Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

For me, I'd much rather live in a nicer area where I want to use the public schools, than have to downgrade so much and rely on private because the public schools are terrible.
Sure you pay more for the home, but it will also maintain it's value much better than a home with bad schools. People buy where we live for the schools and the family quality of life. Just sold after 9 years living here---made 1.9x what we paid for the house, after all fees/taxes paid. Main reason the homes appreciate so much is the schools and quality of life. Oh and we bought a home with a view, so in the "top neighborhood" within our community, but one of the "lower homes" (ours was 4200 sq ft vs 5-6K for many others). The schools and the views is what sold our house---the same thing that made us want to purchase it in the first place

School attendance zones can change and there is a risk (more so with very high performing schools) that this will reduce property values if attendance zones change. In the DC metro area, most school district are at the county level so there is less certainty that the best public schools will continue to stay excellent when the geographic size of the school district is so large. It would be very easy to redraw school attendance zones for McLean or Langley high school and tank the average SAT scores. If you live in a small hyperlocal school district (common in NJ, OH, PA) the public schools are more protected from dramatic changes in school performance. Unless you are wealthy enough to afford a house in the best school attendance zone and private school it might be safer to hedge your bets and pick a house with decent schools that will allow you to afford private school if needed.

Anonymous wrote:“Private schools have more diversity than public schools in wealthy enclaves.”

Having a bunch of 1%er kids who have light brown skin isn’t diversity. Have your private admit 20% FARMS kids, half of whom don’t speak English and the other half have behavioral problems because of fetal alcohol syndrome or childhood trauma - then we’ll talk.

Diversity is a range of ethnic backgrounds. Not a range of medical problems.

“Private schools have more diversity than public schools in wealthy enclaves.”

Having a bunch of 1%er kids who have light brown skin isn’t diversity. Have your private admit 20% FARMS kids, half of whom don’t speak English and the other half have behavioral problems because of fetal alcohol syndrome or childhood trauma - then we’ll talk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that private school is for families with 800k+ HHI. I know that in ten years children will be mostly attending the same schools and in twenty years most of them will be working at the same places making similar salaries. But both child and I LOVE the school. We are a fed family so making 300s. Market has bumped up our retirement to 1m and brokerage to another 1m. Some 529 that can also be tapped. Home is almost paid off and 2 investment properties. Can we afford 60k tuition and fees for 4 years for one child? Obviously no FA.

OP, I really believe you should think twice about private school. Everyone that sends their kids to one openly talks about more opportunity, better education, fewer distractions, and more comfortable alignment with upper class families. The reality is, however, that most of those same people are actually using private school as an opportunity to isolate their children from people of color and low income students. It is truly saddening to me that we still live in a society that practices such obvious discrimination in a deceptively concealed manner. Is this the person you want to be, OP? Please rise above it and take the higher ground.

Private schools have more diversity than public schools in wealthy enclaves.

This. We live in a wealthy neighborhood in close-in Bethesda (Whitman cluster, good public schools) and our Bethesda private school is actually more diverse than our home school, and so are the teachers.

I am a POC and my kids would be the the only or one of a very few POCs if they went to the local public.

My kids all go to independent schools and it’s worth it to us. I don’t see our local public schools as bad (they aren’t, they are really good), we just think there is a markedly better educational experience at their independent school. I don’t care about outcomes - I think kids who are smart and hard working will thrive wherever they are placed.

I went to public school, so I’m not a snob about private vs. public.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that private school is for families with 800k+ HHI. I know that in ten years children will be mostly attending the same schools and in twenty years most of them will be working at the same places making similar salaries. But both child and I LOVE the school. We are a fed family so making 300s. Market has bumped up our retirement to 1m and brokerage to another 1m. Some 529 that can also be tapped. Home is almost paid off and 2 investment properties. Can we afford 60k tuition and fees for 4 years for one child? Obviously no FA.

