private school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my DH and i bring in $350k per year. we have 2 kids (4yo and 5yo) and we wanted to send them to private school in DC. i just looked at private schools such as Sidwell and i was shocked when realized that tuition is 35k. does any one here in DCU forum have similar income and sends 2 kids to top private. if yes how do you do manage to find 35K per kid in your budget? i am assuming financial aid is not available to people with 350k income.

You have two hurdles. Acceptance and payments. It will be tight if you decide it is the priority for your children. You do not reveal your current costs- based on your post it will require downsizing or steep drops in savings. Where are your kids currently? If they are not in the usual feeder preschools, the acceptance hurdle is even higher.

Do you like nice vacations? Do you like cars that cost more than $30k? Do you want to retire? Would you like to pay for your children's college? Are your jobs and their income very secure?

I am risk adverse. We chose a smaller house with great commutes and great public schools. We drive smaller less costly cars. We have retirement and college covered and are close to paying off house. We have had some nice vacations. I like to spend on local fresh food. We have seen very secure jobs vanish overnight - I sleep better at night knowing we have things covered if it happens again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my DH and i bring in $350k per year. we have 2 kids (4yo and 5yo) and we wanted to send them to private school in DC. i just looked at private schools such as Sidwell and i was shocked when realized that tuition is 35k. does any one here in DCU forum have similar income and sends 2 kids to top private. if yes how do you do manage to find 35K per kid in your budget? i am assuming financial aid is not available to people with 350k income.

What do you think is going to happen to your income over the next 15 years? We started one in private over 10 years ago when we made a combined $180k. Since then we've added two more kids to private but our income went way up. Now DH is past his peak earnings years and income is starting to slowly slide down. And, we still have college for three (we saved about 3/4 of what we need for college so we are in pretty good shape). I'm guess I'm saying that 14 years of private school, plus 4 or more years of college is a lot of private education even if you are relatively rich. I wish we had done public for elementary!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here
about "sliding in to Sidwell"- Both kids are sharp (5yo is doing multiplication and division, reads at 3rd grade level & plays chess. 4yo reads and is very inquisitive). both DH and I have PhDs in STEM. we are not blue bloods. we will not have recommendations from senators but pre-k teachers will write very strong letters if asked. If that is not enough to get into a competitive private so be it.

about "trajectory" both DH and I are first gen immigrants (met in grad school). came to US in our early 20s (had 3k in my pocket and DH had 2k in his pocket). We studied and worked our asses off!!!! had kids late in life. just recently realized that local public school is going down hill fast. So started looking for options. We have made plenty of mistakes because we did not have someone who could give us a timely advice. this is one of them. We are aiming for private middle & high school so I am hoping we have a few years to get organized.

about "money buys everything". I strongly disagree. Hard work is what gets you places. I was reading education forums and I was shocked how may people argue against extra homework and feel creativity is what gets you places. if my kids learn only one thing from me is that hard work and a good head on your shoulders is what gets you places. We are hard core over educated liberals.

about "piano" I agree. may be we don't need the most fancy school. may be 20k type school is what we need. So good point and we are generally looking around. the reason why I focused on Sidwell is because it is the upper bound financially and educationally (if use SAT scores as a way to measure this educational dimension).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AnukIDABt_JKdDdZYXlQbnFUQ0VfMHRpTFp1SUIxS2c&f=true&noheader=true&gid=5

about "how can we not afford that". we live comfortably no argument. but it would feel odd to take 20% (70k) of the income. We would have to cut back on a bunch of stuff. We are currently aggressively contributing to retirement and putting extra towards mortgage, we give money to our parents. it dose not feel like we do this massive lavish thing that we could just cancel and bam 70k falls out. we would probably have to dial down a lot of things. So when I posted the original question I was hoping I could get some advice from people that have made the choice to spend 70k every year and are either comfortable or uncomfortable with their financial choice. I was not tying to start a name-calling and trash-talking thread.

I am the PP who thought it was weird you were not aware of the tuition costs. DH and me are also first generation immigrants, with PhDs in stem. Our older kid is not yet 3 and we have been aware of the private tuition costs for at least 2 years.

[Anonymous]

Op, you may find that a good public school reflects your values. Thee are many good things about privates, but they tend to have a more experiential, developmental, less "academic" approach in elementary. This is a selling point for a lot of fam

[Anonymous]

Families. Sorry, posted too soon!

[Anonymous]

What about public and then TJ if you are willing to move to VA. If science and math is your focus then you can achieve the same (or arguably better) for free.

[Anonymous]

Op, it's a matter of comfort level and values. When you go to a place like Sidwell, remember it's not just the tuition. You're also sendig your kids to school with very well off children/families, and they may become accustomed to a certain lifestyle based on their friends' experiences. Also remember contributions and other things that may be expected on top of tuition.

You have to make the choice that's right for you. Personally, we are planning on public elementary and hopefully public for middle school and college as well.