Private and Public School

[dawnwes]

I rather live in a good neighborhood with good free public schools than a bad area with good expensive private schools.

I don't really believe in private school. It's ridiculous to pay 25k/year for private elementary school when professional schools fetch for the same price.

You can argue that the quality of education is better. This may be true but does it matter? I feel like high dollar private schools will yield me a child who feels entitled throughout life.

Got a friend who spends 75k/year on her children's private school tuition. Her oldest is now aiming to go to Brown University. This is a school you send your daughter to while you live in Monaco. You don't actually expect her to actually have a career because she already has a fat trust fund waiting for her. At 53k/year, she'll end up with a nonsense liberal arts degree(because what else is Brown good for?). I hear her daughter actually wants to be a MD..so why Brown?...oh I know why..because her classmates are going to similar schools for no good reason as well. Can you imagine how embarrassing it is when you kids tell their friends that they are going to a community college while riding in their parent's Range Rover to water polo practice?

So my friend would spend about 700k for her entire education from elementary school till med school. If my kid wants to go to med school, she will end up in public school...take all the honor classes she can. Go through dual enrollment and get her AA degree in HS before entering a state university..spend 2 additional years at a state university and eventually get into med school(also a state university). Total price tag..150k.

So why spend 700k when you can yield the same result at 150k?

When I left my job, I was making around $100K per year. Let's assume take home was $60K (can't remember after all that was taken out, etc...) I quit to homeschool. So, you could say that I have now spent $660,000 on my kids' education so far!

You just do what is best and if you don't go into debt doing it, even better.

[Singuy]

When I left my job, I was making around $100K per year. Let's assume take home was $60K (can't remember after all that was taken out, etc...) I quit to homeschool. So, you could say that I have now spent $660,000 on my kids' education so far!

You just do what is best and if you don't go into debt doing it, even better.

"What is best" is very subjective and goal oriented. If your goal is to keep your child from bullies or potential baddies that can negatively influence your child, then home schooling can be a way to solve this problem. If you want the "best possible education" for your child, then who to say your home schooling is better than private school/public school? Who can even say your home schooling kept your child from being bullied? Nothing is for certain because there are no randomly controlled trials on schooling.

I am very result oriented(and perhaps with most Asians). I believe in focus with pinpoint accuracy. I don't believe in letting my child choose what to do..and the let them go in their path. This sounds like a shotgun rather than a sniper rifle.

School is not really that hard in the U.S. You don't need your child to be a math prodigy just to get an engineering degree. Anything is possible so you just need to have your child focus. If what the child wants coincide with an actual career later..then that's even better!

I just believe in paying for my child's future with the least amount of expense vs the most amount of return. So yes, I am treating it like an investment.

I cost my parents about 25k (tuition only) from elementary school till pharmacy school graduation at 24 yr old. I have made close to 1.1 million till now with my degree. This is the type of bang for my bucks I am talking about. If I have a time machine, I would have skipped IB in HS and just did dual enrollment and become a pharmacist at 22yr old. This would of resulted in a total tuition of only 15k and an earnings of 1.3 million today.

My wife could do better. She spent 200k on her total tuition and have only made 600k this far being the same age as myself. This was the result of her lacking focus. She decided to get a masters in nutrition(useless) and wasted 2 good years of tuition and housing money(not to mention opportunity cost). She could of ended up paying a total of 160k on her tuition and made 1 million this far. You see how 2 years of wandering around on a college campus can really change a person's financial outlook?

Or we both could be broke with liberal arts degrees from Brown and 350k worth of debt...and not to mention the 500k our parents could of spent on our private school tuition. 59% of college students can't even graduate..and given that the liberal arts degree(and other nonsense degrees) are massive in numbers compared to actual useful degrees..I would say there are way more students not in our situation(hence the "student loan crisis").

[dawnwes]

"What is best" is very subjective and goal oriented. If your goal is to keep your child from bullies or potential baddies that can negatively influence your child, then home schooling can be a way to solve this problem. If you want the "best possible education" for your child, then who to say your home schooling is better than private school/public school? Who can even say your home schooling kept your child from being bullied? Nothing is for certain because there are no randomly controlled trials on schooling.

I am very result oriented(and perhaps with most Asians). I believe in focus with pinpoint accuracy. I don't believe in letting my child choose what to do..and the let them go in their path. This sounds like a shotgun rather than a sniper rifle.

School is not really that hard in the U.S. You don't need your child to be a math prodigy just to get an engineering degree. Anything is possible so you just need to have your child focus. If what the child wants coincide with an actual career later..then that's even better!

I just believe in paying for my child's future with the least amount of expense vs the most amount of return. So yes, I am treating it like an investment.

