<p>Where would you live if you wanted the K-12 academic rigor and quality of a top private school, but by living in a safe low-cost community and paying public school prices?</p>
<p>I assume some college towns would be possibilities, but any specific suggestions? Job market is not a consideration.</p>
<p>I will be curious to read the answers to this – can I ask that if people include communities where the schools that meet your criteria are selective magnet schools, that they also have to meet your criteria with the traditional public schools, as most magnets aren’t guaranteed admissions.</p>
<p>There are many excellent public schools but I’m not sure they exist in a “safe low-cost community.” I was about to name my town – excellent public schools – but it sure isn’t low cost.</p>
<p>I have in mind not-city, and by low cost I mainly mean housing prices of course. Maybe some housing in the area is not so expensive.</p>
<p>Can you narrow it down to a specific city or region? Lots of schools out there!</p>
<p>Not really, anywhere in the US is OK. My preconception is that a mid-west college town might fit the bill, such as Ames. Or a little south, maybe Arkansas. Oregon? Dunno if its low cost, perhaps Corvallis.</p>
<p>Doesn’t this come into play in Money magazine’s top places to live??</p>
<p>Troy, Michigan has two public high schools, both listed as top schools. They also have a branch of the International Academy which has consistently been ranked as the top public school in the country. It’s an IB program. Years ago, it was hard to get into because there was only one but I believe they have at least three campuses now.</p>
<p>Housing in Michigan right now is extremely affordable. Some excellent neighborhoods.</p>
<p>Hmmm… In my experience, there’s no such thing as excellent public schools in low cost communities. You pay for excellent schools one way or another, either in high taxes, or expensive housing, or expensive daily living costs or expensive/time consuming commutes.</p>
<p>It depends on what you are willing to “pay”.</p>
<p>10 years ago we started a home search hoping to find a home in a great public school system as close as possible to my husband’s work. We ended up in the smallest, cheapest home in a terrific school district, but the commute is awful, the real estate prices are very high, and the state income taxes are high. The area is safe, clean, well kept, diverse, wealthy, suburban, and homes are, even in this market, easy to sell because people with young children want to move here. It is a wonderful place to raise kids, with great public schools, but not cheap.</p>
<p>We are paying for our excellent public schools with commute time, expensive real estate, and high taxes. </p>
<p>Years and years ago I taught in Iowa and Wisconsin. At that time the costs of living in those states were relatively low, and the public schools were among the best in the nation. But while real estate was cheap, property taxes were very high in Wisconsin. (higher taxes in Wisconsin on a home valued at less than half of the home we at in now in a different state). And surprisingly the costs of things like groceries were much higher in Wisconsin than they are in the state we now live in… </p>
<p>I’d think that all in all you’d find great public schools in relatively cheap areas throughout the Midwestern flyover states. Also a more easygoing life style, and friendly people (generally).</p>
<p>I think the area around Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Durham North Carolina might fit your requirements. Never lived there, but there are a plethora of highly educated people living there, and several top universities.</p>
<p>I think the college town idea is a good one. I live in one such place. The large proportion of highly educated parents who care a lot about the kind of education their children recieve makes for high expectations for both the schools and the kids. However, it is not a high stress-pressure cooker environment like I’ve read about in Silicon Valley or NYC.</p>
<p>Colorado Springs is one to consider. Relatively low cost of living and excellent public schools.</p>
<p>Great public school is supported by local taxes, I don’t think it is possible to find low cost and good public school. Two towns come to mind in NJ, Milburne/Short Hills and Princeton.</p>
<p>Munster, IN has easy commute to Chicago, cheap property taxes and home prices are still reasonable. The tradeoff is living in Indiana and all the politics that come with it. Town is still not terribly diverse and varitey of food choices are limited.</p>
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<p>Toronto. Or anywhere in Canada, for that matter. You can even send your kids to Catholic schools if that’s your pleasure. They, too, are funded by tax dollars.</p>
<p>If I was doing the search, I would use usnews public high school ranking, then find out location, cost of housing, transportation, diversity, safety…(whatever is important to you) of where those high schools are located.</p>
<p>Dallas suburbs - Allen, McKinney, Plano, Coppell, Southlake, etc. You can get a nice 4 bedroom house for about $250,000 (or less) and the schools are generally great. Nice, if you don’t mind cookie-cutter suburbia. And no state income tax!</p>
<p>A place that actually gets to this designation would lose it. It would get discovered, housing prices would go up the parents would want even more and property taxes would go up.</p>
<p>The quality of public education is related to the region, the demographics and of course, the fiscal status and priority given the schools. One way to achieve a reasonable cost is to look at excellent public school systems where the cost of living is lower, or look at towns that may be higher income/higher cost, but offer more diverse housing options (ie condos , apt rentals, as well as expensive single family homes). I agree with mb332 that the percentage of households/parents with higher ed. degrees can impact the expectations within school districts. It is interesting to think about what variables are most salient in deciding a school system is excellent: number of APs, quality of special ed., precentage attending 4 year colleges, % graduating high school, crime stats, diversity, state test results, SAT scores, GPA, etc. Priorities may vary by students’ needs.</p>
<p>To research, local magazines often do an annual best schools or best places to live issue, listing large numbers of towns/cities with salient variables for comparison. Like all such lists, there are limitations, but it could be a good starting point by region.</p>
<p>My vote is for Albany NY. Eight colleges in the area and excellent public schools, libraries, museums and parks. Property taxes of $3,000 typical for average house price of $160,000, with apartments starting at $800+ for a 2 bedroom. In-state option of attending 27 universities or colleges with tuition of $6,000 or less. Highly educated work force (whose children will your your children’s peers) and growing high tech presence from GE spin offs and RPI and UAlbany incubators. PM is you want more info about specific K-12 my children attended. </p>
<p>Sent from my DROID4 using CC</p>
<p>We did move for those reasons. Moved from Ca to NC. And the above poster is right, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill. NCState is in Raleigh, UNC in Chapel Hill and Duke is in Durham. There is also Meredith, Shaw, Peace, NCCentral and a fantastic community college system. Rivals the CA system. $50 per unit at the CC. Easy transferability to the in-state 4 years.</p>
<p>The public school system in the counties of Wake, Orange, Franklin have magnets (based on lottery) from elementary through high school. There are also some great charter schools as well. </p>
<p>All 5 of mine graduated from the public schools here and did not attend any magnets. Their acceptances for undergrad ranged from the ivys, MIT,CalTech, West Point, Naval Academy, OOS publics and the in-state flagships.</p>
<p>Property taxes are low for a $250K home taxes in the $1200 range. RTP offers many employment opportunities. I would also give a nod to the Charlotte area as well. Huge banking industry and great public schools.</p>
<p>But the best deal, by far, better than the K-12 education ( state also offers 2 no-cost boarding schools run by the UNC system for STEM and for fine and oerforming arts) is the undergrad and grad school tuition. Best value EVER. Reason why we left CA.</p>
<p>16 campuses to pick from and each one unique, all with low-cost in-state tuition. Room and board is also low.</p>
<p>My sister and her family also moved here for the same reason from CA.</p>
<p>Again I did my research for over a year and with 5 kiddos to provide for as a single mom it was the best thing we ever did for our family.</p>
<p>Son is in med school in-state now and tuition is $14K for the year. Fantastic value.</p>
<p>Fantastic area.</p>
<p>Kat</p>