It used to be that families first signed up for education loans when their child enrolled in college, but a growing number of parents are seeking tuition assistance as soon as kindergarten. Though data is scarce, private school experts and the small number of lenders who provide loans for kindergarten through 12th grade say pre-college loans are becoming more popular.
Parents taking out these loans understand that sending their children to a public kindergarten could ruin their lives.
Two my kids have (quite a time ago) graduated from a particular public High School in Florida, and I am happy about it.
They also used the option of "dual enrollment" into the courses at the local University (while still being at High School), and those courses were good for them.
Respectfully, Florida resident.
Posted by: Florida resident | March 30, 2012 at 12:57 PM
These families would be much better off if they just homeschooled their children. The kids themselves benefit from having their mother take care of them instead of an employee and the family's budget might be improved as well because the costs of daycare and education could exceed the net income of the wife.
Posted by: av | March 30, 2012 at 12:58 PM
The friends you make when you're five, could provide a lifetime network of business contacts.
Posted by: RandyB | March 30, 2012 at 02:00 PM
"Parents taking out these loans understand that sending their children to a public kindergarten could ruin their lives."
I know some Indian families living here in America who send their children to elite Indian boarding schools which they can afford. I suppose that's one of the few benefits of immigrating from a third world country.
Posted by: Conquistador | March 30, 2012 at 02:48 PM
"Parents taking out these loans understand that sending their children to a public kindergarten could ruin their lives."
It should actually read:
"Parents taking out these loans are status-fetishizing douche bags who more often than not will end up ruining their children's lives."
Posted by: Peter | March 30, 2012 at 03:11 PM
Soon families will take out loans for their kids in vitro.
[HS: Already written about here (sort of, minus the loans):
http://www.halfsigma.com/2012/03/30000-tuition-for-private-school-for-1-year-olds.html ]
Posted by: Aldous Huxley | March 30, 2012 at 03:15 PM
Only New Yorkers would think that they are giving their kids a better life by putting themselves in hock to get them into the "right" kindergarten. If that's true in New York, then New York is a stupid place that no one should ever want to live in.
Posted by: MC | March 30, 2012 at 09:02 PM
I guess I take it back about New York, after reading the article, apparently these idiots are everywhere. Whatever. Their kids aren't going to derive any benefit from that school that they wouldn't get from moving to a good area. And if you're willing to borrow money for K-12, why not just get a bigger mortgage?
+1 on homeschool, but few will take the opportunity
Posted by: MC | March 30, 2012 at 09:06 PM
It's insane, but then, it's only a tiny loony New York minority.
Posted by: Flico | March 30, 2012 at 09:51 PM
We've all heard about those international standardized academic tests which show American students lagging behind the rest of the industrialized world. There's lies damn lies and there's statistics. Technically yes it's true on "average" the numbers don't look good but that's only because we have a permanent underclass of NAMs who drag down our test scores. White American students actually score pretty good compared to the rest of the world.
The belief that the American public education system is in complete disarray is not true. It's just the Black and Latino part that's messed up, the White part is doing just fine.
Posted by: Ode | March 30, 2012 at 11:05 PM
Quantity beats (the illusion of) quality.
Posted by: Eazy-E | March 30, 2012 at 11:17 PM
Never went to public schools but I have noticed that kids who went from public to private tended to do better in school than the kids who went to private their whole life. The homes-schooled kids vary obviously. The problem with most public schools in suburbs is the invasion of city kids who sign up from their "aunt and uncle's" house in order to escape from the public schools in urban areas.
Posted by: Bob | March 31, 2012 at 01:52 AM
We live in a city where sending your child to a "regular" public school means a high level of daily violence (beatings, rape, gang rape in the stairwells, and teachers who molest students). An example where all of these things have happened within the last few years is Oscar Mayer school in Lincoln Park - a Montessori school that is considered "very good", parents fight to get their children in.