OP, I really believe you should think twice about private school. Everyone that sends their kids to one openly talks about more opportunity, better education, fewer distractions, and more comfortable alignment with upper class families. The reality is, however, that most of those same people are actually using private school as an opportunity to isolate their children from people of color and low income students. It is truly saddening to me that we still live in a society that practices such obvious discrimination in a deceptively concealed manner. Is this the person you want to be, OP? Please rise above it and take the higher ground.

Private schools have more diversity than public schools in wealthy enclaves.

Anonymous wrote:I understand that private school is for families with 800k+ HHI. I know that in ten years children will be mostly attending the same schools and in twenty years most of them will be working at the same places making similar salaries. But both child and I LOVE the school. We are a fed family so making 300s. Market has bumped up our retirement to 1m and brokerage to another 1m. Some 529 that can also be tapped. Home is almost paid off and 2 investment properties. Can we afford 60k tuition and fees for 4 years for one child? Obviously no FA.

OP, I really believe you should think twice about private school. Everyone that sends their kids to one openly talks about more opportunity, better education, fewer distractions, and more comfortable alignment with upper class families. The reality is, however, that most of those same people are actually using private school as an opportunity to isolate their children from people of color and low income students. It is truly saddening to me that we still live in a society that practices such obvious discrimination in a deceptively concealed manner. Is this the person you want to be, OP? Please rise above it and take the higher ground.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

For me, I'd much rather live in a nicer area where I want to use the public schools, than have to downgrade so much and rely on private because the public schools are terrible.
Sure you pay more for the home, but it will also maintain it's value much better than a home with bad schools. People buy where we live for the schools and the family quality of life. Just sold after 9 years living here---made 1.9x what we paid for the house, after all fees/taxes paid. Main reason the homes appreciate so much is the schools and quality of life. Oh and we bought a home with a view, so in the "top neighborhood" within our community, but one of the "lower homes" (ours was 4200 sq ft vs 5-6K for many others). The schools and the views is what sold our house---the same thing that made us want to purchase it in the first place

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

NP. We live in the one of the most expensive areas in the DMV and considered one of the best school districts. Many kids go to ivies from the high school we are zoned for. That said, we send our kids to private. One has already graduated from a top 20 university where we paid full freight. The second one is at a high school with $48,000 a year tuition.

Both kids attended Catholic high schools and had experiences that they never would have had in our public school. In addition to the moral and ethical lessons they learn through service work and in theology classes, they are limited on how many AP classes they can take. For example, my son only took 6 AP classes in his entire high school career, but he still got admitted to several top 25 schools. My daughter will probably take about 8 at most and we expect her to do well in college matriculation as well. Setting up kids to do well in college matriculation in our public school would require the kids take 10 or more AP classes. I know someone who took 14. It really is a pressure cooker environment. I feel our money is buying our kids the opportunity to experience joy in learning without the stresses of competing with the super high achievers in our public school. Plus college matriculations out of our kids' private schools are much stronger than the public school, despite the fact they take significantly less AP classes. They also get a lot more attention from faculty and administration and have more opportunities for leadership.

Our income isn't significantly more than the person who posted above, although if we included bonuses (which are deferred), it would be significantly more. We are living quite comfortably despite parting with the yearly tuition expenses, and it is worth every single penny.

Your income is significantly higher than the person who posted above and you proved my point to an extent. Private schools confer substantial advantages to those who can truly afford them. Families who can technically afford them but have to make significant lifestyle changes (in savings, camps, private lessons, vacations etc.) make an entirely different cost benefit calculation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

NP. We live in the one of the most expensive areas in the DMV and considered one of the best school districts. Many kids go to ivies from the high school we are zoned for. That said, we send our kids to private. One has already graduated from a top 20 university where we paid full freight. The second one is at a high school with $48,000 a year tuition.

