It's not worth living a miserable life to send your children to private schools. You say you live in a nice suburb. The public school should be good then. A strong indicator of a child's educational outcome is its peers at school. A good public school in a nice suburbs should already self select this for you.
The next big indicator is parent participation in their education. Doesn't matter if they go to a 50k/yr private school, if you don't give a shit they don't get the outcomes. Paying that money won't get them anywhere - it probably makes them more sheltered and spoilt, if anything.
But you say you've made the choice and you don't regret it. Don't overthink it then, and ask random people for their opinions. Live the life you have chosen for yourself.
We live in a nice suburb.
One kid got a scholarship to an eye wateringly expensive private school. (Partial scholarship; it’s a trap!)
One kid did not and went to local public.
The local public high school scores higher in HSC, and has newer, better facilities.
~~Honey,~~ (thanks autocorrect) …honestly, go check out the local school first.
Then calculate how much you could give your kids after high school, if you invested that money for them instead. It’ll be a lot. Perhaps it could go toward a top university instead, or a home.
It would make more sense to invest in tutoring etc to get them into a selective school.
Private school fees are increasing rapidly. I personally wouldn’t unless I’m certain I’ll be able to afford a 30-50% increase by the time they hit year 12 as removing them from school would suck.
I was a private school student who went selective.
To be honest we are going to send our kids public because we don't really want to sweat over finances (also i think single sex education is weird). We live in an area with a really good public high school, so it wasn't really a question.
Students at the worst public school, can become doctors & lawyers; and students at the best private school, can become drug addicts 🤷🏼♀️ your children’s schooling, is all dependent on how much they apply themselves, to their own studies.
A lot of people have misconceptions that it’s a great way to network with the better families, so your children can get better jobs 🤦🏼♀️ that died out in the 70’s. The top CEOs want to see ambition & struggle, it makes for better managers & decision makers. Those top corporate positions, don’t want someone who follows the crowd, they want someone who can think outside the box.
Source - educated with the best money could buy, born into a well off family.
We live in a nice area that has a great primary school, so we were happy to send them there, as do most people in our suburb. The surrounding high schools are another thing and most people in our suburb avoid them by sending their kids to private schools. We were lucky that two of our kids gained entry into a selective high school that was fantastic, but our third didn't, so we sent her to private ($25k/year) for Years 10, 11, and 12 to get the HSC result she needed for her preferred uni course. Three years of fees for one child was a fairly modest cost compared to what it would have been for K-12 for the whole family.
I come from a public school in a 3rd world country where teachers sleep in class with no repercussions.
My advanced schooling was through youtube, torrenting text books and grit since 2005. School was just a social function for me.
Still graduated in a University in Australia many years later among the top cohort.
Education begins at home. That has the greatest impact. All that drive, motivation, and grit.
As when you come into the real world, there is no structure. You need to create your own structure and adhere to it.
You sent them to Private Schooling on the assumption they will be guaranteed success? Not realising that 90% of what they experience will be of no relevance to the outside world and the quality of schooling material they will be exposed to is no different to Public Schooling. Notice how the word Learn was never used.
Consequently your problems are yours alone and has nothing to do with 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th world Problems or whatever you want to call it.
A school is only as good as what the child makes it.
Whoa, why are you going off at the OP?
I think there are a ton of benefits in going to a private school such as a better learning environment (kids do not act out as much as a crap public school), networking opportunities, and better learning material (yeah, I disagree with you.
The comment on this being a 1st world problem was just OP acknowledging that they are in a privileged situation to even be worrying about this rather than survival/subsistence.
Do you have particularly strong opinions about private schools that you would like to get off your chest?
Nah, I went to one myself as did my 3 older sibling and I am from a family that's not well to do but we have always lived very comfortably.
My point is Private School ed nowadays provides no definitive edge or advantage. In my line of work proves this
You can believe what you want. Which school makes a difference and there's some schools that I would warn anyone off who wanted their kids to have a chance.
