kane

I read the average wage in the US is $16 per hour. The average household income (meaning 2 adults and 2 kids) is around 50K (pre tax of course) and the average cost of private school is between 5K-8K per year per kid.

So the average family would have to pay out 10-16K per kid per year. Obviously there might be cheaper options and better choices, but that is just the average.

It is a catch 22. If we want to continue to succeed as a nation we have to make education a priority. We are quickly moving from being a manufacturing based economy to being an information and technology based economy and most of those jobs require some kind of education. It is easy to argue that anyone who can't afford private school for their kids shouldn't have them, but if we stop having kids the country will fall behind as well.

So we need workers, but we also need education and figuring out who is going to pay for that is a rough question.

I do wonder though. If all the tax dollars that are spent on public education were given back to the tax payers and public schools were closed down would it cause the cost of private school to decrease and then would the combination of that lower cost of private school (more competition among private schools meaning better prices for parents) and the decreased tax load then make private school something that is affordable to the average person?