May I ask a question?
What is the average tuition at Catholic schools for elementary, middle school, and high school?
I’ve heard some people on this Board say that tuition is “outrageous” at Catholic schools.
Our public schools were abominable when my kids were growing up (ALL of our high schools were on the State Watch List, and over half of the elementary schools).
We sent our kids to a private, secular college prep school. The tuition in high school was around ten thousand dollar a year per child. We got a break because of an academic scholarship for one child, and a need scholarship for another child. But it still cost us around fourteen thousand total per year to send our two daughters to this school. Needless to say, we didn’t save any money towards our retirement during those years! (And we still haven’t because of college bills.)
It was a fantastic school, BTW, and worth every penny.
As for the OP question, since I’m Catholic, I won’t enter a Poll answer. But I converted to Catholicism after my kids graduated from high school, so I’ll post my answer in the thread, if you don’t mind.
My answer is, YES, I would have sent my kids to a Catholic school
if it was the BEST school in the city.
In fact, many, many kids leave the private prep school in our city and go to the large Catholic high school because it is such an excellent school and charges a lot less than ten thousand per year.
My criteria is not tuition or religious training (I can do that at home), but whether or not a school is the BEST school-
- What percentage of the students go to college, not just the local community college, but to universities and colleges out of the city?
- What percentage of the students get accepted to the “Ivy League” colleges?
- What percentage of the students end up working in professional careers or as CEOs of companies? (In our city, 70% of the CEOs of all the companies are graduates of our prep school.)
- How do the standardized test scores compare to other schools?
- How many AP classes are offered, and what percentage of the students receive 4s and 5s on the AP exams?
- How do the students place in various academic competitions (Latin Exam, WYSE, Math Olympics, Spelling Bee, Geography Bee, etc.)
- What are the arts and sports opportunities?
- Does the school require volunteer hours to graduate?
- How does the school encourage the practice of religious faith among its student body?
- Are the students friendly? Is there a family feeling in the school?
These are questions that I would ask to determine whether a school is the best. My husband and I determined early on that education was one of our top priorities with our daughters and we sacrificed to send them to school. We’re glad we did. Good investment.
