If private school is a financial stretch for you, has it been worth it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s worth it if your child(ren) are not being served by your assigned public. Honestly, I would always start with public and move to private if/when the need arises. I am a parent of two children who went through two different private schools due to their needs not being met at our assigned school. No matter my income that is how I would approach the situation.

So, to answer your question, for us it was a big stretch, but we made it happen because my children’s education was more important to us than other large non essential expenditures.

This is okay if you live in an area served by enough high quality private schools that you can get a spot in later grades. Helps to be religious, I imagine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NO, NO, NO.

1)I'm sure if you're making a combined $500K your jobs are probably both reasonably busy and stressful. It sucks to work hard and make that much money and then have to live like you're making half of it because the first $150K post tax is given straight to a school. You make a lot of money but $150K is a LOT of your post tax income.

2)We'd all love to put our kids in super quiet classrooms of 12 kids where the teachers know and love every single quirk our children have. The reality is that this isn't necessary or probably even ideal for 95% of kids. Learning to navigate a less than ideal situation is ultimately good for kids to learn how to manage.

Yup DENIED!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Faced similar situation and decided it didn’t make good financial sense. These schools are for the rich who don’t feel it at all and those able to get aid. The full pay folks in the middle get squeezed.

What is the “middle?”

The donut hole

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My income is about 450k, I live in DC, and I have two kids who are headed to very expensive schools next year. It's going to be hard and we will give up things. But as someone who experienced what public school was like for my Black child, I know it is money well spent. I went to private schools growing up and my parents sacrificed to send me. And I firmly believe that after the elite prep school I attended, it mattered less where I went to college. I learned more about how to navigate the business world from high school and even though I didn't attend an Ivy League college, I am working right along side people who did - and often running circles around them. So, even though it will be expensive and hard - I am going to spend it and not regret a cent of it.

Wow! Are you also black or just have a black child? Are you female and which prep school if you don’t mind saying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest of 3 is in a wonderful independent school for kindergarten. Or middle child is in preschool at a top school discussed on this Board. Our youngest is still a baby.

Our kindergartener is a hesitant and sometimes anxious kiddo and has been doing really well at his school. He's really thriving. We love our preschool and have seen both kids thrive there. We've never experienced public school so we have nothing to compare to but our oldest in particular is the kind of kid that I think could get lost in a big public school.

That said.... the price of all of this is pretty crushing. Our income is in the $500K range and the cost of 3 kids in private school for 15 years each (including preschool, before college) is kind of mind blowing. I believe these are special schools that will be great for my kids and it's been my approach to do everything I can to support their development.... but I also feel really, really tired and like we are always striving for something more... and that this private school choice leaves us no space to do less intense jobs or take some time off if we need it. (I am admittedly feeling professionally burnt out right now and started a new job without taking some much-needed time off because we couldn't afford the lack of income.) I'm just not sure if it's worth it. We aren't behaving irresponsibly by making this financial commitment but we absolutely are not saving much beyond retirement.

For those who are making good income but not uber wealthy / in a situation where money is no object -- and are toward the end of the journey, would you make the choice again?

Please don't pick apart if we should feel this way based on the income we are bringing in. That's not the point. The point is that we do feel stretched and I am surprised by the emotional toll of it. I feel tired and I don't really want to feel this way for the next 20 years. But I also know that my kids are my world and I would regret it if it pulled them out of an excellent environment and then saw them struggle so that my life felt easier.

We recently decided to withdraw our son from one of the $50K+ schools in DC. While they have impressive facilities thanks to their resources, the curriculum is similar to what you’d find at DCPS NW or a Catholic school.

We’re opting for a much more affordable school now and plan to save the $50K+ for high school and college. Like you, we’re tired and want to use the money for other things like more traveling, buying vacation houses, more activities for us and the kids. I met a mother last week who plan to do the exact same things this year with her daughter.

The funny part is that many of our very wealthy friends (I’m talking $50M+ net worth) are sending their kids to affordable schools or public schools and refuse to go for the ‘big three,’ for example.
It’s a choice you have to make based on what you feel comfortable with. Start by slowly visiting more affordable schools and public schools—it will give you an idea of whether it’s the right decision for you.