I cost my parents about 25k (tuition only) from elementary school till pharmacy school graduation at 24 yr old. I have made close to 1.1 million till now with my degree. This is the type of bang for my bucks I am talking about. If I have a time machine, I would have skipped IB in HS and just did dual enrollment and become a pharmacist at 22yr old. This would of resulted in a total tuition of only 15k and an earnings of 1.3 million today.

My wife could do better. She spent 200k on her total tuition and have only made 600k this far being the same age as myself. This was the result of her lacking focus. She decided to get a masters in nutrition(useless) and wasted 2 good years of tuition and housing money(not to mention opportunity cost). She could of ended up paying a total of 160k on her tuition and made 1 million this far. You see how 2 years of wandering around on a college campus can really change a person's financial outlook?

Or we both could be broke with liberal arts degrees from Brown and 350k worth of debt...and not to mention the 500k our parents could of spent on our private school tuition. 59% of college students can't even graduate..and given that the liberal arts degree(and other nonsense degrees) are massive in numbers compared to actual useful degrees..I would say there are way more students not in our situation(hence the "student loan crisis").

No, I did not homeschool to keep my kid from being bullied. You jump to conclusions.

My kids are all transitioning into brick and mortar schools right now and are thriving both socially and academically.

And I could not disagree more with you on you "lack of focus" comment. I am sure you would say I lacked focus with my degrees as well, particularly since I took 11 years off to raise my kids with no outside income.

But we will just have to agree to disagree.

I too have been very goal oriented and I can do the math. I also know that going to a school with 50,000 students, no matter how cheap it was, was not where I needed to be for a NUMBER of reasons, not the least of which is the personal connection with professors and conversations that often taught me more than studying for a test with bubbles that my UCLA friends got.

How many children do you have?

[disneysteve]

My wife could do better. She spent 200k on her total tuition and have only made 600k this far being the same age as myself. This was the result of her lacking focus. She decided to get a masters in nutrition(useless)

and given that the liberal arts degree(and other nonsense degrees) are massive in numbers compared to actual useful degrees..I would say there are way more students not in our situation(hence the "student loan crisis").

Wow! There are so many things wrong with this post I don't even know where to start.

I'm glad you've made a lot of money. That seems to be very important to you. Hopefully some day you'll understand that thankfully not everyone shares that view or else we'd all be in deep trouble.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I don't think homeschooling is bad. I am considering it but unfortunately for me my DK1 is resistant. She is not the personality type to listen to me so homeshooling for her though I'd like to try it won't work. She's stubborn and extremely bull headed, and gifted tested into the 97% at school for the program. I think it would be fun to homeschool and give her a chance to do different learning at her own pace. But she listens to others not to me but only others. So it won't work. I barely can get her to do "homework" with out massive bribes she's so resistant to listening to me.

Will i do it with my second? Too young to say. I think homeschooling is not just for bullying but because you think it'll be better for your child's performance. I think my DK1 would be more challenged and learn more at home. But we aren't the right fit for it to work. I have to give props to parents who do it, have the patience, and the personality of kid who can tolerate it.

Singuy that being said I don't think the amount of money is everything. You could argue that many people make a good living and live comfortably making less. They may live in a LCOLA and making the $50k is more than comfortable. They may never struggle having inherited land and a house from family. Plus they may enjoy what they do.

I don't think you can measure success by money nor is education = money. I'd argue there are many self-taught entrepreneurs (let alone computer people) making a ton of money and they just decided to skip school and study on their own.

Just because you go on to get degrees doesn't mean you'll do what you went to school for. It also doesn't mean you'll stay working at what you went to school for. Life has so many turns I think that it's hard to predict.

I like my life and my DH's. He's not going into what he went to school for. I'm certainly not if I can help it. Nor have many of my friends. But that's life.

FWIW, I agree it is a waste to go to a private school to be a teacher because the pay is insanely low. I don't agree it's a waste to be a teacher say because it's a great job and people who do it have a passion. Same like social work or similar field. And where would society be without people like that? Perhaps forgiveness would be a better route for those in that type of jobs with debt.

I know my BFF is a pharmacist with over $100k in debt. She's going the forgiveness rout because she's working in a small town (where we're from) and choosing to live where we grew up. So yes she could go make more elsewhere, and pay off debt but she's chosen instead to live by family and make less and not pay off her debt but instead take the forgiveness program. I think it's pretty honorable. After all they wouldn't offer it if it wasn't hard to get people to live there.

[Singuy]

I am not knocking on the study of everything. People have to differentiate between an investment and a hobby.

Steve, you are alluding to that the study of fine arts, history, or South American bunnies can be important and as a society, human needs diversification. Not everyone can be an engineer or a boring pharmacist. This is NOT what I am saying.

