Would you pay to send 2 kids to elite private school if you could BARELY afford it?

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

OP, this was our decision. We went with private.

We had a third.

Everyone is now going to public.

We could have made it work, but the sacrifice "for the family" was actually killing the family.

[Anonymous]

My advice is try to stay in Texas (if you are thinking of moving back to DC.) Elite privates here are not $20-24K a year -- more like $28-31K - and tuition increases every year. This doesn't even include annual giving (which is kind of expected), after school care, summer camps, sports, and other misc. expenses. The numbers keep on adding up and frankly, they scare me. We are thinking of moving out of NWDC to MD/VA.

[Anonymous]

D.C. public schools are just fine at least the ones in upper NW.I'm from Europe, besides the curriculum that D.C. (or U.S.)offers, I'm planning to teach him European(take your pick,Finland's is great) elementary school curriculum at the same time.I'd rather save the money for private high school or use the money to travel with your children like someone else suggested before me.
I am low income parent, still in school myself, but have managed to teach my boy Spanish and my mother tongue Estonian. Stoddert Elementary coupled with EU curriculum, traveling every summer.... no private school 'til high school! Learning ABC's doesn't require 20K a year! Save your money!

[Anonymous]

I would send your child(ren) to public elementary and then re-evaluate for middle school. Your children will be more "who they are going to be" by that time (ie, self-motivated, distracted, etc) The teenage years and high school are really more important to get the right fit. Chances are, your children will exit elementary school knowing the basics no matter what school they attend, as long as you are involved and vigilant.

[Anonymous]

Stay in Texas, you kids will seem a lot smarter there.

[Anonymous]

Not elite private, but parochial with excellent curriculum, yes

[Anonymous]

Re:Would you pay to send 2 kids to elite private school if you could BARELY afford it?

Absolutely not. The public schools in my neighborhood are, at the very least, equal rivals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, this was our decision. We went with private.

We had a third.

Everyone is now going to public.

We could have made it work, but the sacrifice "for the family" was actually killing the family.

We do not have the third child, but currently have 2 in private, so I can relate to you, PP. We are leaving our school (a wonderful DC private which I will always hold in the highest regard) for public school next fall. I am going to go from FT work to staying home when we make the switch so that I can drop the kids off, pick them up, etc. The crazy part is that we will be going to 1 income but will be netting thousands to our HHI after taxes because we will no longer be paying for private school.

The PP says it so well... "The sacrifice for the family was actually killing the family." is just about where we are. We are physically, emotionally, and financially strained. It's completely unhealthy.

[Anonymous]

Never. I think 70% of education does (or should) happen at home, and only 30% of it comes from the school. I can use the money to provide extra enrichment that is individually tailored to my kids' needs and interests instead of sending them to an "elite" school and struggling in the process.

[Anonymous]

I completely thought the same as previous poster, as in "never." But when you end up with a kid with particular needs that are not being met in public school for whatever reason, well, I guess I've changed my mind. If my kid gets in, we're going. Maybe just for middle school, to get through those years. We'll see. I believe in public but we just need the alternative right now. We will be stretching but will make it because we have a low mortgage.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't. I actually had a pretty heated debate with a friend about this. I live in a house I can easily afford, in an area of Fairfax that does not have a good junior high or high school. So I'm planning to spend more for my next house (likely a smaller, older one), in a boundary with better schools. She thinks I should send my daughter to private instead. I told her that I'd rather spend $100K more for a house - an appreciable asset with mortgage tax benefits - than throw away $15K-$20K+ per year that I'd never get back. She said, "don't you value your child's education?" I said, "I do, that's why I'm moving to a better public school area." My ex agrees with me; we were both products of public schools in good districts and we both have done well in life. I just don't feel like private school is what I want for my kid.

How are the schools in your area? If they're known to be crap, then I think private school - or parochial - is worth considering. But if they're the Texan equivalent of the schools in my county (Fairfax) or the one I grew up in (Johnson County, KS - very good), I would probably do public and save my money. If you spend all your money on private schools, will it affect your ability to save for college? It wouldn't do your kids any good to get into great colleges if they couldn't afford to go to any of them.

[Anonymous]

No. We've faced the same decision and have decided that since we live in a great public school district, our kids will be better off in the long run if we save the money to expose them to the world through travel, pay for any grad school they may want to attend (in addition to paying for college, which we plan on doing regardless if they go to public or private school) and possibly even help with a down payment for a first home. I also don't want our kids to feel deprived or like they're "poor" by being surrounded by the wealth at many of these schools.

If something were to happen and the public schools weren't meeting our kids' needs in some way, we may reconsider.

[Anonymous]

We have 2 kids in a DC private, which we love, and a 3rd who will likely go in a year. We struggle with the decision of whether to keep them in private ALL the time. It is such a stretch for us financially and that stress does take a toll on us. The part that is difficult for me to let go of in terms of just going public, is how much time kids spend in school these days. In many ways kids are really growing up in school. During the week my kids' school sees them more hours of the day than I do eventhough I am home full-time with them. I guess I just want to make sure that those great many hours away from me and home are the best they can be, and that is why we struggle to keep them in private. The whole argument of enrichment through travel, extra-curricular etc. with the extra income saved from going public just doesn't fly when I consider those precious hours day after day away from home that I want to be as good as can be.

[Anonymous]

Another thing to consider is the time/money tradeoff. We found that, when our children were in a very well-regarded public school, we had to spend a lot more time and energy dealing with the school, monitoring the aftercare, attending PTA meetings, meeting with teachers/principals/administrators, waiting in line for extracurricular sign up, etc. Both of us work and neither of us wanted to stop working, but the school-management stuff was turning into a full-time job itself. For other reasons, we moved to private -- and one of the fantastic side benefits is that we don't have to spend anywhere near the same amount of time on school management. If there is a concern, I make one phone call or send one email and it is fixed. It has been wonderful. Also, if you do both continue to work, I have found that the quality of the aftercare at our private school is about 1000% better than it was at our public school.