I'm always perplexed when people talk about how much money their friends have...PP do your friends go around telling other people they have north of $50 million? Not one of my friends has ever told me how much money they have. Is this really something people talk about but I've managed to live 45 years without ever hearing?

My DH is super friendly and smart. People tell him their salary and NW all the time.

[Anonymous]

We moved our kids from public to private years ago. It was and is a stretch, but we don't regret it.

People move their kids to private for a variety of reasons. For us, it was because of the environment. You only get one childhood and we didn't want our kids spending their childhood having to deal with bomb threats and lock downs, fights in the halls, afraid to use the bathrom during the day, unruly kids in the classroom, etc. I wouldn't want to spend years having to deal with the above, why would I ask my child to do so?

We did compromise and send our kids to a cheaper private though.

[Anonymous]

Huge stress for us. 230k salary for most of it recent jump to 280 last year and now likely H is losing job FED. Consider it one of the best decisions and investments we could have made. Huge impact for our child and us and worth every sacrifice. Not only was it a fantastic experience for child, in some ways the school taught us to be better parents, which is good as we have another child just a year away from high school. Hope we can do the same for our 2nd. Don’t want to be too specific about the school but it has a disciplined long and storied history and grows leaders.

[Anonymous]

I'm following this conversation because our family is at a juncture where our oldest DC (out of 3 kids) will be starting HS this Fall. ( We are wondering if we should continue through private school or switch to public HS. )

To answer your question, it was worth it for our family so far for grades K-8. We have three children currently attending K-8 private school. Our HHI was about $150K when we first decided to enroll our oldest (and those years were tough because the other two were in daycare and preschool), but by the time our oldest reached 8th grade, we've increased our HHI to $430K. Our key reason back at the beginning to enroll in private when we were more financially strapped was the religious aspect. We felt instruction of the faith outside of the home was important, and it could help with character-building by surrounding ourselves with other families wanting to serve the community. Now that our kids have the core foundation of these values/character/beliefs, the argument to continue into private high school (and at much higher costs) is harder to justify, even though we have more money now.

Overall, we consider it worth it so far of the community (our kids made good lifelong friends, and we love the families we've gotten close with through the school community activities). The biggest reason we think it is worth it is how our kids are as people. They are respectful, confident, independent, and generally make good decisions by doing the right/moral thing most of the time (they are still kids after all).

Looking back, I do wonder if our kids could have capitalized more on the resources that public schools can offer if they went to our local public school. For example, my 8th grader is into STEM, but given the small school, DC only progressed as far as Geometry in math as it is the most advanced subject available in a small school, and there were limited clubs/electives unless we looked outside. We did have to supplement here and there (e.g., the school didn't offer martial arts, so we enrolled the kids in martial arts for a period). But really, Another example - my other DC wanted to be in an orchestra but had to look outside of school because the school was too small to have its own orchestra. However, its pretty immeasurable knowing my kids have good friends, are kindhearted, confident yet humble, are grounded in their faith, and are also respectful/appreciative to family. There are other little things like our kids having good penmanship and cursive, being polite, being conscientious, they aren’t into appearances/social media, etc… I do attribute this to having a smaller close-knit environment that doesn’t care about these things and also to having caring teachers who can attend to each individual student and remind them of their manners and values.

As a side note – my husband never went to private school and turned out fine (and he earns more than I do). Because of this, we often compare notes as our kids progressed through the school years, and he’s been overall happy with our decision thus far. That said, I want to note some of the differences he observed over the years: 1) there had been no bullying or persistent behavioral issues in our school but there were in his. We might have run into 1 or 2 cases where there was trouble at our kids' school (across the 3 kids’ classes), but these issues do not persist because the teachers and principal work with the family and/or recommend the student leave the school if the kid is being terrible. 2) Our kids held onto innocence longer and have no awareness of making an online presence/façade, which we think is overall a good thing given the easy access to explicit material everywhere; 3) even though we have middle schoolers, there isn’t any boyfriend/girlfriend/sexual drama interfering with education, and 4) we experienced a lot of flexibility to adjust the school curriculum based on current needs (which was important for us during the COVID-19 pandemic given the nature of private school not having to deal with bureaucratic hurdles.) These benefits might be unique to our family, but I did want to highlight some intangibles in case these things matter to some of you reading this!

