How do people afford it?

[Anonymous]

You should definitely apply for aid. It might not be a lot, but if you feel the investment is worth it, it's worth finding out.

[Anonymous]

We have 3 in private (40-50k each) and 375 HHI and we make it work… it’s a lot of money, but so far it has been more than worth it. Our income will likely increase to 400 in a year or two and our mortgage is 3.2k/month

[Anonymous]

We make around $325K and have two in two different "Big3" private high schools with a tuition bill of $110K.
Grandparents pay one tuition, we pay one tuition. We do not receive aid.

Yes, we could theoretically pay for this completely out of our income but that would be >50% of our take home income and it wouldn't be worth it to us (AT ALL!) unless we had a kid who
needed private placement for special needs (in which case I could see doing whatever it took).

Private school is not worth living a bare bones existence!! Privates are fine but there are flaws and frustrations just like there are in public. They're just different flaws and
frustrations. We have experience with 2 different publics and 2 different "Big 3" privates (we use private just for high school).

Even with grandparent help, we often wonder if this is worth it. It's also perennially odd to be two professionals with a combined very good income ($325K) and to be among the
"poorest" people we know at school. It's unsettling. We are not materialistic people and the wealth our kids are surrounded by is astounding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have 3 in private (40-50k each) and 375 HHI and we make it work… it’s a lot of money, but so far it has been more than worth it. Our income will likely increase to 400 in a year or two and our mortgage is 3.2k/month

I'm trying to do the math. 375k income, approx 135k in school fees averaged out. You are spending most of your post-tax income on school fees?

[Anonymous]

Your mortgage is too high.
We make $200k combined and send our kid to a Christian private.
You could send both your kids and that would lower your income to the same as ours. We own a small SFH in a nice neighborhood. Car payment on one car, own the other one outright. No other debt .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can comfortably do it but you mortgage and other expenses are too high. You make plenty.

I don’t know how. Our mortgage would have to be zero. And we’d still need to pay property taxes and insurance right?

If this is the case, it sounds like you're coming up short almost the full tuition amount. So that is not going to work because no school is going to give you full aid on a $300 income.
If you get any aid it will be a token amount like $5K. Been there, done that.

I would suggest using public through 8th grade and saving gradually over the years.

[Anonymous]

If you don’t have family money, you need higher paying jobs. Most people with your income can’t swing private school for two kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t have family money, you need higher paying jobs. Most people with your income can’t swing private school for two kids.

Agreed. We are in this income bracket and it feels like there about 5 families total like ours at our DC private. We are a complete anomaly.
We have grandparent help with one kid. (tuition bill is $100K+ for 2 kids).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have 3 in private (40-50k each) and 375 HHI and we make it work… it’s a lot of money, but so far it has been more than worth it. Our income will likely increase to 400 in a year or two and our mortgage is 3.2k/month

I'm trying to do the math. 375k income, approx 135k in school fees averaged out. You are spending most of your post-tax income on school fees?

One school this year is 38k, one is 42 and one is 50k. Next year will be 43, 43 and 55 I think. But next year our income will go up by 25-40k…

Yea, we pay all of that. We applied for FA in the past and did not qualify because we own too much real estate (rental income is included in the math).

[Anonymous]

Some sacrifice has to be made. You can have a high mortgage-to-income ratio and send your kids to public, or lower mortgage and send your kids to private (possibly with FA). But I can’t see both happening in a financially responsible way, unless you have a huge grandparent contribution like some others do.

[Anonymous]

You can’t afford it on that salary. We make a similar salary, and no longer have a mortgage, and still don’t feel we can swing private school for our three daughters.

[Anonymous]

At that income level the only privates I'd be comfortable looking at would be schools like Gonzaga and St. Anselm's. I'm aware Catholic schools aren't for everyone but I'm not Catholic and would have no problems with these two schools, which are excellent schools.

Options are definitely more limited for girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I forgot to mention that we have about 700-800k in equity in our house. Is there a way to tap into that to swing it?

Of course. Are you familiar with a home equity loan? Or refinancing your mortgage?

[Anonymous]

You are middle class. They make a lot more than you do.

[Anonymous]

Our oldest and their spouse make the same as OP and sent their kid to public elementary school EOTP. After concluding reluctantly that the local middle and high schools weren’t viable options, they started playing the lottery and applying to privates. It was the last thing they wanted to do because they really didn’t want their kids going to school with a bunch of rich kids, plus they honestly didn’t want to put such a huge dent in their lifestyle. There are lots of things that can be done with kids with that kind of money that can benefit their growth just as much as private education.

Long story short, their kid got into several well known privates in DC but with virtually no financial aid. One very good school upped their offer to $10k in the end, but that still left a price tag of $40k plus and would only go up and they didn’t want to pay it. In the end, they sweated through the lottery and landed at a good option.

We have a lot more money than they do and we are very close with our grandkids. They never asked us to help and we never considered it. I think they knew we shared their philosophical revulsion at the idea of elite private schooling and also knew that we knew it was their choice entirely to live in the school district where they do.