By Dr. Margaret Curtis, WCI Columnist
When we moved to Maine 12 years ago for my work, we put our kids in the sweet little private school across the street. We figured we would only be here for a few years before we moved back to our small town in Vermont and its K-8 public school. The cost of private school seemed reasonable at the time, especially weighed against the convenience of not driving to and from school every day. We debated moving and changing schools many times over the years but—for a variety of reasons—have stayed here. One kid is now in college and two are in high school, and we have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on tuition.
If you read my article on (crowing about) all our goofy thrifty habits, you might be surprised to learn I send my kids to private school. You might think I’m a fool or just bad with money. Well, go right ahead because I have already thought all those things myself. Use the comment section to get it out of your system.
I went to a private high school (you can add privileged to the list above), as did my brothers and my husband, and I know the cultural and educational aspects of private schools as well as anyone. There are plenty of arguments for and against when, in truth, it is impossible to generalize about something as individual as school choice. There is no such thing as a school that is right for every kid. So, I will only address the cold hard financial realities of private school, and I will end with some unsolicited parental advice.
Someone might as well benefit from my experience, even if it isn’t me.
#1 The Timing of Private School Finances Is Inconvenient
For most physicians, having children coincides with residency and early career. This is the time to set yourself up for later success by saving, especially if you plan to help pay for your kids' college. You can use 529 money to pay qualified K-12 expenses, but you will have to save significantly more to pay for both private school and college (obviously), and you will lose out on the long-term growth benefit by withdrawing money sooner. This is not a great time to commit a significant portion of your post-tax income to what is, in truth, a luxury.
Before anyone says “education is an investment!” this is a financial blog, and “investment” is quite narrowly defined. You can reasonably expect your investments to provide you with a monetary return, and private school will not do that—not for you and probably not for your kids. Although the data shows that a college education increases lifetime earnings up to $1.5 million, there is no such confirmatory data for private schools. Private school is a luxury because there is a reasonable, free alternative: public school. No one buys a Mercedes for essential transportation, and no one sends their kid to private school because there is no other option (there are kids whose personal and educational needs just can’t be met at public school, but they are the exception and not the rule).
You will be tied to a high-paying job for as long as you have to pay tuition. When you are just starting out as an attending, you may feel (as many of us did) that you could work full-time forever. When you are 50, you will probably feel differently. My husband would happily retire tomorrow, but he is literally working to pay tuition at this point. We have paid close to $500,000 so far, and we still have 11 years of college, total, ahead of us. We have enough for about two years of private college tuition in each kid’s 529 plan. If that was painful to read, it was even more painful to write.
#2 Private Preschool Is a Gateway Drug
The cost of private preschool is comparable to daycare, with the added appeal of ambient classical music and a live cam of a red-tailed hawks’ nest.
But all the niceties come at a price. The costs will increase over time, as your kid moves up through the grades—not exponentially, but significantly and well above the inflation rate. Over the last 10 years, our kids’ tuition has more than doubled. When you are looking at a private school, it is easy to consider the annual tuition and think, “That’s less than the cost of a new car! No problem!” What you need to do is make a spreadsheet with current tuition rates, add at least 5% per year, and then multiply by the total number of years.
It’s not a new car; it’s a new house.
#3 You Will Be Keeping Up with Some Very Wealthy Joneses
Your kids will (hopefully) have classmates of a variety of means, but there will be a preponderance of wealthy kids and a few for whom money seems to be no object. It is harder to keep your kid grounded and their/your expectations in check when their friends have the best of everything.
I went to private school thanks to my grandparents, and my parents were upper-middle-class but not private-school-wealthy. My mother was one of the few there who worked outside the home.
[A non-financial aside: This is one of the things that still irks me about private school. There are an astonishing number of parents who don’t have full-time jobs. When our kids were in public school, there was an assumption that parents would be occupied during working hours. Now, we have to regularly reschedule conferences because my husband and I are both at the office. I don’t even want to talk about the regular “parent coffee hours” at 9am.]
When I was a kid, I once came home from a friend’s house and said (actually, whined), “Why can’t we renovate our house like Katie’s family?” Looking back, I think Mom showed incredible restraint in not reading me the riot act right then and there. She made sure I understood the importance of work and gratitude. I have tried to do the same for my kids, but sending them to private school made that task needlessly harder.
Here is what I tell young parents about private school:
- Give public school a good try. By “good,” I mean more than a year. We didn’t, and I wish we had. Not just for financial reasons—although that’s what I’m addressing here—but for all the cultural and community reasons.
- If the only decent pre-K option is private, commit to switching to the local school for kindergarten and stick to it. Every kid will be starting new then, and I promise your 5-year-old will adapt.
