t feel like giving it away to a random school, I prefer to invest it in high quality education. I am not going to pay 60k for a mediocre education.

I wonder why people put up with the underwhelming education, especially in science and math, for the price tag. Just to be part of an elite group? To play sports? I do admit the world language education is one area private school really has an edge.

To be honest, high school science and math are the easiest to get for free. This is about the only thing public schools do well but you can also take high quality courses online for free. If all you care about is science and math, that is not the point of private school. Go public.

About the only thing? Why can’t the 56k school have higher bars? Always compare with public schools?

Public school is the default free option for everyone, so every family in private school is rejecting that. The science and math at our private are excellent and has an extensive college-level course selection, however virtually every public would let you dual enroll or take online credits if you want. Our private is a level ahead but that isn’t a good enough reason to go private.


Science and math tends to be the focus of immigrant families as that is how they got into the country or became middle class. Then they make their kids accelerate in these subjects as a path to middle class careers. Public school tends to be a lot of these kids focused on acceleration in these subjects.

Public schools create a skilled workforce that the families in private and their kids will likely end up hiring. Private schools create the managers and executives while the public school grads are the low level workforce that lack skills beyond just math and science.


The priority in private is just different because they focus on the big picture rather than a narrow focus on technical entry level job skills you get from public.

Wow so many stereotype and racisms. And here is the attitude of anti science. Plenty of super elite folks among the science and medicine faculty! Managers? Sounds second class.

There was no stereotyping and no racism. Managers are the department chairs that your coveted science and medicine faculty work in, as well as the board members that run the show.


Being a science or medicine faculty member is about as non-elite as it gets.

Aren’t dept chairs faculty?

Sure but they are ALSO department chairs because they have a more complete skill set beyond just math and science. They manage a group of faculty members and make the important decisions.

This is tiresome. As a faculty we also write grants and give talks and lead research groups and even run start ups. Medical school faculty also treat patients. Who says they only need math and science? This whole logic is twisted.

If they are still just a cog in academia, yes they are lacking quite a few skills. And running startups is well beyond what most faculty are capable of.

This is why they are so underpaid.

I know several faculty had startups. One sold hers to Meta a few years ago and one is running it now. Both very successful. Do not make assumptions of things you do not know.

Those are the exceptional cases and not the norm. These people clearly had skills beyond what their base job required. The only one making assumptions here is you.

I do not know what you are arguing here. No one question humanities training is essential too. NVIDIA s Jason Huang is also an immigrant majored in STEM.

Faculty jobs in research universities are one of the jobs that need the most comprehensive skill sets. Some are star clinicians as well. Some are best seller authors. And they tend lead the most satisfying careers. Not everything is measured by money!

You keep mentioning the exceptions. This is not what 99% of faculty careers look like.

But the tech CEOs you mentioned are absolutely exceptions too. Will most of the elite private school non immigrants graduates become them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dept chairs are faculty. Saying they are somehow at a different level than the other faculty shows a lack of knowledge of how colleges work.

They are paid more and have major responsibilities. Many universities have large search committees to make department chair appointments that regularly recruit from outside universities, looking for the high performing stars. The overwhelming majority of faculty will never become department chairs.

And in many schools, the dept head position rotates among the dept faculty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dept chairs are faculty. Saying they are somehow at a different level than the other faculty shows a lack of knowledge of how colleges work.

They are paid more and have major responsibilities. Many universities have large search committees to make department chair appointments that regularly recruit from outside universities, looking for the high performing stars. The overwhelming majority of faculty will never become department chairs.

And in many schools, the dept head position rotates among the dept faculty.

Yes, nobody wants to be chair. It takes away research time and grant application time. But it is a major service so it rotates through the faculty. Some faculty do becomes Deans. But many choose just to focus on research (not like they are lacking skills). In some rare cases, chairs can be hired externally through senior hire but it is not common.
I have no idea why we discuss this here. An earlier PP argues faculty is only middle class in a society (which means less rich than managers and CEOs) due to their lack of humanities education and faculty jobs are often taken by immigrants. Therefore, the humanities education is important for elite class. This makes no sense as faculty can be a professor in law, medicine, finance, history, and chemistry.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do stress about the cost of tuition. However, I sleep better knowing my kids have been in a smaller, nurturing environment, have made great connections with teachers who really care, rarely come across a bad teacher, are exposed only to kids who work hard and are ambitious, have learned to think critically, not just take tests, have gotten tons of writing practice, are regularly exposed to the arts, don’t walk through metal detectors or have safety concerns at school. In pretty much every aspect, I think my kids have had a better experience K-12 than they would have had in public school and that has been one of my top priorities for them.