Both kids attended Catholic high schools and had experiences that they never would have had in our public school. In addition to the moral and ethical lessons they learn through service work and in theology classes, they are limited on how many AP classes they can take. For example, my son only took 6 AP classes in his entire high school career, but he still got admitted to several top 25 schools. My daughter will probably take about 8 at most and we expect her to do well in college matriculation as well. Setting up kids to do well in college matriculation in our public school would require the kids take 10 or more AP classes. I know someone who took 14. It really is a pressure cooker environment. I feel our money is buying our kids the opportunity to experience joy in learning without the stresses of competing with the super high achievers in our public school. Plus college matriculations out of our kids' private schools are much stronger than the public school, despite the fact they take significantly less AP classes. They also get a lot more attention from faculty and administration and have more opportunities for leadership.

Our income isn't significantly more than the person who posted above, although if we included bonuses (which are deferred), it would be significantly more. We are living quite comfortably despite parting with the yearly tuition expenses, and it is worth every single penny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes you can afford.
Be prepared for lifestyle creep as your child grows up with and begins to ask for what the 1% "haves" have.... they will be exposed to frequent electronics upgrades, sports, travel, cars, designer everything

OP is the 1% "haves."

No. You’re Clueless. OP is in the 3%. The 1% has another level of money. There is a difference between flying to Cabo for vacation and flying to Cabo on a private jet. There is a difference between getting one Cartier watch and getting a Cartier every Christmas.

We are in the 1% and have a seven figure HHI. We are not flying on private jets. We don’t even fly business class. We are still spending 30-40k for spring break flying economy plus for a family of five.

Same except I’m surprised your spring break is that expensive with exp flying economy.

Our economy plus tickets cost 15k. Hotels are 2k per night. Our spring break will probably end up being 40-50k, not 30-40. I didn’t really think about it until thing this out.

Where the heck are you going?

DP: many flights coast to coast (or to the Caribbean/hawaii) are close to $1500+ in economy nowadays. Upgrade to economy plus and it can easily be $2K+ per ticket times 5 that's $10K alone.
Airfare is extremely expensive nowadays. I routinely pay $1.5-2K for my kid's roundtrip ticket to/from college (2 flights) in economy.

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

You are paying for your great public school through exorbitant housing costs and property taxes, it's not free. You can't afford to pay for a great private for multiple kids on that HHI, not without your quality of life diminishing substantially. That's the crux of it for most of the posters who are against it here, they can't really afford it.

Anonymous wrote:Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

Same. We have a high enough income to pay for private school but we bought into a good school district. Plenty of tech executives, lawyers, doctors and other well educated high income professionals send their kids to the local public.

If I lived in DC or a bad district, we would probably be sending our kids to private.

Sure, you can afford it. I wouldn't pay for it though. I would much rather take nicer and more vacations with family than spend on private school. or earmark for the kids college or help with downpayment, wedding etc.

We live in a MCOL city in Austin. Our public schools are great, provided you buy into a good area. We "only" have 700K HHI , send our kids to public. Plenty of Meta, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, startup VP/SVP level execs send their kids to the same public school. There are also single income families and some apartment complexes zoned to our Public school, so I feel my kids are able to meet and connect with kids from a wide range of socio economic status.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes you can afford.
Be prepared for lifestyle creep as your child grows up with and begins to ask for what the 1% "haves" have.... they will be exposed to frequent electronics upgrades, sports, travel, cars, designer everything

OP is the 1% "haves."

No. You’re Clueless. OP is in the 3%. The 1% has another level of money. There is a difference between flying to Cabo for vacation and flying to Cabo on a private jet. There is a difference between getting one Cartier watch and getting a Cartier every Christmas.

We are in the 1% and have a seven figure HHI. We are not flying on private jets. We don’t even fly business class. We are still spending 30-40k for spring break flying economy plus for a family of five.

Same except I’m surprised your spring break is that expensive with exp flying economy.