You can study whatever you want..but you can do it for FREE. Youtube, the internet, and the public library will give anyone WAY more information about anything than they can ever dream of. Can you learn to become a pharmacist for free? Absolutely! But a career in this field actually requires a diploma. Working as a teller at a bank DOESN'T need a diploma in the study of everything so why get one?

I am not talking about making money is the most impt goal in life. I am talking about...if you are PAYING for something as an investment, then you better see a return on this investment. If school is free, then go study whatever you want..but it's NOT FREE..it is costing people a small fortune to the price of a house nowadays! Paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for your kid to learn something that can be learned for free is a negative return no matter HOW you look at it. I now know more about politics, economics, religion and history than ever before. I can carry on conversations with these subject buffs for hours on end. I obtained what I needed to know for FREE so why would I pay for a degree? I can retire at 40 and pick up a liberal arts subject yearly and learn them all while sitting in front of my computer.

Also I am not talking about how we got lucky and now we are successful financially. We were not drafted to the NBA, and we did not create some app and are now millionaires. Everything I said can be reproduced VERY easily. You don't even need to get As. A C student in my class makes the same money and got the same degree.

[disneysteve]

I am not knocking on the study of everything. People have to differentiate between an investment and a hobby.

Steve, you are alluding to that the study of fine arts, history, or South American bunnies can be important and as a society, human needs diversification. Not everyone can be an engineer or a boring pharmacist. This is NOT what I am saying.

You can study whatever you want..but you can do it for FREE. Youtube, the internet, and the public library will give anyone WAY more information about anything than they can ever dream of. Can you learn to become a pharmacist for free? Absolutely! But a career in this field actually requires a diploma. Working as a teller at a bank DOESN'T need a diploma in the study of everything so why get one?

I am not talking about making money is the most impt goal in life. I am talking about...if you are PAYING for something as an investment, then you better see a return on this investment. If school is free, then go study whatever you want..but it's NOT FREE..it is costing people a small fortune to the price of a house nowadays! Paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for your kid to learn something that can be learned for free is a negative return no matter HOW you look at it.

I totally agree that people shouldn't go into 6-figure debt to get a job that won't ever allow them to repay it. The fault for that lies squarely with the government for interfering in the system. The fault also lies with people sending their kids to elite private schools to get degrees in relatively low-paying fields. I disagree that those degrees are "useless" or "nonsense" as you stated but they need to be obtained in a reasonable way. Maybe that means 2 years at community college before going to the 4-year school to finish. Maybe it means all 4 years at community if that's an option where you live (it now is around here). Or maybe it means working your way through school to minimize debt, taking 5 or 6 years to finish instead of 4.

Good luck getting a job in almost any field if at your interview, when they ask about your education, you tell them you watched a lot of Youtube videos.

[Singuy]

I totally agree that people shouldn't go into 6-figure debt to get a job that won't ever allow them to repay it. The fault for that lies squarely with the government for interfering in the system

Good luck getting a job in almost any field if at your interview, when they ask about your education, you tell them you watched a lot of Youtube videos.

Except that "watched a lot of youtube videos" have the same merits as having a psychology degree..or having a high school diploma..because you are applying to be a cashier at Target.


You want to be psychologist, then go for it. Just be prepared to get a PHD and stay on a college campus for most of your career.

How many Doctors of psychologist do you know compared to just a 4 years bachelors?

Every major can be useful if you want to be a professor and teach. Heck maybe you can even make your own youtube videos to gain some degree of success. But having a 4 years degree in a lot of the social sciences are just a complete waste of time. Next time maybe you should major in something useful and minor in something you are just merely "interested" in.

I don't know a lot of Pharm. D or MD degree recipients working as a cashier at Target, but I do know many psychology, microbiology, and history degree recipients who are. If the job you are aiming for just needs a college degree..then get one in something easy and as cheaply as you can. Like I pointed out above, you can have an AA degree straight out of HS for free. That alone can count for something.

Also I disagree with your statement about blaming the government about the student loan debt. Sure, easy money have increased tuition pricing...but it's still the people's fault for taking on the loan! Just like the 2008 financial crisis..we can blame the banks all we want but it's the people who chose to buy 5 houses they can't afford. I am advocating that people here have a choice. No one is pointing a gun at you, forcing you to get into a 6 figure debt in a major that doesn't pay. Many people pointed out that college sometimes is just NOT the answer (and the trend is going toward "most of the time"). Trade schools maybe where the most bang for your buck lies.

[disneysteve]

I don't know a lot of Pharm. D or MD degree recipients working as a cashier at Target, but I do know many psychology, microbiology, and history degree recipients who are.

I'd suggest that the fault there lies not with the degree but with the individual.

I know plenty of folks with psych and microbio degrees who are working as psychologists and microbiologists and doing perfectly fine. I also know a number of people with history degrees, some of whom are teachers and at least a couple who are attorneys. They used their degrees to advance their careers, as you should. The person who got a 4-year degree and is working at Target didn't.

