If you remember the old days, was private school this expensive compared to HHI?

[Anonymous]

I remember when Landon was 4K per year and my father's income was about 90K.
With those numbers in mind, a 30K school would appeal to families with incomes about 650K. But that is not what the average private school family earns.
Please help me to understand if families are paying more now relative to their HHI.

[Anonymous]

In the late 90s/2000 our current 30+K tuition was 13-15K.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely OP, this is my impression as well. No question, it changes the nature and the population of these schools. Now it's a "barbell" population, at best.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely more relative to HHI. I started first grade early 1970's for $1,500 from my father's income of about 22K.

[Anonymous]

When we first put our kids in private it was 12/yr in tuition and we were making $120k HHI. This was around 2000.

Fast forward to 2012, when our HHI was $150k but the tuition at the same private school was now 31k.

I guess it won't come as a total shock to learn that we moved our kids to public.

Holy shrinking dollar, Batman!

[Anonymous]

^12k/yr in tuition in 2000.

[Anonymous]

This seems like a complex question. It's not too hard to figure out how much tuitions have risen. But figuring out how much HHIs have risen, in the brackets that can afford these schools, is a harder task.

[Anonymous]

14k a year in 1996 - I have no idea how they have risen so high. There is no way we could afford to send my kids to the school I graduated from. It's ridiculous and I think a little disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This seems like a complex question. It's not too hard to figure out how much tuitions have risen. But figuring out how much HHIs have risen, in the brackets that can afford these schools, is a harder task.

Yes, and are the ones with the higher HHIs the same types to look at private schools?

[Anonymous]

Back in the 1970s my parents paid $4,000 for two of us, out of dad's salary of $60k. Also, there were lots of teachers' kids at the school because teachers got a tuition benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14k a year in 1996 - I have no idea how they have risen so high. There is no way we could afford to send my kids to the school I graduated from. It's ridiculous and I think a little disgusting.

+1 Private school education has always been a privilege but soon it will be out of reach for all but lawyers, lobbyists, investment bankers and business moguls. How sad.

[Anonymous]

Let's take a certain percentile of HHI from the census data. Say we want to know what the 95th percentile HHI was in 2000 and 2012, and then compare the change in those HHI's versus the change in tuition.
2000 95th percentile HHI: $145k
2012 95th percentile HHI: $191k
So that's just about a 33% increase in HHI if you stay at the same percentile over those 12 years.
If, as PP said, in 2000 they were paying $12k for tuition in 2000 and were paying about $30k in 2012, that tuition increased by 150 percent during that time.
So, clearly, increases in tuition were WAY outpacing increases in HHI over the same period.
If you take incomes at the 75th percentile, it's:
2000 at 75th percentile: about 82k
2012 at 75th percentile: about 104k
So, at the 75th percentile of HHI, we are looking at about a 27% increase in HHI over those twelve years. Compared to a %150 increase in tuition at the same school.
No wonder we feel like families that used to be able to afford private can't anymore.
In the year 2000, if HHI was $120k and tuition was $12k, that person's HHI was in the

[Anonymous]

Let's take a certain percentile of HHI from the census data. Say we want to know what the 95th percentile HHI was in 2000 and 2012, and then compare the change in those HHI's versus the change in tuition.
2000 95th percentile HHI: $145k
2012 95th percentile HHI: $191k
So that's just about a 33% increase in HHI if you stay at the same percentile over those 12 years.
If, as PP said, in 2000 they were paying $12k for tuition in 2000 and were paying about $30k in 2012, that tuition increased by 150 percent during that time.
So, clearly, increases in tuition were WAY outpacing increases in HHI over the same period.
If you take incomes at the 75th percentile, it's:
2000 at 75th percentile: about 82k
2012 at 75th percentile: about 104k
So, at the 75th percentile of HHI, we are looking at about a 27% increase in HHI over those twelve years. Compared to a %150 increase in tuition at the same school.
No wonder we feel like families that used to be able to afford private can't anymore.

[Anonymous]

OP here, I could have run the numbers like you did pp, thanks. But my bigger question is was there as much head scratching and asking ourselves why we are doing this.

[Anonymous]

It is the same with colleges. I went to a good private college that had plenty of normal families that could pay with perhaps just a small student loan. It was not a huge stretch from a state U to the private school. Now the cost is 3x as much! Now a student loan does not make a dent in the price tag.