<p>I just made the last payment for DS’s senior year of high school (I am on a plan of 10 installments per year). Sigh. I estimate that I have spent $200,000 on 14 years of private pre-K, kindergarten, elementary, middle and upper school. Senior year was $27K.
And now, to start paying for college. Onward and upward, luckily I have a great kid.
Just had to get this off my chest.</p>
<p>I’m with ya. I have 3 more semesters of private high school to go. It’s been worth it. Older kid is going to grad school,–PhD program–so that may be free.
Younger one will be going the same expensive private college route. Eventually, that will be over, but exorbitant taxes funding the government school unions will never go away. :(</p>
<p>I’m there, too. We started with private pre-school, then private elementary and junior high, then boarding high school (when Wild Child and the private day school terminated their relationship at the end of 8th grade). I couldn’t imagine paying more than we were paying for the boarding school until we paid for the little stint in wilderness and the emotional growth boarding school. That was one expensive year! The junior (oh, wait, we did TWO of that year!) and senior years back at prep boarding school seemed like a bargain.
It has been an expensive journey, but it is the path my son needed to take.
My daughter was less expensive. She managed to stay in private day school until junior year when she went off to Interlochen. She even managed to select a relatively reasonably priced college (Rice).
It’s only money, right???</p>
<p>
That’s what we keep telling ourselves! Not as bad as Spikemom here – once figured that we’d spent over $100K per kid on Catholic preschool, elementary, Catholic Prep School and music lessons. Thank goodness we only had two!</p>
<p>Got the last College Invoice with a Credit balance (finally). We are done with undergrad. Now to grad school with hopefully a RA/TA position. </p>
<p>least I forget manner:
Thankyou, Spikemom, Driver and et al, who have supported public funding of public resources but use private alternatives. All to the greater good. Thankme, myself, too. </p>
<p>signed, Itstoomuch.</p>
<p>Six more semesters here, but I won’t say what the tuition is, it is embarassing compared to what some of you pay.</p>
<p>At least this one probably won’t go to the incredibly expensive private college, although he wants out of state - those grades will have to rise!</p>
<p>Remember the six million dollar man? He came back as our son. :)</p>
<p>I made the last payment in December. I adore the school where my boys were educated, but I really hadn’t planned on sinking so much into school before college.</p>
<p>It really is a relief, spikemom, to be finished. But these days, what else can you do? We figured out early on that it would be a full time job to wrest a halfway decent education out of the public schools, not to mention the damage of the popular culture. We thought about home-schooling, but back then it was not as prevalent, and since we could afford it, private was the way to go.</p>
<p>Since then my H has been downsized out of 2 jobs & unemployed to the point that I had to go back to work full time. But there was never any question that the kids would continue their schooling at their AAA+ school.</p>
<p>Itstoomuch, you are welcome, and thank you. Driver, you know you and I are on the same page ;)</p>
<p>For those of you who might have a desire not to give up, please check out <a href=“http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/[/url]”>http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/</a> . They are making a huge amount of progress on very little money. If anything can save public schools at all, this is it.</p>
<p>I hope you realize that your rather cavalier attitude on this issue has undermined the strength of your local public schools. </p>
<p>Or, at least, that what some would like you to believe. :)</p>
<p>Oh, I bet my parents would love to be in your shoes right now. They’re just about to finish paying off my pre-college schooling (K-8 Catholic school, 9-12 pricey Jesuit high school). Oh, but my little brother’s just going to be a junior (in a different Catholic high school), and my sister’s going to be a freshman (in another different Catholic high school - she wants an all girls’ school).</p>
<p>If I had paid out the money for my older D K-12 and then 4 years of private college- i suppose it would have totaled about 400K- but most of it was taken care of through need based aid :)</p>
<p>My empathies! We have 3 children spaced 4 and 3 yrs a part…all down the private school path. It was a choice we made…and are committed to…our gift/legacy to our daughters. People always ask us “how”…few vacations, lots of home cooking, hand-me-downs, and discount coupons! 
Actually, I try not to think about it…much too scary! Just thankful…</p>
<p>Homeschooling here. This takes virtually none of my cash, but all of my time-- “Your money, or your life?” ( 7 kids. Yes, they’re all mine).</p>
<p>Well, I guess we’re “fortunate” that our kids only had two years of private pre-school & each is getting 4 years of private HS. We’ll have to see what happens with colleges. They went to public school for K-8, so that saved us at least $100,000 apiece, if you look at it that way. Oh well, hoping they have some good choices & get some good merit aid–only time will tell!</p>
<p>Like wyogal, I found the public schools where we lived to be impossible, and also wanted to shelter DS from popular culture. I loved all of his schools. The schools supported me as a parent and reinforced my values as opposed to those of society. As a single parent, I remember lying in bed sometimes and wondering how I was going to pay for it (especially after 6th grade when the cost really ramped up). It was absolutely, totally worth it.</p>
<p>That was also true for us, Spikemom. We live in an area with good public schools, but “also wanted to shelter DS(s) from popular culture”, particularly during the elemenrary school years. We appreciated that they were not only ones without television and eating hummus for lunch.</p>
<p>Spikemom:</p>
<p>As a Cambridge resident, I found that the school my two Ss attended for k-8 excellent. The high school environment was a bit more challenging, but both Ss had circles of friends that shared their interests and values. S1 was actually accepted into one private school (1 of 9 that were admitted that year, 6 of whom had sibling preference), but we found a public school that had similar values. S2 was courted by a private high school but we decided it was not worth the money and the hassle for him to be attending it. 11 students from the public high school were admitted into Harvard in his year, several into MIT, Yale, Brown, Stanford, etc…</p>
<p>1moremom:</p>
<p>No problem finding hummus-eating kids in our schools. At least 2 of S2’s classmates were vegetarians by 7th grade. The k-8 school produced its own cookbook with recipes from around the world, contributed by the families.</p>
<p>I’ve paid for 11 years of private day school so far, but its been worth it! My kids know the value of an education, and know that paying for it doesn’t come easily. Now looking toward college, my D continues to perform her best, as she appreciates that ultimately that will open up the doors to merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Marite, I’m afraid we are in white bread and mayo land. I always thought the school should do a cookbook; the potlucks were fabulous. That brings to mind another reason we loved the school, it was a wonderful community of parents.</p>
<p>I wish I had felt comfortable sending my kids to public school.
We actually have some excellent public schools in our system - the problem is that no single school zone has good choices K-12. There are several good elementary schools, one OK middle school that is extremely competitive both academically and to get in, 2 other OK midlle schools that are 25+ miles from my house and a couple of good high schools, one with an IB program. My kids, though would require a transfer (not always easy to get ) for any of the good elementary schools or would have to go through the magnet lottery, then have a 45 minute bus ride or be driven to school. Same for the middle and high schools - our zone has generally not so great schools.</p>
<p>Our thinking was, if we need to transport them ourselves to the public school, likely to 2 different schools, then why not send the to private school where they can go to the same school all 12/14 years</p>