Just chiming in to say that other than the smaller, nurturing environment, my kids have gotten every single one of these priorities at public. We don’t have metal detectors! The teachers, with the exception of one, have been top notch. Our arts programs are outstanding because we have a critical mass of students for things like a marching band or high level theatrical production. It is not perfect, but as far as the things you specifically care about, I think your perception of public doesn’t match reality.

Yes! There are lots of great public schools in the area with a vast variety of opportunities, academic and extracurricular, if your child is motivated enough to take advantage. The cost of private in this area is so high, you really have to wonder if the tuition is worth it.

Anything above 30k is not worth it.

If you are poor, save your money for essentials like retirement and college tuition.

If you have the money like we do, we would be willing to pay a lot more for what we are getting out of private school. Worth every penny.

I visited a 60k school today and really couldn’t tell the difference with my public school in terms of facilities and teachers. It’s good that is worth it for you, but not for me.

How unsophisticated of you, if you think families are paying for better looking teachers and landscaping. Public school sounds like a good fit for you anyway.

I think there are absolutely a large number of families who trade functionality for aesthetics. Granted, part of that is that education can be opaque, and assessments shoddy, so they look for proxies.

I just care about the quality of education and in several open houses I couldn’t really see the value of a private school. In the elite schools maybe ncs and st. Albans i saw some value not in the other private schools. I do have money to pay for private school, but don’t feel like giving it away to a random school, I prefer to invest it in high quality education. I am not going to pay 60k for a mediocre education.

I wonder why people put up with the underwhelming education, especially in science and math, for the price tag. Just to be part of an elite group? To play sports? I do admit the world language education is one area private school really has an edge.

To be honest, high school science and math are the easiest to get for free. This is about the only thing public schools do well but you can also take high quality courses online for free. If all you care about is science and math, that is not the point of private school. Go public.

About the only thing? Why can’t the 56k school have higher bars? Always compare with public schools?

Public school is the default free option for everyone, so every family in private school is rejecting that. The science and math at our private are excellent and has an extensive college-level course selection, however virtually every public would let you dual enroll or take online credits if you want. Our private is a level ahead but that isn’t a good enough reason to go private.


Science and math tends to be the focus of immigrant families as that is how they got into the country or became middle class. Then they make their kids accelerate in these subjects as a path to middle class careers. Public school tends to be a lot of these kids focused on acceleration in these subjects.

Public schools create a skilled workforce that the families in private and their kids will likely end up hiring. Private schools create the managers and executives while the public school grads are the low level workforce that lack skills beyond just math and science.


The priority in private is just different because they focus on the big picture rather than a narrow focus on technical entry level job skills you get from public.

Wow so many stereotype and racisms. And here is the attitude of anti science. Plenty of super elite folks among the science and medicine faculty! Managers? Sounds second class.

There was no stereotyping and no racism. Managers are the department chairs that your coveted science and medicine faculty work in, as well as the board members that run the show.


Being a science or medicine faculty member is about as non-elite as it gets.

Aren’t dept chairs faculty?

Sure but they are ALSO department chairs because they have a more complete skill set beyond just math and science. They manage a group of faculty members and make the important decisions.

This is tiresome. As a faculty we also write grants and give talks and lead research groups and even run start ups. Medical school faculty also treat patients. Who says they only need math and science? This whole logic is twisted.

If they are still just a cog in academia, yes they are lacking quite a few skills. And running startups is well beyond what most faculty are capable of.

This is why they are so underpaid.

I know several faculty had startups. One sold hers to Meta a few years ago and one is running it now. Both very successful. Do not make assumptions of things you do not know.

Those are the exceptional cases and not the norm. These people clearly had skills beyond what their base job required. The only one making assumptions here is you.

