Reply to Is the cost of attending independent schools justified?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's it expensive to send your child to an independent private school? Yes, of course it is. For some people, money is no object. For those of us for whom money is something we need to consider, we've made life choices that allow us to send our kids to private. We opted to send them to public school for elementary and private for Middle and High School. We do not go on expensive vacations. We live modestly (old cars, small house).  We believe their day-to-day experience is vastly superior to what they would receive at their zoned public and so,yes, it is worth the money for us. If you are only interested in the ROI on the basis of where your kids matriculate for college, you are not a family who should send your child to private. [/quote]

+1.

It's so family and reason dependent, which is why some variant of this question gets asked here weekly. But the above encapsulates it pretty well. For whatever reason, the experience is better enough for the kids and the family that the cost seems worth it.[/quote]

This is, of course, the only correct answer.  We both went to public schools, our parents were public school teachers, and we moved to the suburbs from DC specifically to stay in public schools rather than go private.  Our kid went to public school for 10 years.  He was at a large, generally well-regarded HS school that we targeted when we moved to the suburbs - we chose this district intentionally.

And it just wasn't working.  He was unhappy, sort of gliding along, and beginning to struggle socially and academically because of it.  While they tried to help, faculty and staff can only do so much in classes of 25+ kids.  For junior year, we moved to a small private that is suited for him - not one of the high profile ones that are discussed so often here (and often leave a bad impression), but one that we, and he, thought would be a good fit.  And it's been fantastic.  He has re-engaged socially, has a great group of friends, is interested in his classes (some of them at least - never the math ones), and is thriving.

This isn't a knock on our public HS - about half the kids on our block attend, are happy there, and are crushing it.  The other half started out in public, and like us, found it didn't work for various reasons, and now are at all different independent schools.  Interestingly, we don't know of many kids who started off in K at a private.

TL;DR - it depends on the kid, and the school.  People who claim that privates are a waste of money and provide an inferior education and experience in all circumstances are just as ill-informed as people who claims privates are always better than public school.  [/quote]

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