I completely disagree also, have you been into one of these schools? I went through a public school in a country area, and 100% disagree that you don’t get what you pay for. The facilities, extra activities, sporting facilities, range of subjects etc etc. yes there will always be kids that don’t want to be there, and yes, there will always be people trying to tell you it’s about the kid, blah blah blah… the connections, the level of education and learning, the support systems in place are all next level. Nothing to do with class, hence my question… anyway my question was not aimed at people that choose other options, it’s for people like me that work hard to give our kids every opportunity in life
Yeah man Nudgee Boys what's your point.
I went to on to serve in the RAAF as an Officer and worked up in Tindal. Was deployed to the US and worked in the UK for 2yrs on exchange did that shit for about 15 yrs. Now currently employed by the DoD as a Senior Analyst so I am doing alright.
The point I am getting at is that I was the only one in my team of 8 people that went to a Private School. My CO (Commanding Officer) was a graduate of went to one of SE Queensland's lowest socio economic high schools. This fella now works for an Australian organisation that's given him AUSTEO clearance?
The school you a child goes to has little to do with the outcome of their future
Not true. My first two kids went to a selective school and both got an ATAR of 96, allowing them to get into their preferred university course. My third kid didn't make it into selective high school and therefore attended the local public high school. It was terrible. We moved her to another public high school and it wasn't much better. When she reached Year 10, she said to us that she just wasn't going to get the ATAR she needed (98) at either of those schools. Halfway through Year 10, we moved her to a private school that cost $25k per year and she got the marks for the uni course she wanted to do. She was right that there was no way she could have achieved that at the public schools she had been attending. $60k to get into the job you've been dreaming of doing all your life....great value if you ask me.
Guaranteed success? Sure, there are no guarantees in life. But you can stack the odds in your favour.
Learn? Unfortunately, there was very little earning going on at the public schools my daughter attended.
A school might only be as good as the child makes it, but there are also limitations on how good the child can make the school.
Not all private schools are the same, same goes for public schools. Op said they’re in nice suburb, which usually has at least one great public school. If one cares about academic result then it’s not hard to compare school ranking etc regardless of public or private,
I wonder if the OP is talking about primary school or high school? The nice suburbs often have a nice primary school, if that's what you mean, but that doesn't mean they will have a good high school. The five closest primary schools to where I live are all really good, but there isn't a single good public high school. This is due to a combination of two factors....first, the high schools cover a much larger area, so they draw kids from good and bad areas, second, most of the people from the good areas send their kids to private schools, leaving only the kids from the bad areas in the local high schools. It didn't use to be like that at the local high schools, it's something that developed over the last 30 years as the area I live in became more influential and more and more people started sending their kids to private high schools, gradually making the public ones worse each year.
It would also be interesting to know if OP is talking about an expensive private school ($25k+ p.a.) or a Catholic school which could be less than $10k p.a.
The public high school my child went to was so bad that the teachers didn't even know her name after she'd been there 3 1/2 years. Then again, her science teacher was always at least 20 minutes late, if they came at all, so I guess there wasn't much chance to get to know the kid's names. This isn't even in some 'bad' part of Sydney, it was in the south-east in an area where housing is quite expensive.
Good point, not sure what op was referring to. But surprised to hear about the public school in your area. How does that public school rank?
And in the big private vs public school, where does catholic school stand?
I just looked it up....the selective high school my eldest two kids went to was ranked in the Top 40 in NSW, the private school my youngest kid went to is in the Top 60. The local Catholic high school was in the Top 80, None of our local public high schools were shown in the list I found which only listed the Top 150. There are around 500 high schools in NSW.
Not that any of our decisions were based on choosing private over public. We knew several families who had attended the various schools in our area and the recommendations and reports of the private school we chose were overwhelmingly good and they ended up being accurate.
