I don't believe the convenient..."I teach at an Ivy"...that's b.s. There is a huge difference between the public school and private school kids coming into the Ivies. The private school kids are used to the workload and the public school kids are not (unless they happened to go to the best magnet in the US -- TJ in VA). I'm calling your bluff you Ivy League poseur.

I think you will qualify for aid. My guess is 50-75% in aid. It really is hard to tell but i think salary plays a more important role than equity. Good luck!

i'm a single mom with about 100K in income. i do have equity in my house and have 401K savings and some other savings that i did not intend to use for school (planned to put some in IRA, some for emergencies, some in 529, some reserved for my mom should she need it). it would be a struggle to pay $25,000 a year on my income alone. am i likely to qualify for aid or will the equity in my house and 401 k and other savings count against me.

Anonymous wrote:I have a very naive question..How does financial aid work...do you get grants or loans?? Does it work the same way as college where mostly you get loans and are stuck paying it back for a long period of time with interest?

Financial aid at private schools is a grant. You don't pay it back. The schools want economic diversity and they have endowments and a pool of money that is dedicated to financial aid, which allows those students whose parents couldn't afford to send them. Look on the school's web site under admissions and there is a good description. I think a lot of people are unaware of financial aid and just don't consider private school because they don't think they can afford it. Of course your child has to get into the school first and you have to fill out the FA paperwork and hope you get enough to swing it, but I think it is very worth the effort. Also, you have to "qualify" for the grant every year. It can be a little depressing being surrounded by many (not all) super rich families and you have to explain to your kids that most people don't go to Europe, Aspen whatever, but I think those are teachable moments and my kids don't really seem to care or notice too much.

Anonymous wrote:I have a very naive question..How does financial aid work...do you get grants or loans?? Does it work the same way as college where mostly you get loans and are stuck paying it back for a long period of time with interest?

I works like a discount.

I have a very naive question..How does financial aid work...do you get grants or loans?? Does it work the same way as college where mostly you get loans and are stuck paying it back for a long period of time with interest?

We send our kids to private, and sure don't like paying the 60K bill every year, but there's no way we'd be doing this if it meant we would have to forego our mortgage and savings (especially 401K's, IRA's, and college funds). Maryland and Virginia have very good public schools (we live in DC) and we'd move there if we had to cut it that close. Not saving for retirement is just foolhardy.

There is an interesting thread on this forum with very interesting statistics comparing private and public schools: "Independent Kids and Advanced Kids..."

"Ivy League" PP here.

Thanks to subsequent poster for raising the issue of sampling bias. Your point is well taken. I was being a bit too casual in my comment.

I would certainly not go so far as to argue that the distribution of educational/attainment outcomes for private schools was the same as the distribution for all public schools. But, differently, conditional on socio-economic status of the student/parents, I don't see much difference (except for the sangfroid that private school kids generally appear posses to a greater extent).

Anonymous wrote:PP with HHI detail again - Don't see enough of a difference in quality between private and public schools to justify the difference. It is a balance of factors of course, but we do value the fuller diversity of public school systems that privates don't.

I would rather put the 30K a year into a bank account for 12/13 years and let it accumulate -- should help pay for college tuition/grad school tuition.

I might add that I am on the faculty of an Ivy League Univ and we see very little difference between private and public school students in academic performance. Private school kids are a bit more confident/worldly wise (maybe too confident actually). But that is about it.

Of course everyone should do what they think is best for their children, but speaking of Ivy League schools..... I see a secondary private school education, (at a prestigious school) very much the same way I see the Ivy's. I don't think there is that much difference academically for most people between an Ivy and a non Ivy but there are other benefits and they can be significant. In both cases they include being surrounded by bright, hard working students who often end up being part of a good network for eachother for jobs, friends etc. Both types of schools can give graduates an edge in many situations. Also, academically I think there is a clear difference between DC public schools, especially HS, and strong schools like Sidwell, STA and GDS. Just my two cents.....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. We are a 400K HHI family and would get private school tutition reimbursed by employer. If this was not the case (ie if there was no reimbursement), we would certainly NOT consider paying private tuition for our (only) DC.

Just curious - with your income and one child why wouldn't you consider paying tuition for a private school?

Our HHI is about that and we wouldn't consider it either, because we don't think private school is a good value. Our child is getting a great education in our public school system and from what we can tell, better in many ways than what she would get at a good independent school.

<quote>I might add that I am on the faculty of an Ivy League Univ and we see very little difference between private and public school students in academic performance.</quote>

I couldn't let this one pass. Look, I basically agree that a smart and motivated child with solid parental support can do fine in either setting. I went to public school and a fancy college, and I'm sending my kid to private school for reasons mostly unrelated to academics. But surely as a faculty member at an "Ivy League Univ" you understand sampling bias. You are looking at the kids who got to your college and saying, they seem comparable. Well, yeah. If the school is Dartmouth I bet they disproportionately like to ski, too. But we can't take a group like this and then draw conclusions from it about whether all their HS classmates (not at Ivy League U) received roughly equal educations, and we certainly can't make claims about the education of all the kids whose high schools are not represented at all at your Univ.

PP with HHI detail again - Don't see enough of a difference in quality between private and public schools to justify the difference. It is a balance of factors of course, but we do value the fuller diversity of public school systems that privates don't.

I would rather put the 30K a year into a bank account for 12/13 years and let it accumulate -- should help pay for college tuition/grad school tuition.

I might add that I am on the faculty of an Ivy League Univ and we see very little difference between private and public school students in academic performance. Private school kids are a bit more confident/worldly wise (maybe too confident actually). But that is about it.

HHI = Household income

Anonymous wrote:Wow. We are a 400K HHI family and would get private school tutition reimbursed by employer. If this was not the case (ie if there was no reimbursement), we would certainly NOT consider paying private tuition for our (only) DC.

Just curious - with your income and one child why wouldn't you consider paying tuition for a private school?