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[quote=Anonymous]I wouldn't describe Gonzaga as an "elite" school.  I'd describe it as a Catholic school.  Many parents don't choose Catholic schools for academic reasons; they choose them for religious reasons and that's perfectly ok.  Academically, most Catholic schools are on par with but generally not better than the better public schools, and I think even Catholic school parents understand that.

With the benefit of hindsight, one of the smartest financial decisions we ever made was to send our kids to good public schools in NOVA and follow that up with state colleges in the case of three of them (two to UVA) and allowing a fourth to attend a top liberal arts college over William & Mary only because merit aid closed the tuition gap substantially.  I say this because, when all was said and done, there's no difference between where our kids went to high school and college and where their friends and anyone else we've ever known and how they have landed professionally and personally as adults.  Some of the most successful of their peers went to better colleges for sure, but many other didn't.  And the same can be said about the ones who have floundered.  And more than that, no one talks about colleges or any of that stuff anymore--it just didn't make all that much of a difference in the end.

On the other hand, thanks to the literally hundreds of thousands of dollars that we as a family were able to save and invest by electing this route we have been able to retire in our early 50s with a sizable nest egg, give all of the kids down payments for nice houses in the DMV, buy a second home for the family that we all very much enjoy, have the time, energy (given our age) and interest to provide our grandchildren with free and loving childcare, etc. etc. etc.

There are, of course, people out there with more money than us, and they can pay for all the private schooling and still do everything else for themselves and their kids that we have done, and more power to them.  But I doubt their kids are doing better professionally or personally than ours are, and if they are I really doubt (1) that it's because of where they went to high school or college or (2) whatever professional they are pursuing is anything that would have interested our kids anyway.  [/quote]

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