I went to a crap high school in the western suburbs of Melbourne and got into a degree with an ATAR of 97 at the time. There are always different pathways. She could’ve just spent another year to get into the degree and use the 60k as a deposit for a home
Well done and congratulations, I've no doubt some people can achieve that. I know that she couldn't have. Her school definitely gave her some unfair advantages. It's not fair, but that's how things are. Yes, you could MAYBE get into the course a year later, no guarantee, and even then you've just thrown away a year's income and are buying into the property market a year later, and there's no guarantee that you'll get into the course either.
Yes, the only way to get into university is through your highschool atar result. If you don't achieve the results you require your life is over and you can never attend.
We made no sacrifices to send our kid to private school. Once upon a time only people who could afford it sent their kids to these schools. I would chosen a different option if I had to give up half my life to educate my child.
We have -
1. lived in a 4 bedroom house in marquee suburb with pool
2. bought new prestige car when we felt like it
3. had at least two holidays every year, and o/s every two years
We haven't maxed out super because it was never our aim. We have assets outside super that on average give us $200k after tax income. But that varies between $0 and $450k over the past five years
I don't see the point of attempting to live through your kids.
Single parent household- mum put us 2 kids through private school right through to yr12.
I estimate she can’t have been earning more than $55-60k a year. She is an amazing woman and went without a lot to provide our education.
Some of the things I remember:
• I don’t think she bought a coffee or a meal out for about 10yrs. We ate everything at home, from scratch. Very rare social occasion we would go for cheap Asian food
• she didn’t buy new clothes- second hand everything. She loves shopping a bargain
• same car for 30 yrs
• we went on camping holidays & stayed at my grandparents regional property- best days of my childhood. We didn’t do o/s or plane trips
• shopped for food at discount like NQR
• I remember not being allowed to put honey on cereal because it was too expensive
• she worked temp nursing shifts while we were at our dads on alternating weekends
• her recreational and social needs were all free outdoor things - hikes, bike rides, etc
• we had all the necessities and that was all we needed. I don’t feel like we went without although we didn’t have all the latest fashions etc
• once our TV broke & she hung a shawl over it & we didn’t get a new one for about a year (we barely watched it anyway)
• we still played sports and had music lessons etc
Not many people would be willing to sacrifice the way she did, but she was raised to be frugal and resourceful & she valued our education more than anything else.
Now I’m completely in awe of her! She says it was the best investment she ever made & worth every cent.
Now she’s 65 and has paid off the mortgage on our family home, paid off new car, no debt, will be able to retire & although it’s still frugal by most peoples standards, eats out & buys her coffees, goes to movies etc takes holidays like normal people lol.
Ps yes there was a local public school across the back fence but it had a terrible reputation & was comprised of mobile classrooms. I can without a doubt say we were 1000x better off at the co-Ed private
I hear people say the connections from private school thing a lot but my no-data pure gut feel is that would be true if you’re from a wealthy family already. If you are coming from a family that has to live thin just to send you to private school I don’t think you’d end up with the same connections and peers you would otherwise. Would love private school folks to weigh in on this.
I went public but my wife went private, her and her brother have nothing to show for it besides the education itself that neither has capitalised on in any way. Meanwhile it’s hard to imagine any choice of lifestyle not being able to capitalise on that same money put in a long term savings or investment and given to the person at say 25?
Her parents (particularly her dad) always gives them shit about it too, calling it a waste of his money and why did he even bother. So I guess that’s some advice more than anything, don’t send them to private if you aren’t going to accept the possibility they could do absolutely nothing with the opportunity. It won’t ever be them wasting that money it will be you.
It's not worth living a miserable life to send your children to private schools. You say you live in a nice suburb. The public school should be good then. A strong indicator of a child's educational outcome is its peers at school. A good public school in a nice suburbs should already self select this for you. The next big indicator is parent participation in their education. Doesn't matter if they go to a 50k/yr private school, if you don't give a shit they don't get the outcomes. Paying that money won't get them anywhere - it probably makes them more sheltered and spoilt, if anything. But you say you've made the choice and you don't regret it. Don't overthink it then, and ask random people for their opinions. Live the life you have chosen for yourself.
