dono Wrote:
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> Did you see the cost of children? Who exactly do
> you think can afford $15,000 a year per kid plus
> $5000 min. per year for private education? That
> is 40000 dollars cash money per year.
Lots of people can afford it. Again, I'm not talking about eliminating public schools, what I'm talking about is that it should become a needs-based program, and not something that everyone just automatically assumes they are entitled to. Of course, I also think that not everyone should accept social security even though we all pay into it.
My parents were able to send me and my sister to private schools except when we were overseas and the only english speaking schools were DOD schools, which are basically "public schools". My father was an Army officer during the 70's and 80's, and in the 70's the military pay fell way behind the private sector, even more than it has traditionally been. They drove used cars, we rarely ever ate out, and I rarely had any of the latest and greatest toys that most of my peers had. When I wanted a new bike, I got a paper route and saved up for 6 months and my parents pitched in about 30% of the cost of the bike. They scrimped and they saved. My mother would have to call the credit card company before taking us shopping for new clothes to make sure she knew exactly how much available credit they had available. But they sent us to private school because they believed that the public school's resources should be available to those who truly could not afford to pay for their children's education. I was raised with a sense of self-sufficiency and to not rely on the government for anything I didn't have to. When I lost a job many years ago, I didn't even apply for unemployment because I had the savings to support myself and pay rent and so forth. I felt that any money I took out of the unemployment insurance system was less money available to people who couldn't get by without it, while I could get by without it.
Perhaps I am a little extreme in that way, but if more people did the same, our government services would not be strained to the breaking point.
There are private schools that are less than $5,000 per year, and just about all of them offer payment plans and discounts and need-based scholarships and other things to lessen the costs. If you truly cannot afford to send your kids to a private school, thank god for public schools. But that should actually compel you to hold a similar view as mine. Every kid in your child's school whose parents CAN actually afford private school but chooses not to is making that much less money available towards your child's education.
> So sure, I agree rich people should not send their
> kids to public schools. News bulliten - they
> dont. Now stop calling school and entitlement for
> the poor. We earn over 100k per year, drive a
> 1993 year car and a 1996 year car. We do not pay
> for cable, we do not have a flat screen TV we do
> not pay to go on vacation.
>
If your combined income is over 100k a year, even though this is an expensive area to live in, you could figure out a way to afford private school. There are people making $50k a year who do so. There is obviously something about your chosen lifestyle that is consuming a large portion of your money, there are obviously some expenses in your family budget that could possibly be a little on the excessive side. Perhaps they are necessary, maybe your job requires you to spend enormous amounts of money on expensive suits or, I don't know, there are sometimes extenuating circumstances beyond the average person's expenses. Hard to say.
> With retirement, health care, modest college
> savings we simply cannot afford private school.
> All that and we earn triple the national average
> income!
My father was making an Army officer's salary. In 1978, as a Major, he was making $1,791.90 a month according to this pay chart
http://www.dfas.mil/militarypay/2006militarypaytables/militarypaypriorrates/1978.pdf which comes out to $21,502 a year. That amounts to about $67,642.85 in 2007 dollars. My mother didn't work, as it was frowned upon at the time in the military (wives were supposed to be in the Officer's Wives Club and do charitable work and other things.) They were able to send us to private school. (granted, we did have base housing, but we also lived in hawaii which has a very high cost of living, more so than around here due to the fact that it was an island and everything came over on a ship or an airplane). It wasn't until the mid 80's that military pay started getting reasonable COLAs and base rates increased to kee up with inflation. When my father finally retired as a full colonel in 1987, after 22 years service his pay was finally "decent" at $50,821, or $91,613 in 2007 dollars, but I graduated from High School the next year.
Again, everyone's situation is different, but it is unusual that someone making a combined family income of over $100k in this area cannot afford a private school. You've made some sort of budgetary choice that prohibits you from doing so (and I can't say whether they are necessary or excessive, just that something in your budget is restricting your available funds.)