Overall, yes it was worth it to us because we feel that the school has helped us raised good people. I also want to say that getting 3 kids through private school was manageable/do-able, while still saving for retirement, 529, HSA, etc., but we don't have fancy cars, we opted for mostly domestic trips over international trips (at least in the earlier years), had simple parties, and we gave modest (but thoughtful!) Christmas/birthday gifts over expensive gifts to our friends. We do live in the suburbs (not the city), but it is a decent size (3100 square feet), and we did not get financial aid (unless you count discounted tuition for being a parishioner).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huge stress for us. 230k salary for most of it recent jump to 280 last year and now likely H is losing job FED. Consider it one of the best decisions and investments we could have made. Huge impact for our child and us and worth every sacrifice. Not only was it a fantastic experience for child, in some ways the school taught us to be better parents, which is good as we have another child just a year away from high school. Hope we can do the same for our 2nd. Don’t want to be too specific about the school but it has a disciplined long and storied history and grows leaders.

+1 -- this could've been written by me (including the losing fed job part). Even though finances can be extremely stressful we have no regrets on our decision for private, and specifically all the choices we've made concerning privates like starting at a K-8 and then moving to a different school for HS. Hoping our son has a great foundation moving into college.

[Anonymous]

No. It has not been worth it.

[Anonymous]

Has not been worth it for us for K-8 given that we live in an area where the public schools are excellent. I cringe at the idea that my kids would have had over a million dollars in their portfolio by the time they graduate college had we invested that money in some fund that follows the market.

It has been totally worth it for high school though but both kids went to catholic high schools which were well worth the money. They would not have had that experience at the local public high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We moved our kids from public to private years ago. It was and is a stretch, but we don't regret it.

People move their kids to private for a variety of reasons. For us, it was because of the environment. You only get one childhood and we didn't want our kids spending their childhood having to deal with bomb threats and lock downs, fights in the halls, afraid to use the bathrom during the day, unruly kids in the classroom, etc. I wouldn't want to spend years having to deal with the above, why would I ask my child to do so?

We did compromise and send our kids to a cheaper private though.

Why didn't you move to a better school district?

If you went to a religious private indoctrination yeah you are dumb.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't really pay off for college admits, but my kids loved being in a private school starting in 7th and 6th grade respectively and we made between 300-500K while they were there.

[Anonymous]

It will be a significant hit to your future net worth.

I'm a mom of 3 kids ages 14, 19, and 22. Our youngest did public for K-8, but is now in private for 9th. Our other 2 kids did private K-12.

Our income was similar to yours, and we had some grandparent help with tuition.

At the risk of stating the obvious, our net worth is definitely lower than it would have been if our kids had gone to public. Since we had 2 working parents, we figured that private school would be worth it since we did not have a SAHP to oversee everything more thoroughly than 2 working parents can do. (Note to self: I do hope that my 3 kids can have one SAHP if they choose to have kids. But I digress . . . )

At your income (and with 3 kids), private school is definitely a huge hit to your future net worth. Many people at private school are not necessarily paying tuition from their income. Instead, they are paying tuition from (a) assets; or (b) grandparents. They don't pay on a monthly plan, like we always have.

There was a recent thread on the Money/Finance forum about how it's totally common to have $3 million in net worth at age 55. A surprising number of people did this on government salaries -- the key was no private school.

One idea is to try your local public school for elementary school (K-5), and then go private. This approach is wealthy close-in suburbs, in my experience. The elementary schools are wonderful, and then you make friends in the neighborhood, which is so beneficial. (With my older 2 kids who went private K-12, they were a bit more lonely because they had fewer friends in the neighborhood. Everything required a parent-arranged playdate, sometimes with someone who lived 5-10 miles away.

BTW, even if the public schools are not always great, the college placements out of public high schools can be very good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved our kids from public to private years ago. It was and is a stretch, but we don't regret it.

People move their kids to private for a variety of reasons. For us, it was because of the environment. You only get one childhood and we didn't want our kids spending their childhood having to deal with bomb threats and lock downs, fights in the halls, afraid to use the bathrom during the day, unruly kids in the classroom, etc. I wouldn't want to spend years having to deal with the above, why would I ask my child to do so?

We did compromise and send our kids to a cheaper private though.

Why didn't you move to a better school district?

If you went to a religious private indoctrination yeah you are dumb.

These things happen in all MCPS high schools.