Reply to Choosing not to go to Beauvoir

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
New poster here.  I just read the thread above and wanted to offer a little advice to the poster (the government attorney married to the teacher).  They have an HHI of 175K, and they have students loans of $300K!  That student loan figure is staggering.  Nevertheless, they say they are committed to sending their DC to private school even if working a second job to make it happen.

I work as a financial planner.  Forgive the unsolicited advice, but it is imperative that you not spend any money on private school tuition.  Instead, you should be focusing on the student loans.  If you can get full financial aid for your children, then go ahead and send them to private school.  But with that amount of student loans, you'll greatly regret it later if you spend money on tuition.  If your public schools are not good where you live, then you should move.  At your salaries, it's not like you're making a great income now as it is.  I would just try to move to a place where there is a lower cost of living.

What kinds of colleges/universities did you attend?  Was it worth it to go to those particular schools?  Perhaps not for the income you're making.[/quote]

While I appreciate your advise as a financial planner it's not what we are going to do. First, we don't anticipate ever being able to zero out our student loan balances. So we will pay on them what we can and have accepted it's a lifetime debt we are going to have. However, to the extent we can make other sacrifices to afford a good education for our children then we will make them. That being what it is, We would move if it where a reasonable option but it's not. [b]We wouldn't reduce our monthly mortgage amount even if we moved. Relatively speaking our mortgage is reasonable. I checked current rent prices in the surrounding areas and to move into a better school district would actually cost us more per month even if we were renting a 2 bedroom apartment. 
[/b]
We both went to top 25 universities for undergrad and law/graduate school. In hindsight no it wasn't the best decision given the career paths we chose. However, as first generation college students we didn't know any better. We certainly wouldn't advise our
Children to do the same. The bulk of the loans are mine from law school. We do hope to pay down my husbands at some point (a portion will be forgiven after a certain time period) but that's only going to move the needle marginally. Either way I won't be held hostage by my student loans and I'm certainly not going to move my kids in a ghetto over them.[/quote]

You're making another financial mistake here. You should calculate your mortgage + children's tuition vs rent/mortgage in neighborhood with good schools. I seriously doubt that if you calculate it this way, that sending your kids to private school is worth it. Tuition for two + aftercare (which you will need, esp if you are planning on working a second job) will easily come to $6500/month. That alone will get you an amazing house in the area's best school district. Also, if you consider the cost of summer programs (which you will also need, since you are working all year around), various fees, school events, birthday parties, school parties, auctions, etc., you should expect to add on an additional $2-3K/child/year. Please think twice about this. It's really not worth it.[/quote]

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