Median Family Household Incomes by School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a little deceptive, as people with a high income of >$200k may send their kids to private schools or may not even have kids. So you can’t really assume that they are at the high school.

To be clear, it is using census tract family households who live in the service area of the high school. It isn't looking at students. There isn't family income data at the student level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k and will go to Northwood- we could def not afford to move into any of the areas with schools near the top! How can anyone going to Whitman afford to live there? You need $1mill plus to buy a house there? Family money?

I mean, the stats say that fully half make less than ~$240k, so I can't believe that half have family money. But it's probably more that there are a lot of retirees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k and will go to Northwood- we could def not afford to move into any of the areas with schools near the top! How can anyone going to Whitman afford to live there? You need $1mill plus to buy a house there? Family money?

$450k is definitely enough to live in those areas, but the house probably wouldn't be as large or nice.

The data is looking at family households. That includes married retirees, single parents, and married couples without kids. I suspect the median income would be higher if you could limit it to families with school-aged kids.

But I also think people forget about the cheaper parts of some of these areas. For example, the high cost of single family homes in Crown came up in the Option H thread, but those are dwarfed by the apartments and condos.

Still, the census income data numbers have always been lower than I'd expect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k and will go to Northwood- we could def not afford to move into any of the areas with schools near the top! How can anyone going to Whitman afford to live there? You need $1mill plus to buy a house there? Family money?

Meanwhile we’re very comfortable on about half as much (also DCC) and I struggle to understand how one wouldn’t be able to live in the Whitman cluster (if desired) on your kind of income?

It’s all relative. Existing debt and home equity are two significant variables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k and will go to Northwood- we could def not afford to move into any of the areas with schools near the top! How can anyone going to Whitman afford to live there? You need $1mill plus to buy a house there? Family money?

Meanwhile we’re very comfortable on about half as much (also DCC) and I struggle to understand how one wouldn’t be able to live in the Whitman cluster (if desired) on your kind of income?

It’s all relative. Existing debt and home equity are two significant variables.

Agree, us too but at $450K, you can afford to live there and most places even Northwood a house is $600-million or more. I think its interesting how people assume DCC and other areas families make signficantly less and look down on some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I did this in part because every time wealth inequality comes up it is hard to compare schools to each other. FARMS just gives you the low end, not any indication of the high end. Looking at other data sources and proxies is problematic. Data sources often aren't closely tied to school boundaries, and it is hard to demonstrate you're not cherry picking data.

I double checked the logic and did some consistency checks with zip codes. The data seems to be accurate. But this isn't the median income for families of students- it includes young married couples and married retirees. Even for families with kids, it includes single-parent households and single-earner households. These will drive the median lower than whatever you might intuitively expect. And in some cases, people underestimate how many multi-family homes are in an area- you don't need a lot of space to offset expensive SFHs.

Now that your've done this, does it show anything not already present in FARMs data?

It would be kind of nice to add FARMS data onto the original chart, so we could see if the median income is like the general income or if it's an inbetween of really high income and really low income.

Then look at the proficiency rates for each of the groups at the school. Which based off of the other thread about Wootton Option H can see if there FARMS students have higher scores at schools with a good percentage of households that have an income of $200k or more. And I guess you can't really look at the reverse, other than looking at the non FARMS numbers.

Wootton has very low farms and is primarily white and asian. I would suspect some of us have higher incomes than some Wotton families but we prefer to not be house poor.

[Anonymous]

The QOHS data is interesting. It doesn’t really show the Lakelands/Kentlands families. We are a Lakelands family with an HHI of $600K. We send our kid to private school. It’s not uncommon to see bumper stickers from private schools in the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a little deceptive, as people with a high income of >$200k may send their kids to private schools or may not even have kids. So you can’t really assume that they are at the high school.

If you aren't getting aid and have a mortgage, that would be very hard to do as there are few reasonably priced privates, even with 1-2 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k and will go to Northwood- we could def not afford to move into any of the areas with schools near the top! How can anyone going to Whitman afford to live there? You need $1mill plus to buy a house there? Family money?

How is that possible? Do you have a zillion children? We make $150k and live in the WJ district (2 kids; no help from family). There were plenty of townhouses within our budget when we bought a couple years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The QOHS data is interesting. It doesn’t really show the Lakelands/Kentlands families. We are a Lakelands family with an HHI of $600K. We send our kid to private school. It’s not uncommon to see bumper stickers from private schools in the neighborhood.

That's an extraordinary income level even in that area.

This is calculating a median, not a mean, so it doesn't really matter how much higher than the median an income is, just that it is higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The QOHS data is interesting. It doesn’t really show the Lakelands/Kentlands families. We are a Lakelands family with an HHI of $600K. We send our kid to private school. It’s not uncommon to see bumper stickers from private schools in the neighborhood.

So, why do you keep posting in MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The QOHS data is interesting. It doesn’t really show the Lakelands/Kentlands families. We are a Lakelands family with an HHI of $600K. We send our kid to private school. It’s not uncommon to see bumper stickers from private schools in the neighborhood.

That's an extraordinary income level even in that area.

This is calculating a median, not a mean, so it doesn't really matter how much higher than the median an income is, just that it is higher.

Not really, you have two working parents who make 200/400 or 300/300 or 500/100. Those are not abnormal for doctors/law/tech/finance/business owners, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make about $450k and will go to Northwood- we could def not afford to move into any of the areas with schools near the top! How can anyone going to Whitman afford to live there? You need $1mill plus to buy a house there? Family money?

How is that possible? Do you have a zillion children? We make $150k and live in the WJ district (2 kids; no help from family). There were plenty of townhouses within our budget when we bought a couple years ago.

Not sure where you'd get a townhouse for WJ with that income with HOA fees and not be stretched. Not that poster but at $450K they can comfortably afford it but we could afford it but don't want to be stretched at all. And, I think its a disadvantage with college admissions.

[Anonymous]

This looks pretty accurate to me. The median doesn't imply an even distribution, it is the halfway point. For Whitman you could have the majority of the bottom half in a narrow band between 200 and 250 for example.

Also people with kids in school likely bought their houses in the last 15 years or so, when prices were higher. Those incomes may skew higher than the median.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This looks pretty accurate to me. The median doesn't imply an even distribution, it is the halfway point. For Whitman you could have the majority of the bottom half in a narrow band between 200 and 250 for example.

Also people with kids in school likely bought their houses in the last 15 years or so, when prices were higher. Those incomes may skew higher than the median.

If they bought their home 15 years ago and their incomes were less, they either stretched or had help or were lucky and did well on a previous house sale. Even 15 years ago those houses were 600K+.