<p>@missbwith2boys - I can see it, to some extent for 9-12. I don’t get it for K-6, particularly, K-6.</p>
<p>Okay, opening up a can of worms, but how bad can 1st grade be to justify a 20-30k private school?</p>
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It seems that you are pretty judgmental as well. Isn’t it up to the people spending the money to decide what it is better spent on? </p>
<p>ETA: S is a junior in college (technically in his 17th year of paid education, counting pre-K) and none of it has been in public schools.</p>
<p>I opted for a public kindergarten that offered 11 kids in the incoming class. The school had a full time art teacher, music teacher, Spanish teacher, librarian and counselor.</p>
<p>The public school district we moved out of was expecting 32-33 kids in their incoming kindergarten classes that fall. The school had a part time art teacher, no music instruction until 5th grade (and then only drums), Spanish was taught by video, the librarian was available two half days a week and the counselor was shared by three elementary schools.</p>
<p>I have no illusions that my oldest would be taking differential equations as a sophomore this year had we stayed in the other public school district.</p>
<p>We moved across town. That’s how varied it can be.</p>
<p>Whether private K-12 is worth it is a different thread. I am sure the thread already exists on CC. On the other hand, if it is of no value then there wouldn’t be so many private schools.</p>
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<p>Meh.</p>
<p>I expressed an opinion about the relative value of spending money on different things. I am not telling anyone how to spend their money.</p>
<p>No different than people expressed their opinions that an expensive college is worth the money/debt or it is not worth the money/debt. Not sure why people can’t express an opinion without being judgmental (“tending to judge people too quickly and critically”).</p>
<p>Those families who are high income and cannot come up with money for college are often NOT those who frittered the money away. Actually in such situations you are better off if you spent your money on shopping sprees, trips to Hawaii and such. The killers are the COMMITMENTS one makes on that income. You make $X00,000 a year and you spend too much each year, you can stop the spending. No trip to Hawaii, cut up the old credit card, no more new clothes, eating etc. Those things you can quit. But you buy a house with high taxes, upkeep, mortgage, get the kids esconced in the community and schools, that’s a whole other story. </p>
<p>Financial aid for middle class (depends on how you define middle class) is just about nil at an Ivy. My daughter goes to University of Pennsylvania and we didn’t get a single dime from them for aid. A couple of her friends that are receiving FA probably come from families with low incomes (I’m guessing) and getting lots of FA. I’m not sure where the cutoff is and I do understand they look at the entire financial picture so keep that in mind. We have rental properties that we’ve had for years and I expect that may be where they decided on not giving us anything. I guess they would expect us to sell them but like most people we invested when we were young so that we can someday retire. </p>
<p>As for the value on getting an undergraduate degree from an Ivy being worth it? Well I’ll report in 4 years. Penn is a phenomenal school but we’ll see if it means getting a job when she is done. I will say one thing, the competition is VERY tough and kids there are all brilliant. </p>
<p>I realize this may be getting off the topic but important to note. As for as employment, the company I work for only hire engineers from top schools (that have been selected) with high GPAs so someone going to a middle of the road university would not likely be considered for a job at the company I work for. Nationally, with so few jobs and so many college graduates, companies can get whomever they want from top 25 schools so this is another reason to consider sending kids to a top school. Years ago it wasn’t like this but it appears to be the trend now.</p>
<p>Ha wow. People take every comment here hyper literally. With that said, a trip to Hawaii or Europe with a family of 4 or 5 can be $15k easy. I’d hope anyone that has to tell their kid they can’t go to their dream college doesn’t have any recent exotic family trips.</p>
<p>^ Only if you define middle class as 180k-ish income and above (most people don’t considering that’s over double what the average family with kids makes). </p>
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<p>For the love of God, edison. The title of the thread included “(or private university) education.” Most of us here are responding from a position of experience being middle class adults paying for our kids to get a private college education. Your tone is really rude.</p>
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<p>You have absolutely no understanding of the “marketplace” for college. The “world over” values a lot of universities as highly (or more highly, in some cases) than the exalted eight schools of the Ivy League athletic conference, especially when it comes to strength in particular fields. NO ONE is disputing that they are all very good (and in some cases, great) schools. But they are not for everybody…even all those who could get in and pay for them. Moreover, as others have explained, there is no unique, magic network that the Ivies offer 100% of their students. You can be weird and not make friends at Cornell, and thus have no cool places to go for spring break. You can get bad grades at Penn (remember, someone is at the bottom of the class) and not look good to recruiters. You can be a jerk frat boy at Dartmouth who gets alcohol poisoning and has to drop out. You can also lose out on competitive research opportunities and job leads at ANY of these schools simply because there are kids who are smarter and more driven than you are. Don’t fool yourself into thinking these campuses are paved in gold, or that the world will bow at your feet when you graduate. College is just the beginning of adult life.</p>
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<p>And yet the story of so many of our lives…one more year and I am done with “getting to” live in the best school district with the highest taxes. </p>
<p>All right, thanks everyone for the replies. I didn’t expect this thread to blow up like it has! I also probably should have expected that the discussion might take the turn that it has (yikes).</p>
