How rich are private school parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our kids go to Sidwell. Our two working parent HHI is about 400; that's total gross HHI before deductions for taxes, healthcare, retirement, mortgage, tuition, etc. Our house is worth about 750. We have no financial aid from the school or grantparents or anything like that; just paying our own way. We consider ourselves really lucky and blessed, and quite frankly successful to be able to pay for an expensive luxury like private school. I think we're about average/median for the school. Plenty of families are far wealthier, but plenty are less fortunate. HTH. Take my opinions with a grain of salt though, because I can only guess at how other families are doing financially. But fwiw, I never have felt out of place.

This is us to a T - except that we are at Potomac

[Anonymous]

We make $300K and have 2 kids in a high-priced private. Grandparents pay for one tuition, and no financial aid. We feel like we are at the lower end of the spectrum compared to average although there are many other families with one kid and similar income to us we think. Having two kids makes it challenging for us due to the extra expense of activities, vacations after-care, etc.

[Anonymous]

It varies quite a bit at our school. I don't know HHI but can guess about home values - some under $1 mil including my family, plenty in the $1.5-2.5 million range, and then some over $5 mil. You have to be confident that your family belongs there just as much as any other family. I encourage my kids not to comment on homes, cars, clothes, gadgets, trips, etc. whether about our family or any other, not even in a positive manner. Many rich kids do not want to be known as the rich kid, and surely no one wants to be thought of as the poor kid.

[Anonymous]

There's also a decent number whose parents don't earn a ton but the grandparents are paying their way (which means the parents will also stand to inherit a decent amount of wealth).

[Anonymous]

As mentioned, a wide range and as DK puts it, "it's not like the kids from the insanely rich families did anything to earn that wealth, so we don't think they are any different than the rest of us. We are an FA family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make $300K and have 2 kids in a high-priced private. Grandparents pay for one tuition, and no financial aid. We feel like we are at the lower end of the spectrum compared to average although there are many other families with one kid and similar income to us we think. Having two kids makes it challenging for us due to the extra expense of activities, vacations after-care, etc.

This is about us too. $375K income. Grandparents pay one, we pay one.
We're definitely on the lower end of income (there are a ton of really wealthy people out there!) but we're ok with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's also a decent number whose parents don't earn a ton but the grandparents are paying their way (which means the parents will also stand to inherit a decent amount of wealth).

Our situation, 2 kids in GDS

[Anonymous]

It’s is also different if you are talking k-12 in private or just 9-12 or k-5....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there's a large range. FWIW, it hasn't even occurred to me to contemplate the HHI of any other family. It's just not an issue. Frankly, I would prefer to have a range of HHIs represented rather than have a bunch of overly privileged rich kids grouped together.

Agree, doesn’t matter when grandparents are paying others’ tuition bills and one third of tuition goes to subsidieE others’ aid.

If anything the dual income couple running a tight budget is not the norm. Much more economical to move to good publics then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make $300K and have 2 kids in a high-priced private. Grandparents pay for one tuition, and no financial aid. We feel like we are at the lower end of the spectrum compared to average although there are many other families with one kid and similar income to us we think. Having two kids makes it challenging for us due to the extra expense of activities, vacations after-care, etc.

This is us. Grandparent pays for all three.

[Anonymous]

We make around 1M and we are in the middle as far as I can tell. It's obviously a good income but other parents have extensive family wealth and multiple homes, etc. Plus connections like legacy admissions to a particular ivy stretching back generations.

That's what you're dealing with.

I wouldn't do it if you're not making at least $750k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make around 1M and we are in the middle as far as I can tell. It's obviously a good income but other parents have extensive family wealth and multiple homes, etc. Plus connections like legacy admissions to a particular ivy stretching back generations.

That's what you're dealing with.

I wouldn't do it if you're not making at least $750k.

This is the real way the wealthy maintain their wealth and it's something the UMC like the PP just can't compete with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's also a decent number whose parents don't earn a ton but the grandparents are paying their way (which means the parents will also stand to inherit a decent amount of wealth).

Our situation, 2 kids in GDS

This will be us, too. My kids will be the only grandkids on both sides (my side and DH's side) and our parents are comfortable and deeply value education.

[Anonymous]

We are not by any means on the very wealthiest side but at 3m a year I can tell you we don’t care what car you drive, what your house looks like, how much money you have. We have lots of friends in government doing important albeit not very lucrative jobs. We care about you as a friend, and have taught our kids the same. Now the one area we really splurge on is travel and sometimes I worry our kids may make others uncomfortable talking about various trips but I hope that are low key about it. Just be yourself! It all will work out.

[Anonymous]

We are not rich at all- not poor either- just comfortable. It’s my parents who have the money that allow private education to be a reality for us.