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What's the TRUE cost?
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Anonymous
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Of your private school?
I'm trying to get a sense of the difference between advertised tuition and actual outlay |
Anonymous
| You have the tuition, which goes up just about every year. Then your donation to the annual fund. Then books (for a 6th grader, we're talking around $300). Plus trips, which can run anywhere from $20 to over $300. And add on a bit more for miscellaneous sundries. |
Anonymous
| For one after school enrichment class throughout the year, we're looking at around $600. |
Anonymous
| and plenty of people don't make donations. |
Anonymous
| Not sure you can ever get at true cost. Do you have to pack lunch or not? Do they need sepcial clothes for dress up days? Is there a dress code inconsistent with your kid's current wardrobe? Will you be using gas to commute longer? There are a bunch of variables that will differ from school to school. |
Anonymous
| high school: books about $1000; optional trips for sports, performances, and special studies can be quite expensive; everyone tries to give something to annual giving, capital campaigns. |
Anonymous
|
OP
so, tuition plus about 2k? |
Anonymous
| you also have to consider after-care and summer camp if you work - which will run you around $5 - $8K more/year |
Anonymous
| Yes, but you would never aftercare and summer camp even if your children went to public school. |
Anonymous
| And tuition will go up 6% to 9% every single year. |
Anonymous
| and then, of course, factor in the opportunity cost of that tuition plus expenses... |
Anonymous
| opportunity cost? in what sense? |
Anonymous
Is it reasonable to expect that tuition will continue to rise at this rate - that's what I really need to know in order to determine if we can stay in our schools. Surely tuition can't raise that much in the current climate. |
Anonymous
| Opportunity cost= what you could use that money for tuition for if you were not paying it - save for college, retirment, etc... |
Anonymous
The opportunity cost of a dollar you spent on tuition is precisely one dollar. So if you take the dollar tuition cost and add on top of that all the ways you could have used the money if you were not paying tuition you would be double counting. |