I do not know what you are arguing here. No one question humanities training is essential too. NVIDIA s Jason Huang is also an immigrant majored in STEM.

Faculty jobs in research universities are one of the jobs that need the most comprehensive skill sets. Some are star clinicians as well. Some are best seller authors. And they tend lead the most satisfying careers. Not everything is measured by money!

You keep mentioning the exceptions. This is not what 99% of faculty careers look like.

But the tech CEOs you mentioned are absolutely exceptions too. Will most of the elite private school non immigrants graduates become them?

Wrong poster, boo. You seem confused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dept chairs are faculty. Saying they are somehow at a different level than the other faculty shows a lack of knowledge of how colleges work.

They are paid more and have major responsibilities. Many universities have large search committees to make department chair appointments that regularly recruit from outside universities, looking for the high performing stars. The overwhelming majority of faculty will never become department chairs.

And in many schools, the dept head position rotates among the dept faculty.

Only in underfunded and dying departments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dept chairs are faculty. Saying they are somehow at a different level than the other faculty shows a lack of knowledge of how colleges work.

They are paid more and have major responsibilities. Many universities have large search committees to make department chair appointments that regularly recruit from outside universities, looking for the high performing stars. The overwhelming majority of faculty will never become department chairs.

And in many schools, the dept head position rotates among the dept faculty.

Yes, nobody wants to be chair. It takes away research time and grant application time. But it is a major service so it rotates through the faculty. Some faculty do becomes Deans. But many choose just to focus on research (not like they are lacking skills). In some rare cases, chairs can be hired externally through senior hire but it is not common.
I have no idea why we discuss this here. An earlier PP argues faculty is only middle class in a society (which means less rich than managers and CEOs) due to their lack of humanities education and faculty jobs are often taken by immigrants. Therefore, the humanities education is important for elite class. This makes no sense as faculty can be a professor in law, medicine, finance, history, and chemistry.

Your inability to focus on the topic here is bizarre but let me add that chairs are supposed to make significantly more salary. Faculty are underpaid and for most faculty becoming chair is a huge promotion. Elite class = money and just being regular faculty is so underpaid that their salaries are laughable. It is why the best and brightest don’t pursue academic careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dept chairs are faculty. Saying they are somehow at a different level than the other faculty shows a lack of knowledge of how colleges work.

They are paid more and have major responsibilities. Many universities have large search committees to make department chair appointments that regularly recruit from outside universities, looking for the high performing stars. The overwhelming majority of faculty will never become department chairs.

And in many schools, the dept head position rotates among the dept faculty.

Yes, nobody wants to be chair. It takes away research time and grant application time. But it is a major service so it rotates through the faculty. Some faculty do becomes Deans. But many choose just to focus on research (not like they are lacking skills). In some rare cases, chairs can be hired externally through senior hire but it is not common.
I have no idea why we discuss this here. An earlier PP argues faculty is only middle class in a society (which means less rich than managers and CEOs) due to their lack of humanities education and faculty jobs are often taken by immigrants. Therefore, the humanities education is important for elite class. This makes no sense as faculty can be a professor in law, medicine, finance, history, and chemistry.

Your inability to focus on the topic here is bizarre but let me add that chairs are supposed to make significantly more salary. Faculty are underpaid and for most faculty becoming chair is a huge promotion. Elite class = money and just being regular faculty is so underpaid that their salaries are laughable. It is why the best and brightest don’t pursue academic careers.

Doubling down on your ignorant argument won’t make it less ignorant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dept chairs are faculty. Saying they are somehow at a different level than the other faculty shows a lack of knowledge of how colleges work.

They are paid more and have major responsibilities. Many universities have large search committees to make department chair appointments that regularly recruit from outside universities, looking for the high performing stars. The overwhelming majority of faculty will never become department chairs.

And in many schools, the dept head position rotates among the dept faculty.

Yes, nobody wants to be chair. It takes away research time and grant application time. But it is a major service so it rotates through the faculty. Some faculty do becomes Deans. But many choose just to focus on research (not like they are lacking skills). In some rare cases, chairs can be hired externally through senior hire but it is not common.
I have no idea why we discuss this here. An earlier PP argues faculty is only middle class in a society (which means less rich than managers and CEOs) due to their lack of humanities education and faculty jobs are often taken by immigrants. Therefore, the humanities education is important for elite class. This makes no sense as faculty can be a professor in law, medicine, finance, history, and chemistry.

