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My husband and I have the means to send our children to private school. It would by no means be a cake walk and we’d seriously have to change our spending habits. We both went to public school and think we got a pretty good education. My question is, how do you justify spending $28,000 – $45,000 per year per child?
I realize that most private schools are better (if not far superior) to the area public schools, but by $30,000?
My husband is a stat geek and he cannot quantify the cost. In his words, ‘unless there’s one teacher for 200 2nd graders and that one “teacher” is a bus driver by trade, I don’t get it’.
Someone in the know please provide clarity to our situation.
For us the value is knowing the kids are safe and sound. No one can prevent or foresee a catastrophic event, but I’m confident that my children will not be in any physical danger at their current schools. That’s number one. Number two is, and I realize this sounds snobby, our kids will have a leg up in college and beyond. Our hope is that they get a great education and at least have a shot at a diploma that will carry weight in the future. If either of my kids get accepted to an Ivy school and choose to go to a “lesser” school, so be it. I simply want them to have an opportunity and a fighting chance. Coming from a public school, Ivys know that they may not be investing in what they can get from a private school family. Plus, the donor dollars will not likely be as high.
Finally, we do like the close-knit community provided by private schools. Yes, there are nutjobs at every level and at every school, but we feel akin to others who value education beyond everything else. We are not a family who can afford much more than our two private school tuitions, our very modest house, and less than 35K cars.
We are asking the same question. At some schools the people we meet (teachers, administrators, etc.) don’t seem to know that much about the school to be honest. I hate to say they even border on dumb.
I put a lot of stock how intelligent the sums of the parts is when determining value. If they can’t manage to say a coherent sentence about the school how are they going to manage a classroom of kids or set a budget?