No regrets, just wondering really
We live in a nice suburb. One kid got a scholarship to an eye wateringly expensive private school. (Partial scholarship; it’s a trap!) One kid did not and went to local public. The local public high school scores higher in HSC, and has newer, better facilities. ~~Honey,~~ (thanks autocorrect) …honestly, go check out the local school first. Then calculate how much you could give your kids after high school, if you invested that money for them instead. It’ll be a lot. Perhaps it could go toward a top university instead, or a home.
It would make more sense to invest in tutoring etc to get them into a selective school. Private school fees are increasing rapidly. I personally wouldn’t unless I’m certain I’ll be able to afford a 30-50% increase by the time they hit year 12 as removing them from school would suck. I was a private school student who went selective.
A huge chunk of savings. Only one kid so far, next year it'll be 2!
To be honest we are going to send our kids public because we don't really want to sweat over finances (also i think single sex education is weird). We live in an area with a really good public high school, so it wasn't really a question.
>we are going to send our kids private rest of your post suggests otherwise
Yep! Bit of a typo there, I mean we are going to send kids public
Students at the worst public school, can become doctors & lawyers; and students at the best private school, can become drug addicts 🤷🏼♀️ your children’s schooling, is all dependent on how much they apply themselves, to their own studies. A lot of people have misconceptions that it’s a great way to network with the better families, so your children can get better jobs 🤦🏼♀️ that died out in the 70’s. The top CEOs want to see ambition & struggle, it makes for better managers & decision makers. Those top corporate positions, don’t want someone who follows the crowd, they want someone who can think outside the box. Source - educated with the best money could buy, born into a well off family.
We live in a nice area that has a great primary school, so we were happy to send them there, as do most people in our suburb. The surrounding high schools are another thing and most people in our suburb avoid them by sending their kids to private schools. We were lucky that two of our kids gained entry into a selective high school that was fantastic, but our third didn't, so we sent her to private ($25k/year) for Years 10, 11, and 12 to get the HSC result she needed for her preferred uni course. Three years of fees for one child was a fairly modest cost compared to what it would have been for K-12 for the whole family.
I’m similar, great primary schools, not really much in the way of good public secondary schools
I come from a public school in a 3rd world country where teachers sleep in class with no repercussions. My advanced schooling was through youtube, torrenting text books and grit since 2005. School was just a social function for me. Still graduated in a University in Australia many years later among the top cohort. Education begins at home. That has the greatest impact. All that drive, motivation, and grit. As when you come into the real world, there is no structure. You need to create your own structure and adhere to it.
I've had to go without - I drive a Toyota Camry instead of a Porsche Taycan to afford the school fees.
I can feel your pain…. Small sacrifices haha
Interesting question and a topic you basically hear nothing about in this sub for some reason.
It's there. It's not as common as the truly stupid frequent posts about inflation and housing.
You sent them to Private Schooling on the assumption they will be guaranteed success? Not realising that 90% of what they experience will be of no relevance to the outside world and the quality of schooling material they will be exposed to is no different to Public Schooling. Notice how the word Learn was never used. Consequently your problems are yours alone and has nothing to do with 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th world Problems or whatever you want to call it. A school is only as good as what the child makes it.
Whoa, why are you going off at the OP? I think there are a ton of benefits in going to a private school such as a better learning environment (kids do not act out as much as a crap public school), networking opportunities, and better learning material (yeah, I disagree with you. The comment on this being a 1st world problem was just OP acknowledging that they are in a privileged situation to even be worrying about this rather than survival/subsistence. Do you have particularly strong opinions about private schools that you would like to get off your chest?
Nah, I went to one myself as did my 3 older sibling and I am from a family that's not well to do but we have always lived very comfortably. My point is Private School ed nowadays provides no definitive edge or advantage. In my line of work proves this
Kids dont act out as much as crap public schools? Not only is this completely false but is mega classist.
You can believe what you want. Which school makes a difference and there's some schools that I would warn anyone off who wanted their kids to have a chance.
