My wife met some other mothers in Bellevue and they started talking to her about great schools (and stupid expensive) for our young’uns. My wife doesn’t work and is not technically literate but living here it’s inevitable you meet these types of families which are prestige obsessed talking about shit like Kumon (had to Google what this child sweatshop is). We are not in Asia my God… Anyways these ladies (or their husbands) are paying out the nose for private education all the way down to private Preschools. I don’t see the need personally and tell my wife I went to a poor school district in Thurston county and my university was Eastern Washington University which is not prestigious at all. Despite that I still got tons of interviews same as the “Ivy Kids”. Only reason I’m at Amazon now is because they offered L5 (SDE 2) at 1 YoE which was considerably higher than my new grad comp at Meta. Many of my coworkers don’t have prestigious names either so I think it’s all a ruse unless you want your kid working at HFT or OpenAI which still only takes the top talent. Your kid won’t get in from attending prestigious schools alone.
Save money by not spending on school and give your kids 100k when they graduate to try a business. I bet you won’t regret it.
I put 100$ a month per child into a 529. I don’t know if I’ll have 100k extra laying around for 2 kids (or more). My mortgage is unlikely to be paid off in 16-18 years.
Great job 👏 I was throwing a ball park figure, please ignore that. Your kids will definitely be grateful for your contributions.
Schools are VERY different these days.
Just say to them - respectfully, f. off
I'm not making much but still send my kids to private (Catholic) school because I don't want idiots to teach them that they should decide which gender they identify themselves as, if any. Not only am I paying to get them in private schools, but I also make sure I frequently question their ideologies and thoughts that might impact my kids. I never mention their schools to families and friends, and I don't see anything to brag about!
there was a religion comp chart once - Catholics have the lowest TC
You may not be bragging to your friends but your wife (or husband) could very well be to other mothers.
Lot of folks suffering from Ivy League Preschool Syndrome. Especially in places like Bellevue all over the country.
Who goes to HFT? 🤮🤮🤮🤮
There are choice schools in Bellevue better than many private schools https://bsd405.org/schools/choice/
It is all about connections, not education. you meet another families there, kids become friends, you are invited to bdays, playdates, talk about bisuness, opportunities, then your vp kid went to same school thats why he is more loyal to you as you can talk about teachers etc… Right school gives a lot of big connections…
I went to private school from K-12 and to my state’s flagship public university afterward. My partner went to public school K-college. He is now a high school teacher and has taught in both (excellent) public and private schools. He could work anywhere now and chooses to work at a private school for a variety of reasons despite generally lower comp. He has much more freedom to teach in a way that make sense for students—not some detached administrator who dictates what kids learn. They also don’t waste days and days on testing, which is definitely a problem at public school. He’s adamant that if we ever had a child, they should attend private school. Obviously private schools are highly variable, but as it sounds like you have never attended one, you might have some preconceived notions or bias against them.
All this ^
I’d rather pay for private K-12 than college tbh
Curious to know why?
I thought the whole point of moving to these expensive suburbs of SF and Seattle is because the local school district is already top tier enough. These parents live on the Eastside and still pursue these schools. Now my wife is planning out private schools as she is easily influenced by advice from others and believes this is best for kids. Mind you we’d be living paycheck to paycheck to afford this in Bellevue. We are net positive about 3k a month with a mortgage though it could be higher if I cut back on the MBDR 401k. Also this 3k averaged over the year to include my bonus and RSUs. I noticed a lot of these ladies have husbands in high roles and twice my age while I’m a L5 barely two years out of college.