Our economy plus tickets cost 15k. Hotels are 2k per night. Our spring break will probably end up being 40-50k, not 30-40. I didn’t really think about it until thing this out.

So weird that people would spend $40K on spring break. Our family of 5 is flying from IAD to SYD in business class for 510K frequent flyer miles (FMV of $6200) and staying at the Park Hyatt in a duo combination of the Sydney Suite and a room with two twin beds for 5 nights at a cost of 400K Hyatt points (FMV of $6800) + $1000 USD. All our frequent flyer miles and hotel points are courtesy of DH’s business travel. That’s only $14K in effective spending plus maybe another $6K in meals, entertainment, and incidentals. That’s $20K max for an unbelievably luxurious spring break jaunt to the land down under. Only $7K of which is actual cash spent.

So, what kind of moron spends $40K for economy plus?!?!?

+1. The same kind of morons that send their kids to private schools.

yes, all those morons at NCS/STA

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes you can afford.
Be prepared for lifestyle creep as your child grows up with and begins to ask for what the 1% "haves" have.... they will be exposed to frequent electronics upgrades, sports, travel, cars, designer everything

OP is the 1% "haves."

No. You’re Clueless. OP is in the 3%. The 1% has another level of money. There is a difference between flying to Cabo for vacation and flying to Cabo on a private jet. There is a difference between getting one Cartier watch and getting a Cartier every Christmas.

We are in the 1% and have a seven figure HHI. We are not flying on private jets. We don’t even fly business class. We are still spending 30-40k for spring break flying economy plus for a family of five.

Same except I’m surprised your spring break is that expensive with exp flying economy.

Our economy plus tickets cost 15k. Hotels are 2k per night. Our spring break will probably end up being 40-50k, not 30-40. I didn’t really think about it until thing this out.

So weird that people would spend $40K on spring break. Our family of 5 is flying from IAD to SYD in business class for 510K frequent flyer miles (FMV of $6200) and staying at the Park Hyatt in a duo combination of the Sydney Suite and a room with two twin beds for 5 nights at a cost of 400K Hyatt points (FMV of $6800) + $1000 USD. All our frequent flyer miles and hotel points are courtesy of DH’s business travel. That’s only $14K in effective spending plus maybe another $6K in meals, entertainment, and incidentals. That’s $20K max for an unbelievably luxurious spring break jaunt to the land down under. Only $7K of which is actual cash spent.

So, what kind of moron spends $40K for economy plus?!?!?

The fmv of 5 people flying business class to Sydney Australia is not $6200. You happen to have the miles which made this very affordable but most people don’t and most couldn’t afford this. also, I looked at just the cheapest suite that’s available at that hotel… Not even the second room with the twin beds… And it’s the equivalent of over $1600 a night. And then, of course, the last question is, why are you going to Australia for only five overnights? What industry is your husband in?

Need to learn to play the points game, my friend! If you’re not in it, you really shouldn’t be traveling to distant locations in the first place. Why for only five nights? Oh, geez, let me think…. Maybe because it’s over spring break and we don’t want our kids missing school for a vacation?!?! Our family travels to pretty much every continent at least once per year, so it’s not like visiting Australia needs to be some once in a lifetime 1-month experience. DH is a C-suite executive in the aerospace industry. I’m a sales director for a software company. And I guess for the purposes of this thread, our HHI (including equity compensation) is $1.2M and we don’t see value in spending any of that on private schools.

There is no frequent flyer points “game”. You are either a road slave for decades or wealthy and a big spender, at which point the points “game” is moot. Business Class to Sydney for 5 is about $50k.

I’m the pp who is flying economy plus to Asia for 15k. Business class for same trip would have been 60+k for us. We are going to two countries. Even between the two countries, each business flight ticket would have been 5k each. There are a lot of rich people in Asia or business travelers willing to pay this. We can technically afford it but we will just fly economy plus.

We have a lot of hotel and miles but not enough for a family of 5. For 2 people, yes.