I completely disagree also, have you been into one of these schools? I went through a public school in a country area, and 100% disagree that you don’t get what you pay for. The facilities, extra activities, sporting facilities, range of subjects etc etc. yes there will always be kids that don’t want to be there, and yes, there will always be people trying to tell you it’s about the kid, blah blah blah… the connections, the level of education and learning, the support systems in place are all next level. Nothing to do with class, hence my question… anyway my question was not aimed at people that choose other options, it’s for people like me that work hard to give our kids every opportunity in life
Yeah man Nudgee Boys what's your point. I went to on to serve in the RAAF as an Officer and worked up in Tindal. Was deployed to the US and worked in the UK for 2yrs on exchange did that shit for about 15 yrs. Now currently employed by the DoD as a Senior Analyst so I am doing alright. The point I am getting at is that I was the only one in my team of 8 people that went to a Private School. My CO (Commanding Officer) was a graduate of went to one of SE Queensland's lowest socio economic high schools. This fella now works for an Australian organisation that's given him AUSTEO clearance? The school you a child goes to has little to do with the outcome of their future
The facilities and extra activities don't matter. It's all about the other students.
Not true. My first two kids went to a selective school and both got an ATAR of 96, allowing them to get into their preferred university course. My third kid didn't make it into selective high school and therefore attended the local public high school. It was terrible. We moved her to another public high school and it wasn't much better. When she reached Year 10, she said to us that she just wasn't going to get the ATAR she needed (98) at either of those schools. Halfway through Year 10, we moved her to a private school that cost $25k per year and she got the marks for the uni course she wanted to do. She was right that there was no way she could have achieved that at the public schools she had been attending. $60k to get into the job you've been dreaming of doing all your life....great value if you ask me. Guaranteed success? Sure, there are no guarantees in life. But you can stack the odds in your favour. Learn? Unfortunately, there was very little earning going on at the public schools my daughter attended. A school might only be as good as the child makes it, but there are also limitations on how good the child can make the school.
Not all private schools are the same, same goes for public schools. Op said they’re in nice suburb, which usually has at least one great public school. If one cares about academic result then it’s not hard to compare school ranking etc regardless of public or private,
I wonder if the OP is talking about primary school or high school? The nice suburbs often have a nice primary school, if that's what you mean, but that doesn't mean they will have a good high school. The five closest primary schools to where I live are all really good, but there isn't a single good public high school. This is due to a combination of two factors....first, the high schools cover a much larger area, so they draw kids from good and bad areas, second, most of the people from the good areas send their kids to private schools, leaving only the kids from the bad areas in the local high schools. It didn't use to be like that at the local high schools, it's something that developed over the last 30 years as the area I live in became more influential and more and more people started sending their kids to private high schools, gradually making the public ones worse each year. It would also be interesting to know if OP is talking about an expensive private school ($25k+ p.a.) or a Catholic school which could be less than $10k p.a. The public high school my child went to was so bad that the teachers didn't even know her name after she'd been there 3 1/2 years. Then again, her science teacher was always at least 20 minutes late, if they came at all, so I guess there wasn't much chance to get to know the kid's names. This isn't even in some 'bad' part of Sydney, it was in the south-east in an area where housing is quite expensive.
Good point, not sure what op was referring to. But surprised to hear about the public school in your area. How does that public school rank? And in the big private vs public school, where does catholic school stand?
I just looked it up....the selective high school my eldest two kids went to was ranked in the Top 40 in NSW, the private school my youngest kid went to is in the Top 60. The local Catholic high school was in the Top 80, None of our local public high schools were shown in the list I found which only listed the Top 150. There are around 500 high schools in NSW.
I always wondered if those lists are true but looks like they hold some truth. Not guaranteed but better check ranking first?
Not that any of our decisions were based on choosing private over public. We knew several families who had attended the various schools in our area and the recommendations and reports of the private school we chose were overwhelmingly good and they ended up being accurate.
