>Childcare at 4,000 is upper quartile of expensive cities. You’ll find many places where it’s half or less of that price. Private schools at $50k a year are either going to be boarding or some of the more expensive country day schools. Even Sidwell, where Obama sent his kids, is cheaper than this.

Most of the people on this site aren't farmers living in Rural Iowa so idk how relevant the cost of living in places like that are.

>And finally we get to university education. There are many schools with merit based scholarships. Treating living expenses as unique to college is also wrong.

Not everyone is getting scholarship. Obviously that changes the calculus.

>Nothing is stopping a kid from getting a job in college!

This is pure boomer sentiment. I had a job every summer in college and through grad school, this was only ~10 years ago and it paid for exactly 0% of my tuition. It was enough to survive the summers and pay my rent during grad school that was it.

> I’ve lived in some of the most expensive cities in the U.S.

> Childcare at 4,000 is upper quartile of expensive cities. You’ll find many places where it’s half or less of that price. Private schools at $50k a year are either going to be boarding or some of the more expensive country day schools.

You either have not lived in expensive cities in the US or at least didn't have kids while there!

For example in this list nearly all schools are over 50K:

https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-private-high-schools/m...