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I think it’s worth it. Public schools in the US systemically indoctrinate children with their work agendas and turn kids into oversensitive self centered sissies
Haha this 🤣 😂 don't want your kid indoctrinated send them to a religious school where they are forced to practice in that religion. Thats not indoctrination at all...lololololol
It’s a personal choice. While I don’t have children, my brothers and sisters sent their kids to elite private schools. We all went to public schools (albeit great ones, by all standards), all my nieces are spoiled brats who struggled to get into decent colleges. How YOU and your spouse raise them, is far better indicator of success. Present, active parents are more important than private, public.
So if you have to work so much where you aren’t there, in order for them to go to private, its worse than going to public IMO.
Agree with this
That is a personal decision that no one else can really answer. I would say not worth it, but have no idea of any of the details about your options
Pro
Yep KPMG1, that’s why I agreed with EY1 that it’s a personal decision.
My parents sent me to one and it was one of the best experiences. I truly believe it helped to set me up in life. If you can afford it, I’d say go for it.
Don’t forget, we have very, very expensive boarding schools. But yes, I agree, some are on the more affordable end. However it’s worth noting that people generally make considerably less in Europe vs US. So the % of their salary spent on tuition may be similar or even higher even if tuition is less.
Exactly the same issue here OP. Private international schools in my neighborhood are 40k/year starting pre-K.
Bilingual European family originally, living here temporarily for 15 years maybe. Need to decide if I want my son to completely fit in with my original culture or if I’m ok for him to be an “all-American”. So weird to decide now, he’s not 2 yet.
Anyway we go back and forth! We do have decent public schools in the neighborhood but it’s a hard decision.
Chief
I live in an LA suburb. There’s only 1 private school in our area. It’s seems like the private school is more popular at the elementary school level as they don’t support the volume of activities and sports that the public schools provide. However I realize some private high schools do have top level sports. My kids are both in college and went to public schools. Our schools are highly rated. Look at Greatschools.org our high school is 10/10 in each category. If we were in a different area and had schools that weren’t as good maybe it would be worth it. I grew up in Phoenix and went to catholic high school, I think that helped me be ready for college but for my kids, the public high school in a wealthy area is held to a very high standard. My daughter’s roommate came from another more wealthy LA suburb and did go to a $40k private school. Now they are sitting in the same door room but one family has already spend $500,000 on education and the other has spent $0.
This is a great point. Definitely matches with my experience as a public school kid that got into a top university.
Pro
This question has come up a bunch of times here. It completely depends on your personal situation . Some public schools are better than some private schools, and vice versa. Depends on your income. Depends on your child. Some will thrive more in once environment than another - for some the difference won’t even matter. There is no one correct answer.
Enthusiast
A lot of my friends in SF send their kids to private immersion schools. $35k/annual’s not cheap for sure.
It’s really a personal choice and the type of support you can be. I’ve heard of f’d up stories of private school kids doing the crap that parents thought only public school kids would do. Sending them to private school doesn’t necessarily shelter them.
However, education quality can be better because teacher:student ratio is lower.
Good luck!
Yeah, sometimes private schools are the only ones that will take some kids after enough incidents in public school.
It worth it when you are capable and financially stable
Pro
Why is that?
Pro
Personally, I think private school is just for the network. If you live in a decent area with decent school system, then the education “standard” should not have a big difference between public and private. Your child’s friends however, it a different story. My nephew; who went to a private school which the tuition was more expensive than my state college bachelor and masters degree; got to go skiing during spring break and island hopping during summer because his classmate’s father has a private jet and tons of holiday homes. 😆😆
What are your thoughts on moving to an area with better public schools?
Yep, what are your thoughts on that? That's the direction we're leaning.
Why not look for semi-private, semi-public..that's charter school. They are free cost like public and more importantly, much more focus on the curriculum.
I think main question for private school, is there anything we can claim as tax benefit ? I assume no
I think it’s worth it if you can financially afford it. I went to a public school and although I’m doing well for myself I didn’t have the same opportunities my little sister had who attended a private school and then went off to an IVY league university. Now that I am a parent my eldest son is in private all boys prep high school.
Absolutely not worth it
For us, yes. Amazing community and networking for kiddo and for us. This is one check I’m happy to write.
I think it’s a tough decision to make, as someone who grew up in a very affluent area with amazing public schools but whose neighbors all went to private school I definitely notice that network effect is huge. None of my public school friends grew up poor but I was certainly one of the most affluent vs kids whose parents sent to them private schools. When it came time for summer internships in college the private school kids always seemed to get the best ones no problem despite often times attending less selective colleges. Since then I’ve certainly caught up but most my public school friends from high school likely never will. On paper I was most definitely more talented than nearly all these private school kids but they definitely started with a leg up early on. It also might be more beneficial for your career networking with wealthy parents. Even though I had a relatively good experience with public school I think I’ll probably send my future kids to private. I know people who went to boarding school and claim it was the best thing that ever happened to them but I can’t imagine sending my kids to that.
If you can afford it, do it.
Depends on the kid and family. A motivated kid can go far with average schooling. An unmotivated kid could struggle despite all the advantages given. Of course, if the kid comes from a wealthy and connected family it doesn’t matter where you send them- they will wind up wealthy and connected.
My kids are 2 and 5. The older one is continuing with a private education for kindergarten where he went for daycare. There were a few key differentiators that may seem obvious to some - lower teacher to student ratio, higher standard in curriculum, and most importantly, they did an awesome job managing things during the pandemic. It’s worth the extra cost, to offer my kids something that I didn’t have growing up. However, we also did think about moving to a new house cost about $500k more than our current house and going to a very nice public school district. Financial impact would’ve been almost negligible.