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[quote=Anonymous]To open the discussion for the majority of viewers/ posters on this thread:

My purpose in posting this thread is to encourage examination of the ever upward spiraling cost of educating our children. If you are a MC or UMC family paying these outrageous tuitions either for Private school or college tuition, feel free to weigh in. To me, it seems out of control.

IMHO, it is worth examining that in the face of ever increasing tuitions, these "non-profit" schools are, in fact, money gathering machines, like no other industry in our current economy. Why is that ?  They are businesses that have the ability to make their profits dissapear on paper ( the 990)  just by raising the salaries of top admin, such as LOL paying a Head of School for 5-18 year olds a half million a year,( when he has 3 principals below him doing the grunt work) or seeing to it that an investment portfolio  shows a loss that balances a gain somewhere else in your 990, or by issuing bonuses to your teachers at the end of the fiscal year and pretending that its because you value them ( not to balance your books), or by aquiring more real estate that will then be part of your school and earn more income. These are all methods by which a "non-profit" can remain so on paper while gouging parents financially. Do these schools REALLY need on average $35,000 to  $37,000 a year for each enrolled child ?

Does anyone else ask this question when they are solicited quarterly for donations on top of the $100,000 - $120,000 per family they are paying in tuition.[i] per year[/i] ?

No doubt there are drivers: the dismal state of DCPS and the dark side of the competitive nature of the average UMC DC parent who views admission and enrollment into one of these schools as the ticket to success for their kids ( as well as themselves in many cases). Same thing is true when it comes to college. Only then its more based on fear that DC won't "make it" unless you second mortgage you home to pay $60,000 a year to send DC to Boston College, Penn, or Harvard. 
[b]
How did we get here ? Are we really getting our monies worth out of these schools or are we getting robbed ( or whatever you call being old with no home equity and no retirement savings while private educational institutions you sent your kids to  have absorbed all of you net worth during your prime earning years of 35-55)[/b]

The question is, are their continued tuition hikes ( I said 4-6% a year), well advised if they are starting to really hurt the bulk of their families. Granted, I am assuming some benevolence here that may be naiive.

Ditto the public and private university system. How did university tuition get to be $60,000 a year so damn fast ? Does this bother anyone? Can anything be done to put a stop to it? [b]Yearly audits by truly independant boards of directors, perhaps ?[/b]

Call me a nay sayer, but I think there is a lack of oversight on this private school gravy train. Look at what the bankers did with subprime mortgages when they were left with no one minding the store. (they simply helped themselves)

Consider the fact that Americans born between the year 1980 and 2002 have or are projected to have ( in the case of the latter) 1 Trillion dollars of student loan debt if they complete just four years of college. This 1 Trillion in debt is not being paid down by higher earnings either. In fact, the average 25 year old today is paid less than 20 year sago and spends 63% of their income paying student loan debt, while living at home in their parent's basement. This economic pressure on these young people is such that it is impacting:

home sales ( down 36% in the 20-35 age bracket since the year 2000)
car sales( also down 25-40% in the 20-30 age bracket)

From[i] The Atlantic[/i],

Nine out of 10 Millennials say they eventually want a place they own, according to a recent Fannie Mae survey. But this generation’s path to homeownership is fraught with obstacles: low pay, low savings, tighter lending standards from banks. Student debt—some $1 trillion in total—stalks many potential buyers as they seek a mortgage (or a car loan). At a minimum, homeownership rates are highly unlikely to soon return to the peaks they hit during the housing bubble.

Yet these private schools and universities just keep charging more and more. Is it justified?

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