Anonymous
Post 08/23/2025 11:04     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Anonymous wrote:Wow. We are a preschool family with two kids considering private because our local ES is huge. If we go private, it would cost us 30% of our HHI for both kids — and more if we send them to a top DC private.

We make $350k combined. We have $2.5M in investments and a big mortgage ($1.3M), though at a very low interest rate.

Would we qualify for financial aid, I wonder?


It would be over 50K per kid just for tuition? You guys attend some expensive schools.
Anonymous
Post 08/23/2025 08:44     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Wow. We are a preschool family with two kids considering private because our local ES is huge. If we go private, it would cost us 30% of our HHI for both kids — and more if we send them to a top DC private.

We make $350k combined. We have $2.5M in investments and a big mortgage ($1.3M), though at a very low interest rate.

Would we qualify for financial aid, I wonder?
Anonymous
Post 08/23/2025 08:19     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:About 5% for 3 kids, and we have 7 figure HHI. We also have one in college.

I am always astonished at how much wealth there is at our k-8. Our family is doing well and have all the visible signs of a high income (large home, luxury cars, nice vacations, etc), as do many of the families at our school. I assume all of them are making 7 figures, too, or else I have no idea how they can afford it. It’s still an amazing concentration of wealthy families.


Generally this thread is reliable, but I call BS on this post. There are many families that do have a 7 figure income at our private, and many who don’t, but NONE of them use the jackass language that you just did right now. Just saying.


What jackass language?
Anonymous
Post 08/22/2025 23:14     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
About 4-5% pretax
Anonymous
Post 08/22/2025 19:41     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Anonymous wrote:About 5% for 3 kids, and we have 7 figure HHI. We also have one in college.

I am always astonished at how much wealth there is at our k-8. Our family is doing well and have all the visible signs of a high income (large home, luxury cars, nice vacations, etc), as do many of the families at our school. I assume all of them are making 7 figures, too, or else I have no idea how they can afford it. It’s still an amazing concentration of wealthy families.


Generally this thread is reliable, but I call BS on this post. There are many families that do have a 7 figure income at our private, and many who don’t, but NONE of them use the jackass language that you just did right now. Just saying.
Anonymous
Post 08/22/2025 19:24     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
About 5% for 3 kids, and we have 7 figure HHI. We also have one in college.

I am always astonished at how much wealth there is at our k-8. Our family is doing well and have all the visible signs of a high income (large home, luxury cars, nice vacations, etc), as do many of the families at our school. I assume all of them are making 7 figures, too, or else I have no idea how they can afford it. It’s still an amazing concentration of wealthy families.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 14:30     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
We made $250,000, sent 2 kids to $45,000 schools, and grandparents covered half. So 18%. Not exactly stretched, but we didn’t take many vacations or live extravagantly. Luckily college was also covered by grandparents so we didn’t have to save for it on top, which would have been harder with the private school. Kids in state college now and we feel relatively wealthy now.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 14:19     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
15% pretax for 1. One car, townhouse instead of a SFH, it’s fine. We made deliberate choices and are very happy with them!

No $ spent on tutoring but we do shell out a fair amount for an extracurricular.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 14:11     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
0% thanks to generous grandparents
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 13:04     Subject: Re:What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Anonymous wrote:We pay $125k/year to send one to a $35k HS and the other $90k Ivy, full pay.

A helluva lot goes to tuition!

Combined HHI $480k.

We do have very healthy retirement accounts, a paid off first home and almost (3years) from paid off primary home. Drive Japanese cars.


^ we were public school until HS. HS&College are/will be private.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 13:03     Subject: Re:What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
We pay $125k/year to send one to a $35k HS and the other $90k Ivy, full pay.

A helluva lot goes to tuition!

Combined HHI $480k.

We do have very healthy retirement accounts, a paid off first home and almost (3years) from paid off primary home. Drive Japanese cars.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 12:49     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:So are there some cheap schools or is everyone making $1M+. If tuition is 50k/yr and you have 2 kids amd that is 5% of income - as many here claim - then you make $2M. I'm not believing people here. We make 800k with 2 kids - 13% - and no, we're not stretched - we know how to budget our money.


I think its funny you "aren't believing people." We have been in two different independent privates and are now in high school. I know a few financial aid kids, especially in high school. But the vast majority of people I came in contact with were high networth and if they weren't, grandparents were footing the bill. You are forgetting about generational wealth and things like bonuses, real estate and stock portfolios. You are correct. A lot of people aren't literally making 2 million dollars a year. Also, YMMV depending on the privates you attend, some attract much wealthier families. Not two lawyers. But heirs to the Marriott fortune, Saudi money, and hedge fund and big law.


I agree. As a mom of 3 kids who've attended 4 different privates in DC/MD over the past 13 years (K-12), I agree that my guess is that many people are not necessarily paying for tuition out of HHI. Instead, they are paying out of investments, or the grandparents are paying.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 12:03     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Slightly more than 10% at an independent K-8. Thanks to very generous financial aid.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 11:51     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
Anonymous wrote:This thread is interesting, although not necessarily the bragging about how negligible the cost is. Sure, we know there are some families making bank, but most of those comments just make my eyes roll.

Our kid is at one of the more expensive schools. Tuition + bus is about 27% of our income. We get about 10k in financial aid, for which we are grateful.


I think it’s an interesting thread. I haven’t seen bragging except for the one post about how negligible the cost of private school is.
Anonymous
Post 08/21/2025 11:44     Subject: What percentage of your HHI goes to tuition?
This thread is interesting, although not necessarily the bragging about how negligible the cost is. Sure, we know there are some families making bank, but most of those comments just make my eyes roll.

Our kid is at one of the more expensive schools. Tuition + bus is about 27% of our income. We get about 10k in financial aid, for which we are grateful.