Starting at what HHI or net worth would you feel comfortable paying $32k private school tuition?
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Anonymous
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Hi. I am not sure if we can afford private school tuition of $32k for our only child's dream school (6th grade). Our household income is $300k, but our mortgage payments will be quite high once we purchase a home in the expensive area where the school is located. Current investments: $1m. A part of these investments will be liquidated for the down payment.
Starting at what HHI/NW would you feel comfortable spending $32k per year on private school? Considering that she is still in middle school, we'd be looking at quite a few years. Thanks. |
Anonymous
| I make 400k and would never send my kids to private. I think I'd have to be making about 1 million to stomach private. Like, I definitely need a lambo in the garage if I'm going to be throwing around money like that |
Anonymous
| Isn't the whole point of private school that you don't have to purchase an expensive house in the neighborhood? Either pay more for a house so you can use the great local public schools, or stay where you are and pay for private. |
Anonymous
| OP here. We don't live in the DC area anymore, unfortunately. In our new city public schools are not good. Nobody sends their kids to public schools. |
Anonymous
| Sounds like you live over your means. We make $150K or so and we could comfortably do it. You can very easily do it but may need to reconsider your housing options. |
Anonymous
OP here. I don't think that you can afford $32k private school on a $150k gross HHI. I don't want to have to commute one hour to get to the private school, which is close to my office. So for this reason we would like to live closer by, hence the more expensive house. |
Anonymous
I KNOW we can as we've done it for a few years as we have a child with SN and who needed therapies. You don't need to move closer or get a more expensive house, you choose to want it. Need vs. want. We live in a very small, cheapest house in the neighborhood at the time we could find and have aggressively paid the mortgage so in a few years it will be paid off. So, in two years it will be paid off (but we could do it now) and we drive older car/paid off car. Its how you spend/manage your money. Your priority is a house and mortgage so no you cannot but you could if you wanted to. |
Anonymous
| We pay about this, plus a 4k mortgage, and it’s ok- but there’s not really room for extras after taking care of retirement savings, emergency funds, etc. We do a $3kish vacation every other year, never more than one car payment at a time, restaurant meals once a year (but we make it a super nice one), plus a tight rein on frivolous-type “lol Target is the $100 store” spending. |
Anonymous
| We make $about $275K and pay $40K for a private school. Plus a donation and sports. We don't take great vacations though. |
Anonymous
| OP here. To the PPs who do shell out that kind of money, do you think that it is worth it? |
Anonymous
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We make $220 and pay $25k in tuition. With $80k additional gross the extra $7k would be easy.
That said, we didn’t overextend on the house ($2k mortgage payment) and are willing to drive 30 min to get to the school. You say public isn’t an option, so you have committed to paying for private somewhere. At that point, you’re looking at the difference in cost between school A and school B. |
Anonymous
Yes, of course—otherwise we wouldn’t be paying it. Ideally public schools are good and work for your kid, but once you’ve determined they don’t, private school is a lot cheaper than one spouse quitting to homeschool. |
Anonymous
| We are getting ready to pay for a $40k private and make less than $150k. We are getting FA though, but still it’s a chunk. It’s a SN school, so DC very much needs it and we’re willing to sacrifice. It’s going to hurt. We’ll see how we feel after a year of paying. |
Anonymous
+1. I would only do it if my kid needed it. Otherwise I think there are many benefits to attending public K-12 aside from cost. I wouldn't hesitate to pay for a top private college though. FWIW at $600K+ HHI, $4M+ liquid assets in 30s we think it would be affordable but not comfortable -- e.g. we would have to cut back on other financial goals like timeline for paying off mortgage, reaching our retirement number early, fully funding private college tuition for multiple kids, international family travel, etc. that we really value. But it might feel more comfortable if we valued private school more highly relative to some of these other goals. |
Anonymous
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All of this is very relative. My parents paid for 3 kids to go through private at $8 to $12K per year each on a 60K salary back in the 80s. Some years the tuition must have been around $30K, or at least $25 (we did work study), and you just know the IRS probably only let him see ~40K of that.
We took cheap vacations, our mom sewed our clothes, we shopped at a distant army commissary once a month and froze our milk, and never went to birthday parties because we couldn't buy gifts. But my parents made it work. If you can't afford private school that costs 1/10 of your salary when my parents did it on a ratio closer to 1/2, it's because you just don't want or need it enough, not because you can't really afford it. |