College Costs? How About $36,600 For Preschool
By Jeffrey Strain, November 8th, 2006 | 4 Comments »
I was running some number for my niece who is 16 months old and what her college is going to cost when I came across the LAUMC Children’s Center in the area where I live. These parents must be the super obsessed types that you read about in the newspapers (or those in Japan) because they are paying $2,700 a year for a 2 year old’s education (talk about starting them young) and $6,500 for a 5 year old’s education. For the entire preschool (remember, the child hasn’t even hit kindergarten yet) you’re looking at tuition costs of $16,800 (better start saving the second the kid is conceived)
Of course, I did a bit more research and found that those numbers weren’t anything. The Third Street Music School in New York charges $9,150 for 5 morning classes a week for a total of $36,600 for those 3 – 6 years old. I don’t think my college education cost that much and there are certainly a lot of colleges where you could get a degree for less than that.
I’m thinking that maybe I should get into the prestigious preschool business…
In the end, you get what you pay for. One good thing about being raised in Eastern Europe is the education you get early on. I was enrolled into a “music school”, an after-regular-school institution where I learned music theory, accompaniment, harmony, history, etc. I got out in seventh grade with a “degree” in musical theory. US and European analogues cost, as you mentioned, in the thousands, while my parents felt comfortable paying the $10 a month, even out of their $120/month paychecks.
holy.. yeah, I need to teach an ivy league preschool too.
hmm, I paid nothing for DS to learn to read, and having a 4 year old reading at a 2nd grade level isn’t even offered by any school I have read about, I guess I got what I paid for, paid nothing, got no paper to prove it, yet the kid can read……wonder which is more important, the paper saying he is a smart kid, or a kid who loves to read and learn……
These numbers isn’t all that impressive to me. Not when you consider starting off with infant child care, you’re already shelling out $10,400-12,500 a year for child care — where I lived, $220/week was the price of quality care. If that is your starting point, then maybe it isn’t that much of a stretch to rationalize contining those payments throughout school if you feel that it is worth it.
In retrospect, I realise that I spent $6,000 a year on child care in the preschool years. And that was the price of child care at $117/week. Would I spend $36,000 on preschool – no, but I did feel that I got more than I paid for at her child development center.