Anonymous
Post 01/23/2026 08:29     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
And don’t ask for any money in lieu of what they are offering. It’s rude and disrespectful.

Take the gift as something beautiful and never look back.
Anonymous
Post 01/23/2026 08:26     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My in-laws are willing (and easily able) to pay for private for our kids. They made the same offer to all school-aged grandchildren and our SIL/BIL took them up on it. But I think we want to turn them down. Our first is in 3rd grade in a Whitman cluster elementary and our second is still in preschool. We like our current school, our future schools, and DCs little group of friends. Both DH and I went to public high schools. Kids don't seem to have any special learning or social needs that would make private an obvious advantage. I know privates are "better", but we are happy where we are. Thanks in part to both sets of grandparents and our personal contributions, 529s have enough money in them to cover four year private college plus grad school so we don't need to direct the offer to other types of educational assistance. Is it short sighted to say thanks but no thanks to the private school offer?


Don’t ever go to an open house for a private school. You can unsee it. IYKYK.


I'm not sure what you mean but we thought our public school was good until we went to a few selective private school open houses and now we are spending almost 6 figures per year for our 2 kids in middle school. The differences are stark and hard to un see.


Exactly my point. Yes, some folks will lose the ability for second homes or massive multi-week annual vacations, but your children’s growth makes it all worth it. I came from public education thinking it was amazing. It was good. But nothing like private or parochial.

I’ll be blunt: If you get the opportunity to get it for free and say no, you are a fool.
Anonymous
Post 01/23/2026 08:09     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
It’s likely this money is earmarked for education vs just giving it to them. As others have stated it’s a way to reduce estate taxes. My parents pay the school directly for private school but summer overnight camp is not the same. They also give us cash every year, but not to the full max.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 23:03     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does it have to be for school? Why can't they just write checks to all grand-children and be done with it.
Why are they so involved in your life anyway and with money?
You have your own money and your kids will be fine too. They can hand down the money some other way without telling you how to use it.


Gifting money to family members for school is a way to reduce your taxable estate above and beyond the annual IRS gift limits. So you can give relatives x amount annually in cash and then ALSO pay for education. So paying for school is a way for them to give grandchildren more without the IRS taking a cut, essentially.


Exactly! This is why many grandparents pay for private school directly, because it allows them to support the heirs more effectively. However, you should make educational decisions based on your child's need not because someone else is paying.


Yes, the posters saying OP should ask for something else for her family or just have the money put in an account are being kind of gauche and clueless. The parents are offering to pay for something they value - private education - that does not count against their estate tax exemption.


It's not clear that they are giving to the exemption now, though, especially because OP thought it might work for them to pay for camp. It's worth asking.

A lot of grandparents who help with tuition are not extremely savvy about taxes, they just want to help and they know in a general way that there are tax benefits to paying for tuition. And a lot of them have an emotional aversion to writing a check instead of "paying for something" - to put it in smaller terms, my mom will buy $100 of clothes for DD but would never write a $100 check to DD.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 22:20     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:OP here. Offer is likely still there if we change our mind later, barring of course something horrible like them passing away. They want to decrease their taxable estate so would be happy if we took them up on this at any point, I am guessing. I can ask about camp, good idea!

Can also encourage them to add to the college fund, but they have already done that and not sure we need anymore. 9 year old already has over 300k in the account and with interest and the annual contributions DH and I put in, I am guessing we won't need anymore.


This means they are interested in at least transferring $19k per child x 2 each tax year to your children. If you don’t want to use that for private school now, you want to arrange for that money to go now into a 529 or trustee for college purposes. Talk to your accountant.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 22:02     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does it have to be for school? Why can't they just write checks to all grand-children and be done with it.
Why are they so involved in your life anyway and with money?
You have your own money and your kids will be fine too. They can hand down the money some other way without telling you how to use it.


Gifting money to family members for school is a way to reduce your taxable estate above and beyond the annual IRS gift limits. So you can give relatives x amount annually in cash and then ALSO pay for education. So paying for school is a way for them to give grandchildren more without the IRS taking a cut, essentially.


Exactly! This is why many grandparents pay for private school directly, because it allows them to support the heirs more effectively. However, you should make educational decisions based on your child's need not because someone else is paying.


Yes, the posters saying OP should ask for something else for her family or just have the money put in an account are being kind of gauche and clueless. The parents are offering to pay for something they value - private education - that does not count against their estate tax exemption.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 22:00     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:I've been vaguely offered the same for future (kid quite young) and went to a DC area private but what bothers is me is then all the kids are there because grandparents paying or parents make a lot. How can you keep a kid down to earth while in private? My sibling and I were but I really... struggle with that.


