Would you send 2 kids to elite private schools you could BARELY afford?

[Anonymous]

OP,
We're in DC, sent our child to public through Sixth Grade, then moved to private. So we saved at least $150,000 over the eight years, perhaps more (tuition was about $20,000 when DC started pre-K.) I have a friend in New England who did the same for middle school. (Her children went back to public for high school, we're staying private through high school.)
Is public for elementary an option?

[Anonymous]

I would like to, but I do not earn enough to be able to send my kids to a private, it will be far more than a stretch, and my kids are not brilliant enough to qualify for aid, and the schools are too far away.
Otherwise, if I had the opportunity, I would sacrifise for them.

As far as it is being hard being the poorest kid in school. I definitely know that that will not be nice. So I will be making a lot of sacrifices for someone to make my child feel 'out'. On the other hand, it is hard to not even have this option

[Anonymous]

Not unless I had robust retirement and college savings and could continue to contribute to them.

I know a 59yo doctor who sent his kids to private schools (and now colleges) and is now working overtime on weekends to pay off debt they took on in order to pull off the private schools. I was kind of shocked to learn this - can't imagine making the choice to incur debt to send my kids to private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't, if it means that you'll have no wiggle room. You never know what will come up. I can't imagine not putting money away, if there are alternatives (i.e. the cheaper school). IN all honesty, if your options are "good" and "better," I think you're okay with the "good" because your children will still learn. Where it becomes an issue is if you have "extraordinarily bad" and "excellent." Then, maybe I'd choose "excellent," however I would also consider moving because I still can't imagine not putting money away.

This - we can afford private and are doing so currently but will likely transition out. Our private is "better" but there are other reasons why "good" may actually be better than "better" for DD (if that sentence makes any sense!). One being, I think her grades will be slightly higher at our excellent public - if she were extremely academically motivated, then I think private would be better. She's a G/T student - but she is not going to study night and day no matter how many times I suggest it.

[Anonymous]

A side conversation with 14:00 -- if your kid is not incredibly motivated, private might actually be the better choice. We've done both public and private. I know it's hard to believe, but the better publics in the DC/MD/VA area have a *ton* of homework, and a *ton* of highly-motivated, bright kids who will be competing against your kid. Currently my kids are in magnets and the highly motivated kid is doing well, while the fairly-well-motivated (not unmotivated, let's say) kid is pulling A's and B's. I'm sure this is the also case at well-regarded publics like Whitman, Potomac (DH went to one of these).

Whereas, if your not-so-motivated kid stays private, at least she will have the benefit of an aggressive college counselor at the private school (vs. a college counselor who is trying to help several hundred kids simulaneously), the private school's reputation among colleges, et cetera.

[Anonymous]

14:24 again. To OP this time: you need to measure the marginal benefit of the private over your local public, against the marginal cost, which is huge. One option might be moving to a neighborhood with better schools - then you will be building equity in your house, which you can use for retirement or college.

[Anonymous]

Having done it for the past few years, no, I would not. I don't regret it as ds has learning issues that made it seem prudent, and there is no question the education he has gotten has been excellent, but I have hated feeling so financially pinched, having to second-guess every expenditure, and not being able to do the little things that make life more pleasant for the whole family. He is going to public next year, and already I feel so much relief.

[Anonymous]

when their kids were young, my husband's parents moved to an atlanta neighborhood that had cache but not good schools (or so they say). so, they chose to send both children to K-12 at one of atlanta's nicest (read: expensive) private schools. while both kids think they got nice educations and it does seem that it would have been a good networking thing if either of them had stayed in atlanta (neither did), their parents did not also save for college or retirement. so, many years down the road, my husband has over 80K in school debt, his parents are broke and their fancy house was foreclosed on recently, and everyone's hope is that the grandparents leave his parents some money so that they can be provided for going forward. it's a sad situation that cannot be fully attributed to paying for the private education, but i think doing so is indicative of their irresponsible attitude when it came to savings. this is one tale of the worst that could happen. the fear of this situation has my husband and i committed to funding college, retirement, and emergency savings well before we'd even consider private schools. we moved to a neighborhood with good schools with this plan in mind.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't. Remember that there are a lot of extra costs for education that won't be included in your tuition and fees. Your children will be going to school with other children whose parents most likely won't be in the same budget squeeze. I think economic segregation starts very early these days -- children know when another child doesn't have a lot of money. Think about costs of birthday gifts, parties, social events and then into middle school wants and needs into high school. I had friends in a Southern town who went to private school and it was essentially a reason for their racist parents to keep them away from black people. These kids were the wildest (read drugs, sex, drinking early on) and most spoiled I ever met. I was a teacher in a public school in the South and taught gifted and talented high school English. My kids were very type a and were fine. I would never, even if I could afford to do so, send my children to a private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you have to remove descriptives like elite and catholic, and think about which school you think is the best fit for your child and are the additional benefits worth the added cost. My DC attends what is considered an excellent public elementary school in Bethesda, within the Whitman district. We debated sending him to private, not one of the "big 3" but an excellent school which shared our philosophy on educating young children, with a $30k/year price tag. We ultimately opted for public due to the fact that the tuition would have been a real stretch for us, and paying it would have prohibited one of us changing/leaving jobs, buying a bigger house someday, doing all the camps and trips we want our DC to experience. However, now that I've seen the public school in action I am really disappointed and feel like spending the money on what i think would be an amazing educational experience is worth way more than those otherthings. (of course, no guaranty that the private would be that excellent once there, but that's an oft debated subject here.) so, my 2 cents is that I'd gear up for one of the feeder preschools so that at the appropriate time you can decide if it's worth it to you to send your DC there.

For those of us looking at jumping into that boat, can you please share the name of the schools you are in and want to move to? I've heard that the publics are really not as good as they used to be for average and high achievers and that all the improvement in test scores you see is the system working to bring up the struggling kids, but it happened at the expense of creativity and high level thinking for the higher achieving kids/schools.

[Anonymous]

We're thinking about going without groceries for five to ten years so that we can brag how much better we are than you but pretend we don't really feel that way. Oops, did I blow your cover?

[Anonymous]

OP, evaluate both schools closely to see if they are using best practices. Some (elite) private schools stink because they do not use best practices. So make sure it is worth it before spending the bucks.

[Anonymous]

OP, with the $60K/year you'd be spending on tuition, you could buy an $800K house in Bethesda and send your kids to BCC. That way in 30 years you'd own, you know, a house; instead of "prestige." And while "prestige" is super, I'm sure, you can't live in it when you retire.

[Anonymous]

NOOOOOOOOO!

[Anonymous]

No I'd never do it because there are always emergencies, like new brakes for the car or a leaky pipe. I'd want to have money for activities, like that black belt in karate my kids want that costs me $2500 per year per kid until they get it. But, if this is really important to you and you are pushing the margins, you should be sure you've counted all of your costs. If you are both working, you will have before and/or aftercare and summer camps which are not cheap. You may have school activity fees and class trip expenses. Are you going to be able to pack lunches (which people say costs less, but I'm not sure) or will you incur unexpected costs for buying lunch.