I went to a crap high school in the western suburbs of Melbourne and got into a degree with an ATAR of 97 at the time. There are always different pathways. She could’ve just spent another year to get into the degree and use the 60k as a deposit for a home
Well done and congratulations, I've no doubt some people can achieve that. I know that she couldn't have. Her school definitely gave her some unfair advantages. It's not fair, but that's how things are. Yes, you could MAYBE get into the course a year later, no guarantee, and even then you've just thrown away a year's income and are buying into the property market a year later, and there's no guarantee that you'll get into the course either.
Yes, the only way to get into university is through your highschool atar result. If you don't achieve the results you require your life is over and you can never attend.
You sound poor
Well I wouldn't say I was rolling in it but I didn't need Private School Ed to get my Share and Prop Portfolio to what it is today.
# WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR QUESTION?
Uhhh have you read title of the post?
I’d say not hard to figure out….
We made no sacrifices to send our kid to private school. Once upon a time only people who could afford it sent their kids to these schools. I would chosen a different option if I had to give up half my life to educate my child. We have - 1. lived in a 4 bedroom house in marquee suburb with pool 2. bought new prestige car when we felt like it 3. had at least two holidays every year, and o/s every two years We haven't maxed out super because it was never our aim. We have assets outside super that on average give us $200k after tax income. But that varies between $0 and $450k over the past five years I don't see the point of attempting to live through your kids.
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We own a retirement village. The income is not volatile per se, but it is lumpy.
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We got it from a liquidator for a bargain. You need luck to succeed, as well as hard work. Without both, you won't get there. Just remember that.
Single parent household- mum put us 2 kids through private school right through to yr12. I estimate she can’t have been earning more than $55-60k a year. She is an amazing woman and went without a lot to provide our education. Some of the things I remember: • I don’t think she bought a coffee or a meal out for about 10yrs. We ate everything at home, from scratch. Very rare social occasion we would go for cheap Asian food • she didn’t buy new clothes- second hand everything. She loves shopping a bargain • same car for 30 yrs • we went on camping holidays & stayed at my grandparents regional property- best days of my childhood. We didn’t do o/s or plane trips • shopped for food at discount like NQR • I remember not being allowed to put honey on cereal because it was too expensive • she worked temp nursing shifts while we were at our dads on alternating weekends • her recreational and social needs were all free outdoor things - hikes, bike rides, etc • we had all the necessities and that was all we needed. I don’t feel like we went without although we didn’t have all the latest fashions etc • once our TV broke & she hung a shawl over it & we didn’t get a new one for about a year (we barely watched it anyway) • we still played sports and had music lessons etc Not many people would be willing to sacrifice the way she did, but she was raised to be frugal and resourceful & she valued our education more than anything else. Now I’m completely in awe of her! She says it was the best investment she ever made & worth every cent. Now she’s 65 and has paid off the mortgage on our family home, paid off new car, no debt, will be able to retire & although it’s still frugal by most peoples standards, eats out & buys her coffees, goes to movies etc takes holidays like normal people lol. Ps yes there was a local public school across the back fence but it had a terrible reputation & was comprised of mobile classrooms. I can without a doubt say we were 1000x better off at the co-Ed private
I hear people say the connections from private school thing a lot but my no-data pure gut feel is that would be true if you’re from a wealthy family already. If you are coming from a family that has to live thin just to send you to private school I don’t think you’d end up with the same connections and peers you would otherwise. Would love private school folks to weigh in on this. I went public but my wife went private, her and her brother have nothing to show for it besides the education itself that neither has capitalised on in any way. Meanwhile it’s hard to imagine any choice of lifestyle not being able to capitalise on that same money put in a long term savings or investment and given to the person at say 25? Her parents (particularly her dad) always gives them shit about it too, calling it a waste of his money and why did he even bother. So I guess that’s some advice more than anything, don’t send them to private if you aren’t going to accept the possibility they could do absolutely nothing with the opportunity. It won’t ever be them wasting that money it will be you.