Your inability to focus on the topic here is bizarre but let me add that chairs are supposed to make significantly more salary. Faculty are underpaid and for most faculty becoming chair is a huge promotion. Elite class = money and just being regular faculty is so underpaid that their salaries are laughable. It is why the best and brightest don’t pursue academic careers.

Doubling down on your ignorant argument won’t make it less ignorant.

You are in denial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dept chairs are faculty. Saying they are somehow at a different level than the other faculty shows a lack of knowledge of how colleges work.

They are paid more and have major responsibilities. Many universities have large search committees to make department chair appointments that regularly recruit from outside universities, looking for the high performing stars. The overwhelming majority of faculty will never become department chairs.

And in many schools, the dept head position rotates among the dept faculty.

Yes, nobody wants to be chair. It takes away research time and grant application time. But it is a major service so it rotates through the faculty. Some faculty do becomes Deans. But many choose just to focus on research (not like they are lacking skills). In some rare cases, chairs can be hired externally through senior hire but it is not common.
I have no idea why we discuss this here. An earlier PP argues faculty is only middle class in a society (which means less rich than managers and CEOs) due to their lack of humanities education and faculty jobs are often taken by immigrants. Therefore, the humanities education is important for elite class. This makes no sense as faculty can be a professor in law, medicine, finance, history, and chemistry.

Your inability to focus on the topic here is bizarre but let me add that chairs are supposed to make significantly more salary. Faculty are underpaid and for most faculty becoming chair is a huge promotion. Elite class = money and just being regular faculty is so underpaid that their salaries are laughable. It is why the best and brightest don’t pursue academic careers.

Ridiculous! So much misinformation and so much hate of academia. Then don’t send your child to a college. Learn to make $$ early on.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have time to read all posts, but what exactly are you discussing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have time to read all posts, but what exactly are you discussing?

Let me summarize. Eveytime someone complain about quality of STEM in elite private school somehow someone else yell at them to go back to public school. And in this case a PP started to bashing emphasis on math and immigrants and another pp mentioned faculty job. Then the pp said faculty job is lower paid second class. So here it is.

[Anonymous]

But STEM quality in private schools is poor! And parents totally know that. So I don't think there is any surprise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But STEM quality in private schools is poor! And parents totally know that. So I don't think there is any surprise.

NP here. Why would that be the case, if true? Why could a public school do STEM better than a private school? And I’m not asking why isn’t private better than public. I’m asking, what factors are at play in a private school that it can’t do STEM as well as a public?
And I’m here for the conversation and to learn something. Not to be in any snarky fights. Ty!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But STEM quality in private schools is poor! And parents totally know that. So I don't think there is any surprise.

NP here. Why would that be the case, if true? Why could a public school do STEM better than a private school? And I’m not asking why isn’t private better than public. I’m asking, what factors are at play in a private school that it can’t do STEM as well as a public?
And I’m here for the conversation and to learn something. Not to be in any snarky fights. Ty!

First of all I think it is not easy to attract good teachers for STEM in middle school given the pat, but this is not limited to private school. Second, given the legacy and high competitions in high school, these elite private schools do have good college placements, and they put all their focus on high school. So there is less incentives to focus on stem in MS. Also maybe the curriculum is subjective?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But STEM quality in private schools is poor! And parents totally know that. So I don't think there is any surprise.

NP here. Why would that be the case, if true? Why could a public school do STEM better than a private school? And I’m not asking why isn’t private better than public. I’m asking, what factors are at play in a private school that it can’t do STEM as well as a public?
And I’m here for the conversation and to learn something. Not to be in any snarky fights. Ty!

I post based on my own experience, comparing a prestigious independent school in DC with public magnet schools in Virginia. The independent private school is weak in STEM. Having said that, there might be other private schools that are strong in STEM and public schools that are weak in STEM. Also, many kids from elite private schools still go to RSM to reinforce their math. That level of math is simply not provided by most private schools.