<p>I agree that the ivy leagues don’t make promises, but I’m just trying to see the options for paying. We have not been offered financial aid anywhere, and we are technically upper middle class. I say “technically” because what constitutes middle class varies by region or state as the cost of living varies. I did some very light research, and it appears that where I live, the upper end of “middle class” is way above that $122K mark like someone early on mentioned. Is this maybe why families with “high” income get financial aid? I personally don’t know anyone with “high” income who’s gotten aid, but since it seems like some people have, it might be true. But then again, maybe they’re talking about Princeton. </p>
<p>We live in SoCal and 200k income is middle class. </p>
<p>You are in the donut hole, not poor enough to get aid and not rich enough to afford full pay. I have posted before that some of the best schools are missing out on some of those great students.</p>
<p>@oldfort
I remember you on my first post to a thread like this more than a year ago. During that time our income would qualify us to some aid. I guess I underestimated some of our income and assets that by the time that my D applied for colleges this year, we are not qualified for any aid except maybe H and P. Do you know if Cornell offers school based loan to parents w/ lower interest rate than private loans. I know Princeton does.</p>
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<p>Oh, for pity’s sake…no, it’s not. You might feel that way. I get that $200k in SoCal doesn’t allow one to live large. But no, it’s not middle class. </p>
<p>And edison: you’re about to be a first generation college student. That’s huge, seriously. But it also means that you are still a high school student, that you’ve not had personal experience with college, with being a working adult, with working with or hiring folks who’ve attended many different colleges. The motives of the parents who post here are to pass on their (considerable!) knowledge and experience. Best of luck!</p>
<p>@fluffy2017: I went to school (grades 2-7) in East New York Brooklyn. I recently read on Wikipedia that the poverty rate was about 50% in 2010; I don’t think it was that good when I went to school there. I moved to the suburbs of Long Island for grades 8-12 in a nice middle class neighborhood. Well, the damage was already done in primary school. And I have a meager 3 digit SAT score to show for it. So, with the appropriate good private school, your money is best spent at a private primary school. Unless you are in a well funded upper middle class neighborhood, I would be wary of the public primary schools if you can afford something better. My advice changes for high school. I would even advocate that in most locations, the magnet secondary public schools are much better than the private high schools for access to AP courses or IB programs.</p>
<p>@Edison96: thank you for the compliment. But I don’t consider myself a great dad. I am a dad that tries his best to keep his daughters off of the stripper pole and to keep himself from having a day of reckoning on the Oprah or Jerry Springer Shows with his children. I didn’t have a father around as a role model nor did I have a mother who could keep her psychological issues together. But I absorbed parenting information from others, including you all, to help make the best decisions I could.</p>
<p>@GTBguy1: My cousin recently graduated from U Penn with a degree in economics. He is working for a large bank in NYC as a trainee. From what I can tell, he is an analyst in training and earns about $70K before bonuses. After training is completed, he will land a promotion that will expand his income. The Ivies definitely delivers the jobs in the investment banking industry for those who take advantage of the opportunities. I don’t know if they are being taught differently, probably not, but the Ivy connection is clear. Definitely get the summer internship jobs ASAP and continue that until you can report back to CC whether it was worth it or not LOL!</p>
<p>@oldfort: That’s the issue that brings us all together in this thread.</p>
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<p>I am not sure that you understand the concept of a marketplace. There does not need to be uniform acceptance of the value of an object for the marketplace to determine a relative value. A Ferrari isn’t for everyone either, especially if you are tall, want a cup holder or use it to transport 3 kids to soccer practice, so there may be more utility and value in that particular case in buying a Camry.</p>
<p>The fact that the Ivies and other highly competitive schools have low acceptance rates and high yields does say a lot about how the market in general evaluates the value of a school. In describing the marketplace, it means absolutely nothing to say “But I know someone who is interested in studying comparative literature so MIT or Georgia Tech is no value to them”. An anecdote is not data.</p>
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<p>Another straw man.</p>
<p>2018dad - no I am not familiar with Cornell’s FA or its student loan practices. At 200K salary bracket, you probably are not going to get any deductions for student loan interests. If you are thinking about funding some of your kid’s education through loans, I would consider taking out home equity loan. The interest rate is still quite low.</p>
<p>We are what I would consider upper middle class. My oldest daughter got into her dream school, and I didn’t even bother filling out FA forms, as everything I read said we wouldn’t qualify. When my younger daughter applied the next year (they are one year apart), I thought with 2 in college maybe we would qualify for some FA. The most we were offered was $5000 in loans. We are not rich, but we have been saving for college since before they were born. Younger D decided to take a full ride scholarship. 4 years later, D1 has a great job offer from her summer internship. D2 (who elected to take the money and go to a top 50 school) has a summer internship at what some call the best place to work in America (which we hope will lead to a job). The moral of the story is kids can succeed from any college (except for a few employers). Work hard, do well, and there will be many options. </p>
<p>I didn’t read the whole thread, but the only way the (upper) middle class can pay is start early and save as much as you can. </p>