- If you already have a kid in private school and are thinking, “She can’t leave her friends/teachers/activities. We could have done it last year, but this year it’s too late,” I thought the same thing, too. Every year, for years. There are two times when it’s really hard for kids to change schools: during middle school and during high school. (Of course, some kids really NEED to change schools during those times). Any time before middle school or at the natural “breaks”—such as between middle and high school—are good times to take the leap.
If we had kept our kids in public school through high school and used that money to invest or buy rental properties, we could be retired by now. Or I would be writing this from my home in Jackson Hole. I might not even be writing, because I would be too busy with my team of sled dogs. In all seriousness, my husband wouldn’t still be working grueling hours, and we would have breathing room to do more of what we love.
Maybe those aren’t your goals and the outlay for private school fits into your financial plan. But before you commit so much of your money and future savings to building the private school path, you should become as well-educated as possible.
Do you or have you sent your children to private school? Was it worth it? Would it have been better for your financial journey to send them to public school instead? Comment below!
The author Heather McGhee has a fabulous section in her book “The Sum of Us” which outlines the problems to individuals and society when people isolate themselves off into groups rather than work as a community to fix our problems together. The damage is often more severe to the private school kids and I’ve definitely seen it. We have a small but loud group working to destroy our public schools and that is the source of the problem. It’s sad to watch.
Certainly, it’s a personal choice to send your kids to private or public. We believe as long as the school is decent, public schools will be fine. We believe it’s more the individual and not so much the school that determines their success. Our kids are in public schools.
We’ve been able to save and invest in the last 20 years to a point where I don’t practice anymore. We’re in our mid-40’s. My wife has been a stay at home full time Mom. Now we’re both home and spend as much time as we want with our kids. We’re able to get to all their activities and games, anytime. We wouldn’t have been able to do this, if our kids had gone to private school.
Everyone is different, but we’re glad we chose the public school route.
Safety and academic rigor have become the chief concerns of many parents who choose private over public schools. I grew up in a family of five kids. Three of us happily attended a Chicago public high school. In those day, the Latin teacher was the disciplinarian. If you acted up, you were “sentenced” to study hall. Today, the disciplinarian is an armed guard. If you misbehave, chances are you will be expelled. Also in those days, most of the African-American students came from intact families, who expected them to study and behave. All of my black friends excelled and matriculated to Stanford, Dartmouth, Washington University and Cornell, a track record no different from my brothers and me — Northwestern and Columbia. Two of my black friends became physicians and one became a businessman. My high school produced the first female black astronaut. Today, everything has changed. Gangs have become substitutes for families. Drug abuse is rampant. SAT scores have plummeted. Because of the deterioration we saw in public schools’ culture, we have paid for 40 years of private schools for our two sons from preschool through professional degrees. And our kids wonder why we don’t have more money saved for retirement! If you have access to a fine public school, go for it. When you pay for private school tuition, you are not exempt from paying property taxes. So you are paying for your own kids, plus public school costs. Keep that in mind.
I usually try to read all the comments before l open my mouth or mind. I give up this attempt due to enormity of the volume. The topic under discussion is certainly controversial. But there appears to be two factual observations:
1. There exists no concrete data the private school education generate a higher financial return as compared to a public schooling of satisfactory stand.
2. Average physician parents labor hard and/or delay
personal gratification in order to pay tuition and it’s associated higher lifestyles.
There seems to be no sound reason for physicians to send your kids to private schools unless you are wealthy enough that the second element does not apply.
As for vanity of luxury as all human are susceptible, then highly educated and intelligent ones like us , perhaps , has hightened awareness, facing the so prevalent human misfortunes in our profession, perhaps, conspicuous consumption would be less prudent.
I think this article does a good job of accurately pointing out that both public and private schools vary greatly within their respective domains. I attended public school (1st -12th) in one of the most, if not the most, competitive (academic and athletic performance) districts in the state of Texas. I received a top notch education, and many of my peers went on to become professional athletes and/or graduates from some of the best colleges in the country. Finding a good fit for your child/family is all about doing your homework. Don’t immediately turn your nose up at public school education – the good ones are few, but they do exist. My parents could have sent us to private school easily, so it wasn’t a financial decision. Whatever you choose, there is no substitute for parental involvement in a child’s education. You can’t just pay someone exorbitant amounts of money to raise your kids while two physicians work 80 hours a week and expect them to grow up to share your values and be successful. In the future, I expect we are moving towards higher education being less about “credentialing” and more about cultivating a skillset and demonstrating performance.
I am curious on everyone’s take on how do you factor in that mass shooting is more common in public schools ? My kids goto public school for all the above said reasons, but not a week goes by where I am not thinking about their safety.
Not sure I’d factor in THAT particular risk. I mean, the odds of your kid dying in a school shooting must be dramatically lower than dying on the road driving the additional distance to school in a private car than in a school bus.