I am going to add in our experience although affording private was a no brainer for our finances, it's not always the best choice. And definitely not the most cost effective. Public with tutors works just as well for many kids, with out the over $30,000 price tag.

In our mind as parents we got one shot at educating our children. We wanted them to love learning, reading and math. We wanted them to be life long learners, not just the basics. We wanted them to appreciate how hard life can be without a good education as well. For example, education out side of school means part time jobs in summer and during HS. Being a hard worker, not giving up when things get hard.

I digress, sorry. Kind of a pet peeve of mine. I am a firm believer that public school is extremely important.

Like I said, we have done both, neither is better pre covid. It all depends on the child.

A friend pays for private for 2 kids K-12 by not saving for college 😐

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worked like a dog all my life,saved , and invested every dime and I woke-up one day rich which was a bit of a shock because I was born poor.

I'm not a member of any country club and fly under the radar at the school. People are a bit perplexed because I show up at all the big donor events and and see that the scenesters are puzzled and can't figure out what I'm doing there.

+1,

Except we tried a Country club for a year. Biggest waste of money. Private school on the other hand well worth it. I will say private only good depending on the learner. Public was actually better for math and science no doubt.

Don’t mean to take this off topic but how do you get to try a country club for a year? I thought all the CCs around here has huge initiation fees.

Anonymous wrote:Worked like a dog all my life,saved , and invested every dime and I woke-up one day rich which was a bit of a shock because I was born poor.

I'm not a member of any country club and fly under the radar at the school. People are a bit perplexed because I show up at all the big donor events and and see that the scenesters are puzzled and can't figure out what I'm doing there.

+1,

Except we tried a Country club for a year. Biggest waste of money. Private school on the other hand well worth it. I will say private only good depending on the learner. Public was actually better for math and science no doubt.

I work at one, so receive discounted tuition and financial aid.

Just one kid and reasonably priced home.

Meant to add, we applied late because of covid but friends who applied to larger schools during the regular cycle got significant financial aid. It doesn't hurt to apply.

My child goes to a secular school and the tuition is about $23k -- not cheap but not $30k+ either. We have only one child so we can swing it with budgeting and because we're not paying for aftercare (or camp or travel) during covid. We couldn't afford tuition for two kids without financial aid.

Based on the number of special events the school holds for grandparents, I assume a significant number of grandparents are paying.

Worked like a dog all my life,saved , and invested every dime and I woke-up one day rich which was a bit of a shock because I was born poor.

I'm not a member of any country club and fly under the radar at the school. People are a bit perplexed because I show up at all the big donor events and and see that the scenesters are puzzled and can't figure out what I'm doing there.

Parochial schools are far less expensive and many offer financial aid. Private k-12 is a higher priority for us than college savings. For college- we will encourage state schools.

You’ll find a combination of (1) Uber rich from own efforts, (2) grandparents helping out, (3) folks scraping by with some help from family and/or financial aid. It runs the spectrum.

Anonymous wrote:My kids' tuition is paid for by their grandparernts.

I will add that we would not be able to afford it otherwise. Our HHI is about $250k.

Savings, scholarships, and only choosing private school for certain stages of my kids' educations.

My kids' tuition is paid for by their grandparernts.

I’m not very familiar with private schools and I just had a question about affordability. I’m seeing tuitions in the 30k-40k range. If you have more than one child, is it just folks making an excess of $400k that go there or is the financial aid similar to college? Our gross income is just under 200k and we have two kids, but after taxes and then mortgage and other expenses, I can’t fathom being able to swing an extra 60-80k for school. How do you guys make it work?