Reply to Families who can afford private but go public, why?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s just not worth it.  We are wealthy enough to be able to afford it without any significant sacrifice, but not so rich that spending $1M+ on education would be meaningless to us financially.

In my view, any marginal benefit to private just isn’t worth the tremendous cost.  In my view, there are pros and cons to public and private and, although we strongly value education, I don’t believe that means we should entirely disregard the value proposition when deciding whether to do private.[/quote]

Is it “tremendous”? What kind of money are we talking here, since people will drop 1.3 to live in a “good” zone but could spend half that to live in an “average” one. Is private school tuition really half a mil?[/quote]

Those numbers are off.  More importantly, you ignore that you get a house to live in and have an asset you can then sell.  You don’t get that with private school.  $1M+ v free (zero marginal cost given taxes) is a tremendous expense.[/quote]

I’m saying, if the choice was a 600k house in a crappy public zone and private school, or a 1m house in a good public zone, how is the latter such a good deal? We’re talking about 4 years, maybe a few more with additional kids. I think you’re just reluctant to admit you paid at least as much for your public via real estate as you would’ve living in a cheaper, equivalent house and going private.

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This is a silly argument because it ignores reality. Do you think most people who pay 20-40k+ for multiple kids to attend private live in a 600k house in a not so amazing neighborhood? Most ppl who spend that much money can easily afford to live in expensive homes, and often much more, evidenced by overwhelmingly preppy atmosphere at privates, dominated by wealth. I personally think it would be a pretty bad decision to choose to live in a just ok neighborhood with the intent of using all the money "saved" by doing so, on a private school. Even excluding real estate appreciation and selling at some later point, kids would be more isolated in both private and maybe in their own neighborhood too. I can see if a family lives in a nice urban area with all bad schools but they do not want to move elsewhere for schools. In that case private is totally sensible.[/quote]

I guess we are making your “pretty bad decision.” The private experience is just on balance what we prefer, and having a McMansion is not. 2500 sq ft is the scale we wanted.

We actually inherited a McMansion in Great Falls (not outright, had mortgage still) and we lived there for a couple months but then sold it and bought our current home. [/quote]

Continuing off topic but I think 3000 or so, including basement is the perfect size.

I once heard that if you are renovating in GF it's advised to not go smaller than 4,000 sq ft if you want to sell easily later.[/quote]

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