Forbes.com: The Most Expensive Preschools

hiake · Sep 20, 2007

The Most Expensive Preschools

Liz Moyer, 09.19.07, 6:00 AM ET

If you're like many new parents, nothing's too good for your little genius, including $30,440 for preschool so your 4-year-old can occupy a few hours each day playing with blocks and finger painting in an organized setting.

Think that's a typo? Think again. That is the price of admission to the preschool program at New York's Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Other private schools in aren't much better. Bank Street, also in New York, will set you back $27,450; pre-K at Washington's Sidwell Friends runs $26,790. Compared to that, The Center for Early Education in Los Angeles, with its $15,400 tuition, seems like a bargain.

Forbes.com hunted down the most expensive preschools in the biggest urban areas across the country using local school guidebooks, Web sites and experts to compare tuitions and programs. There is no central database that tracks tuition trends, not even locally, says Deborah Ashe, director of admissions in the lower school at New York's Trevor Day School, where preschool tuition is $24,200. And there are a lot of variables. Some schools that are preschool-only programs have comparably lower tuitions than preschools affiliated with elementary schools, and some schools get funding from the government.

Tuitions have been rising at an 8% clip across the board, according to some experts. That's more than the annual tuition increase at Ivy League colleges. But there is something to be said for the hefty premiums, according to Victoria Goldman, author of preschool guidebooks for New York and Los Angeles and mom of two New York private school kids. "You get what you pay for," she says.

Mostly what she means is facilities. The elite Episcopal School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, for example, which costs $14,500 a year, is housed in an elegant seven-story townhouse. Seven years ago, Boston's nearly 100-year-old Tenacre School (pre-K tuition is $16,000-plus) built a new gymnasium, library and multimedia center.

Washington, D.C.'s Sidwell Friends School gutted a few buildings and built a new "green" middle school. "Many of the older schools are antiquated and in constant need of upkeeping," says Georgia Irvin, author of a schools guidebook for the D.C. metropolitan area.

But paying the tuition is easy compared with getting in. Entrance to an exclusive private preschool is a painful right of passage for thousands of upscale New York moms every year, kicking off with a mad rush of speed dialing early in the morning the day after Labor Day to secure applications before schools run out of them.

The way the game works, at least for many top private nursery schools: You call to get the application, rush it back to the school and wait anxiously for word you will be granted a tour and your child will be invited to an on-site pseudo-interview the schools call a "play-date."

Some schools dispense with the play-date and just meet with families individually. Some ask for essays. Some just want to know where you live and work. (Presumably much information about your potential as a big donor can be gleaned from your address and employer).

Then there is the bone-chilling, mind-bending wait during which you agonize over your kid's performance during the play date and handicap her chances vs. the others (including that kid who went fishing in the classroom fish tank). While the process starts in September, it doesn't end until early March, when the notifications are mailed.

After conquering the application process and winning a coveted spot, no small feat in itself, the reality hits hard. Preschool, for most just a few hours a day in the mornings, can cost more than studying for an engineering degree at Michigan, and much more at some very selective schools.

Of course, the lure for many is the program itself. At the 92nd Street Y, a school that gained a fair amount of notoriety for its role in the Wall Street research scandal a few years back, kids are engaged in an archeology "dig" and sculpture projects, among other things.

At New York's Horace Mann, where educating a 4-year-old sets you back $26,880, kids are taught reading and computer readiness. At Chicago City Day School, tuition $17,000-plus, instruction in foreign languages, drama, music and science begins in the junior kindergarten.

Many parents view private preschool as a necessary step in the even more stressful process of securing a place in a private grade school, the process for which has been chronicled recently in the documentary "Getting In" on the TLC cable channel.

In truth, the other thing pushing parents to send kids to preschool is the cold reality that kindergarten has become the new first grade, with parents pushing academic learning earlier with the fear that their kids will fall behind if they don't meet major milestones like reading well before what is considered normal.

That makes preschool the new kindergarten. And that's a whole other story.

Source: Forbes.com
Click to expand...

I just realize how ghetto my university education is comparing to preschool education... -shock $30,440?!

Dan · Sep 20, 2007

shit... at that age i was learning how to read and write FOR FREE.

hiake · Sep 20, 2007

dann said: ↑

shit... at that age i was learning how to read and write FOR FREE.
Click to expand...

I am sure those kids are learning to how be a millionaire before they hit puberty

Dan · Sep 20, 2007

hiake said: ↑

I am sure those kids are learning to how be a millionaire before they hit puberty
Click to expand...

hell.... theyre learning how to stack the big lego blocks together.... at that age, i was making small ships with the SMALL lego blocks.

and plus, legos wont get you far in life. its reading and writing.

The_Jelly · Sep 27, 2007

Parents just want the best for their kids. I went to a private school for grd 1 &2 really helped. I was reading novels by that age. Well not really novels but short stories.

chickenutbread · Sep 28, 2007

^dude. i went to public school at that age and i could read then too. i went to the library on saturdays. i think it's the individual. i loved books ever since i was a little girl so of course i became an avid reader since kindergarten.

just because it actually costs money doesn't mean it's better. i can understand sending your kid to private high school because the atmosphere between public and private are entirely different (in most private schools anyway). but to send your kid to private pre-school/elementary? no way.

Dan · Sep 28, 2007

i was illiterate until grade 2.

thats when i read my first childrens novel..

xiaojia · Sep 28, 2007

lol.. is that for a year? thats more expensive than my 5 year university education.. im glad im not preschool..

Taxloss · Sep 29, 2007

...and they get to eat lobster and caviar in their daily lunch set right? -shock

asiangang · Sep 29, 2007

lol...that is crazy expensive....if u really pay for that school...why dont hire some crazy tutor instead...lol

philostrate · Sep 30, 2007

that's even more expensive than my university tuition fees.

robocup · Oct 2, 2007

We are paying £2300 a term. Its a right killer but we thnk its worth it.

xmichelly · Oct 2, 2007

my sister went to "private" pre-school, but damn this is crazy-noclue

fayenatic · Oct 3, 2007

$15K?

eh sounds just about right. for celebs and business ceos, $15k is nothing.

smallrinilady · Oct 3, 2007

well sometimes these expensive schools are also for other reasons

for celebs and people with lots of money

they want their kids to associate with other children from families with money
not just for the kids, but for their safety too
think if the only children and other adults that might interact with your kids also have money
than you wont have to worry about your kid's playmate's stupid father trying to kidnap your kid to hold them for ransom

also people with money can't show themselves and let the public/press know that they take their kids to some cheap place to save money

hiake · Oct 3, 2007

smallrinilady said: ↑

well sometimes these expensive schools are also for other reasons

for celebs and people with lots of money

they want their kids to associate with other children from families with money
not just for the kids, but for their safety too
think if the only children and other adults that might interact with your kids also have money
than you wont have to worry about your kid's playmate's stupid father trying to kidnap your kid to hold them for ransom

also people with money can't show themselves and let the public/press know that they take their kids to some cheap place to save money
Click to expand...

And I am sure if anything happens to the children at the pre-school (or later on in life, school), they will SUE.

Forbes.com: The Most Expensive Preschools

hiake Vardøgr of da E.Twin

Dan 8-D

hiake Vardøgr of da E.Twin

Dan 8-D

The_Jelly NSFW? :P

chickenutbread Well-Known Member

Dan 8-D

xiaojia Well-Known Member

Taxloss Stripper Vicar

asiangang Well-Known Member

philostrate Well-Known Member

robocup Active Member

xmichelly Well-Known Member

fayenatic Well-Known Member

smallrinilady Well-Known Member

hiake Vardøgr of da E.Twin