Instead of paying for five day a week "preschool" and elementary school (daycare) and taking loans out for anywhere from 8k a year (a "good" Catholic school - not great, just good and safe) to 15k a year (Waldorf) and everything in between (Montessori schools not set up to accept DHS students and some other truly private schools such as the Chicago City Day School) we choose to home school for the elementary grades and will pay out whatever is required for private middle school and high school. Consider it protection money paid to the Calculus mob. My after tax salary when I return to work will be earmarked for "education". A public school will NEVER be an option.
Advising that a person should just take out a larger mortgage instead of borrow money for school and move to where there are "good" public schools is terrible advice (financial and otherwise) for the following reasons:
1) Selling your house now is not a great idea - unless you just want to walk away from it - screwing your neighbors in the process since they have to deal with whoever buys it for a few thousand and rents it out. Our mortgage here in Chicago for a tiny home is likely a lot more costly than a mortgage for a matchbox on a feedlot.
2) The best public schools are still staffed by the bottom of the barrel. Additionally, public schools have become a center for "intervention services" so the hallways are trawled by social workers (usually horrific caricatures of women who have never married but have 4 kids by 3 different men, if you are lucky you get the SWPL dingbat). Schools offer your child "guidance counselling" (SWPL therapists) along with "medical services" (help accessing birth control, abortion, etc.) Public school is not really a "school", more of a government approved processing center and holding pen until joining the military or going to prison.
3) By definition, enrollment is not restricted, so a 13 year old with a history of assault and theft can attend the local public school until he or she assaults fellow students enough times to actually be suspended and expelled. Public schools are reluctant to suspend and expel "problem" students. They fear being "racist".
4) You have to go really far away - as in two hours in traffic on a good day to get far enough away to find marginally okay public schools. That means huge financial commuting costs (newer reliable car - probably becoming a two car household, gas, maintenance, tolls) and huge mental costs (your 10 hour work day just became 14 with a commute, never seeing your family during the week). You also just trade living by "black ghettos" to living by "white ghettos". So the question is do you want your daughter raped by the black thug who chants rap music and smokes crack or raped by the white thug who chants rap music and shots up meth? The goal is to keep your daughter from getting raped. When your house gets robbed, do you care if it was by a black drug addict or a white drug addict? I don't, I only care that my house got robbed. My Husband's profession requires that he is close to an airport and a television station so we can't just sell our place and move to a rural community and live in a farmhouse as nice as that sounds).
5) In our area schools are cesspools staffed with make work jobs but our "normal" neighborhoods are far safer and nicer than a "normal" neighborhood in the suburbs. Chicago is the most segregated city because there are obvious boundaries. I rarely have to interact with the black or white ghetto here. Just avoid the places they frequent - go to the Nature Museum instead of the Taste of Chicago. Send your child to a private school, go to a real church not a "church" in a storefront on the south west side.
Private school loans are not status seeking emblems of douche baggery - they are the modern version of cloistering. A dog whistle signaling device to others who have the same values that your family does. Also, private schools require a high level of parental involvement so your child's friends will likely be the children of caring loving parents. It isn't really about making a lifetime of "connections" or "networking" as much as it is a way to ensure the people your child will spend six hours a day with are similar to you. No matter how much the powers that be want everyone to be an interchangeable cog, you can choose to actually raise your child YOUR way.
6) I love my child. I promise that no one who drives up to one of these concrete structures with grates over the windows and security guards at the entrance (to manage the children of gang members as they push and shove) then not only allows but actively encourages their child to get out of the car and go inside actually loves their child the way I do mine. They may be fond of their child, but they do not care deeply about the human being they brought into this world. At best they are stupid people who don't know any better. Public school is natural selection - (dumb?) parents sending their offspring to where the law of the jungle prevails.
Maybe that is the point of their parenting strategy? Whatever doesn't kill your child makes them stronger? If they can fight enough to keep from getting beaten too often and learn to stay off the radar of the social services people in grade school they will learn the skills required for jail?
Posted by: Me | April 03, 2012 at 08:41 PM