Private Schools in the United States are known for their prestige and their expensive costs. I want to take this time to dive deeper into private schools with their successes and shortcomings. I went to a private middle and high school so I will also be inserting my personal experiences with the topics that I will be covering.
I want to highlight the shortcomings of private schools first. I know some people think that one of the main issues of private schools are the students and how they think that they are better than everyone else. But I am not going to cover that because that isn’t something that the school itself can really change.
The first thing that I want to cover is the rising costs. According to an article by FinalSite, “Private school costs have returned to pre-pandemic levels with an average increase [on tuition] of 2.9 percent in 2022, compared to 1.05 percent in 2021” (FinalSite). This is a massive issue when it comes to affordability. To put it in context, my school, St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers, Massachusetts, had a tuition in 2019 of $19,000 and it increased all the way up to $28,000 in 2023. These percentages might be different for my school than the national average, but the point is the same, prices for education are rising and families can not afford it. Most private schools offer an abundance of scholarships and grants, but even with these, some people still can not afford these great schools. Affordability has to become the main issue for schools to work on.
Another shortcoming that private schools face is that families are putting a greater importance on diversity in the classrooms and for the majority of private schools, this is an issue. For my school, we had a 85% white population. This is a major issue because having everyone in the classroom have a very similar upbringing and values taught to them does not allow your students to get the whole high school experience of meeting people from very different people and learning from them outside of the classroom. Private schools have been improving on this issue by creating programs to bring students from more diverse backgrounds into the community, but there is still a lot of work to do. I felt like I lacked the diversity in my high school that I have seemed to find here at Penn State.
Now I want to pivot and highlight the successes of private schools. These successes are essential to their successes. The popularity of private schools has decreased recently. But they are still heavily popular and influential on people’s lives.
On average, private schools give a better education than the public schools. This is because they have more resources to put towards their students to improve their education experience. The money that they receive towards tuition usually goes straight back into their students and their faculty. This helps create an environment where everyone is excited to come to campus and spend their time there. At my school we were educated under the values of the Xaverian Brothers. Their values were compassion, humility, simplicity, compassion, and zeal. Our classes were also influenced by “educating the whole person” so classes were not only focused on the material and the grade, but also becoming a better person by helping your classmates and by being honest with your teachers. This led to a better culture in our school where everyone trusted each other.
Another big positive about private schools is that the classes are usually a lot smaller than public schools because fewer students attend these private schools. Smaller class sizes allow for students to be more connected with their teachers and makes it easier to create connections with their fellow classmates and their teachers. A closer connection with their teachers allows for these teachers to understand their students more so they can help them excel in the classroom. In my school, the average class size was 15 students and our entire grade was 272 students. This allowed for everyone to become really close and for the teachers to know their students very well.
Private schools focus on the future of their students a lot and it is of great importance to them. One major attraction factor of private schools is the alumni network. This alumni network is a product of all the resources put into the education of the whole person at schools and the culture at these private schools. An article by Our Kids states, “A strong sense of pride is often instilled in private school alumni, creating rich networking opportunities upon entering the workforce” (Our Kids). The alumni network creates an incentive for the students at the school to get involved in a variety of things in the school from clubs to sports because it creates more opportunities to get connected. Even though people might not be thinking of networking and connections at such a young age, their parents are influenced by a good alumni network when deciding to send their kids to private school. The alumni network at St. John’s Prep has over 10,000 active members and it is a big part of why I chose Penn State, because I wanted a massive alumni network to tap into once I graduate. St. John’s Prep alumni are heavily active in the experience that students have at the school and alumni usually send their sons to St. John’s because their experience was so good.
Private schools have so many great things going for them that are a massive influence on deciding whether to go to a private school or public school. But the biggest factor for most people is the price tag attached to paying thousands of dollars a year to have their children go to a great education. Most people can’t afford it so it limits the outreach of this great education.
Works Cited
https://www.ourkids.net/school/benefits-of-private-schools
You bring up a lot of great points for the benefits and negatives on private schools. Cost is definitely a major factor on the decision to attend public or private schools, especially when the next step in education is college which is very expensive. Private schools give an unfair advantage to the less fortunate students. It would be better if they could put more effort into finding a way to be more inclusive and fair. I had never thought about the benefits of a private school before college, until you mentioned them. I feel like it depends on what would benefit each family the best, but an alumni network is helpful in many ways.
Private schools are “private” and get their money from the tuition from voluntary sources but they also get a small part from the state they are in, unless it’s in D.C., but my main problem with the school system currently is the fact that private schools don’t have to follow a curriculum. This may be fine now but we already know that some majors are not making any money because there are too many people or not enough jobs. A school may have an underfunded subsection because the school itself doesn’t want to put money into it as a private school or the state doesn’t care enough for public schools. This leaves a big gap for some needed occupations and students who aren’t always doing research into their field every week don’t know about job availability.