A Tiny Piece of the Private vs. Public School Conversation
Private School vs. Public School…
This is a topic of conversation that comes up pretty frequently in my day to day life. I am a parent of young children, have a lot of friends with school-age children, and used to work in public education. I’m not going to get into all of the complications related to this topic in this post (there are many!), but I just want to flag two things that I think are really powerful to think about when/if you are trying to decide between paying for private school or sending your child(ren) to public school.
If you own property where you are sending your child(ren) to school then you pay for public school via property taxes. If you rent then you indirectly pay these too (I’m sure your landlord took those costs into account when determining the monthly rental price for your place!). That may not mean that you want to send your kids to those schools, but it is important to keep in mind that if you choose private school then you are actually paying for both options. If you choose public school, then you are only paying for public school.
Many folks feel overwhelmed by the prospect of paying private school tuition on top of all of the other costs of raising children. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard something along the lines of…”well so-and-so does it and they seem to manage okay”; “This is just what is done in my circle of friends and peers”; “It doesn’t really feel like an option, but I also don’t understand how everyone is paying for this plus the (fill in the blank here -- i.e. new car, vacation, fitness classes, etc)”.
The answer is that many people probably aren’t paying for everything on their own, or at least not with their earned income alone. Many grandparents pay for private school tuition. Many trusts or inheritance payments cover tuition. I say this a lot and I’ll say it many more times -- the comparison game doesn’t work when you don’t know all of the inputs.
Maybe these facts don’t change anything about the calculus for you -- maybe sending your kid to that specific school is the most important thing you want to do with your income. If that’s the case, no judgment here! But, if you add in property taxes to the private school tuition and all of a sudden public school feels a lot more valuable, that’s probably telling.
If you do the math and you realize that paying tuition means that you’ll have to forgo other things that you want from life, then it is a question of priorities -- is that education worth those vacations?
As always, I’m rooting for you.
XOXO,
P.S. In one of my most recent Sprint Days I worked with a client to create and implement a new account optimization system (hellloooo modified profit first!) and designed a tracking system so that tax time will feel easy next year. Wins all around!