[Nutria]

The fault for that lies squarely with the government for interfering in the system.

The fault lies with idiot Me Generation professional educators starting the "Follow Your Dream" nonsense back in the 1980s.

To hell with that! @Singuy is absolutely right: if you're spending big bucks for an education, learn something that's going to pay back the money spent (even metaphorically, if no debt was incurred).

My son at one point wanted to be an actor. "Great!", I said. "On the weekends, as a hobby, at the county Recreation Dept while you work your bill paying job during the week."

[disneysteve]

The fault lies with idiot Me Generation professional educators starting the "Follow Your Dream" nonsense back in the 1980s.

To hell with that! @Singuy is absolutely right: if you're spending big bucks for an education, learn something that's going to pay back the money spent (even metaphorically, if no debt was incurred).

My son at one point wanted to be an actor. "Great!", I said. "On the weekends, as a hobby, at the county Recreation Dept while you work your bill paying job during the week."

I agree that one of the goals of college should be to launch a career but we'll have to agree to disagree on the choice of majors because it's been my experience over and over that the major really doesn't matter. It's the degree itself that matters.

Perfect example: I have a friend who is now retired but had a very successful and lucrative career with AIG. He and his wife now spend their time traveling the world and loving life. He had a college degree, of course. His major? Philosophy. That's about as "worthless" a degree as you can get in some people's opinions, but it is what enabled him to get in the door and start working. He applied himself and worked his way up to management and did quite well for himself. Just try and tell him now that his college experience was a waste of time. I don't think he'll agree with you.

[Singuy]

I'd suggest that the fault there lies not with the degree but with the individual.

I know plenty of folks with psych and microbio degrees who are working as psychologists and microbiologists and doing perfectly fine. I also know a number of people with history degrees, some of whom are teachers and at least a couple who are attorneys. They used their degrees to advance their careers, as you should. The person who got a 4-year degree and is working at Target didn't.

Only 27% of grads get a job that's related to their major. This study excluded professional degree recipients such as lawyers, MDs, pharmacists, etc.

Also 62% of grads get a job that doesn't even require a college degree.

If I was paying 50k/year...these are not the odds I am looking for and expect a positive return on my investment. If I am spending 50k/year for my child to "experience" college, then I need to understand that's what my 50k/year is doing. I shouldn't be disappointed if I get a negative return. You can tell me all the stories in the world about knowing such and such who is successful in such and such field all day..but at the end the numbers do not lie. I have a 1/5 chance my child can get a job that's related to her major(if it's social science or whatever) and more than 1/2 chance that she didn't even need to go to college to begin with. So either I suck it up and pay a stupid amount of money to make sure she ends up with a major that gets her a job in her major that actually pays more than what I put in..or I can chalk it up as giving her money for a very fun hobby that may or may not yield a return.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/20/only-27-percent-of-college-grads-have-a-job-related-to-their-major/

[Singuy]

Just try and tell him now that his college experience was a waste of time. I don't think he'll agree with you.

This reminds me of Texas who is telling everyone that 401k and IRA is a waste of time because real estates is where it's at(because that's how he made his money).

Yea sure..you get a few winners..but the majority of the people who doesn't follow statistics probability that is in your favor will end up as being losers.

[Nutria]

I agree that one of the goals of college should be to launch a career but we'll have to agree to disagree on the choice of majors because it's been my experience over and over that the major really doesn't matter. It's the degree itself that matters.

Perfect example: I have a friend who is now retired but had a very successful and lucrative career with AIG. He and his wife now spend their time traveling the world and loving life. He had a college degree, of course. His major? Philosophy. That's about as "worthless" a degree as you can get in some people's opinions, but it is what enabled him to get in the door and start working. He applied himself and worked his way up to management and did quite well for himself. Just try and tell him now that his college experience was a waste of time. I don't think he'll agree with you.

30 years ago that worked, but now idiot HR drones just compare your CV to the list of requirements that the hiring manager needs, and if they don't match then in the bin goes the resume.

[disneysteve]

62% of grads get a job that doesn't even require a college degree.

I wonder about this stat. Maybe a job doesn't "require" a degree but how many of those people wouldn't actually have gotten the job without it? Does that make sense?

If I was paying 50k/year...these are not the odds I am looking for and expect a positive return on my investment. If I am spending 50k/year for my child to "experience" college, then I need to understand that's what my 50k/year is doing.

I agree with this completely. I am a firm believer in college being an important life experience but it needs to be done in a sensible way. Paying 50K/year is not sensible. There are loads of excellent schools that can be attended for far less than that. Even at schools that do cost 50K, very few students actually pay that price. My daughter's school is in that 50K range but she has over 20K in scholarships so we're not paying anywhere near full price.