OP's kids are in the Whitman district. They are going to be surrounded by white rich kids regardless.

Our kids went to DCC schools and the main good thing about them was keeping my kids grounded and in a diverse environment. But if we could afford it we would have gone private.

I suspect Whitman might be the worst of both worlds - You have to deal with MCPS but your kid does not get the benefit of socioeconomic diversity.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 21:57     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:I've been vaguely offered the same for future (kid quite young) and went to a DC area private but what bothers is me is then all the kids are there because grandparents paying or parents make a lot. How can you keep a kid down to earth while in private? My sibling and I were but I really... struggle with that.


I don't struggle with this. First because public schools in our area are very affluent, and second because parents set the expectations for their kids. You can choose expensive activities and vacations, or you can not choose that if you feel it's not appropriate for your family.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 21:30     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My in-laws are willing (and easily able) to pay for private for our kids. They made the same offer to all school-aged grandchildren and our SIL/BIL took them up on it. But I think we want to turn them down. Our first is in 3rd grade in a Whitman cluster elementary and our second is still in preschool. We like our current school, our future schools, and DCs little group of friends. Both DH and I went to public high schools. Kids don't seem to have any special learning or social needs that would make private an obvious advantage. I know privates are "better", but we are happy where we are. Thanks in part to both sets of grandparents and our personal contributions, 529s have enough money in them to cover four year private college plus grad school so we don't need to direct the offer to other types of educational assistance. Is it short sighted to say thanks but no thanks to the private school offer?


Don’t ever go to an open house for a private school. You can unsee it. IYKYK.


I'm not sure what you mean but we thought our public school was good until we went to a few selective private school open houses and now we are spending almost 6 figures per year for our 2 kids in middle school. The differences are stark and hard to un see.



I think they meant can’t
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 21:28     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why does it have to be for school? Why can't they just write checks to all grand-children and be done with it.
Why are they so involved in your life anyway and with money?
You have your own money and your kids will be fine too. They can hand down the money some other way without telling you how to use it.


Gifting money to family members for school is a way to reduce your taxable estate above and beyond the annual IRS gift limits. So you can give relatives x amount annually in cash and then ALSO pay for education. So paying for school is a way for them to give grandchildren more without the IRS taking a cut, essentially.


Exactly! This is why many grandparents pay for private school directly, because it allows them to support the heirs more effectively. However, you should make educational decisions based on your child's need not because someone else is paying.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 21:08     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
I've been vaguely offered the same for future (kid quite young) and went to a DC area private but what bothers is me is then all the kids are there because grandparents paying or parents make a lot. How can you keep a kid down to earth while in private? My sibling and I were but I really... struggle with that.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 21:02     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
I was a public school kid and my husband went to one of the big 3. I was a staunch defender of public schools. But I agreed to keep an open mind and we toured a few schools. Yes the facilities are beautiful. And the class options more and varied - foreign language in elementary school! Music and arts for all! You want thingamabobs? They’ve got 20!! But what sold me was hearing teachers get excited about the way they and their classes are creatively exploring different subjects. And these teacher collaborate across grade levels to make and tweak as needed. Then you go into the public and the teachers explain the curriculum, which is all mandated by the county or the state, and here are the books they’re teaching too which they don’t think are great but that’s the one they have to use, and you realize maybe private wouldn’t be so bad.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 20:54     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Anonymous wrote:My in-laws are willing (and easily able) to pay for private for our kids. They made the same offer to all school-aged grandchildren and our SIL/BIL took them up on it. But I think we want to turn them down. Our first is in 3rd grade in a Whitman cluster elementary and our second is still in preschool. We like our current school, our future schools, and DCs little group of friends. Both DH and I went to public high schools. Kids don't seem to have any special learning or social needs that would make private an obvious advantage. I know privates are "better", but we are happy where we are. Thanks in part to both sets of grandparents and our personal contributions, 529s have enough money in them to cover four year private college plus grad school so we don't need to direct the offer to other types of educational assistance. Is it short sighted to say thanks but no thanks to the private school offer?


The gap between public and private in K-3 is marginal but it gets bigger and keeps getting bigger.
The gap between private high school and public high school is significant.
You can't just take a public school kid and stick them in a private high school and hope for good results.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 20:10     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
Not crazy at all. Ask for the money to be applied elsewhere or put into a trust.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2026 19:45     Subject: In laws offered to pay for private. Crazy to turn them down?
MIL paid for private for my kids and my SIL's kids and I've really appreciated the support. Agree with PPs that you should tour and apply. It's not that easy to just walk into a private school - better to know what your options really are.