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>Chief among them is education for their children: the top 10% now allocate almost four times as much of their spending to school and university as they did in

>Chief among them is education for their children: the top 10% now allocate almost four times as much of their spending to school and university as they did in 1996, whereas for other groups the figure has hardly budged. How much of this is driven by the heavy increase in postsecondary education costs, as well as a Masters degree being the new Bachelors degree for setting your child apart from the pack? (I know many parents who press their child to go for a Masters with this rather superficial reasoning)

ubernostrum 9y ago
It's more that, for people who have the money, the process of throwing serious money at education starts much earlier, and the amount of money is higher than ever. Go read about extremely-competitive pre-kindergarten programs with gigantic waiting lists for parents desperate to start their child on an Ivy League track as soon as possible. Follow up with top private schools, intense private tutoring, and parents who literally do things like buy a clinic or an orphanage somewhere in a developing country so their child can "work" there for a couple summers and write about the experience in their admissions application: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/to-get-to-harvard-go-to-haiti.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/to-get-to-... Richard Weissbourd, a child psychologist and Harvard lecturer who has studied the admissions process in the interest of reforming it, recalled speaking with wealthy parents who had bought an orphanage in Botswana so their children could have a project to write and talk about. He later became aware of other parents who had bought an AIDS clinic in a similarly poor country for the same reason.
- madengr 9y ago
  Funny, everyone I know who is doing well never went to an Ivy League school. The most wealthy (net worth probably $100M) never went to college. I'd say wealth is built from grit, education, and frugality, not pedigree. If anything, all the online, open courseware has shown me that the Ivy Leauge coursework is no different than that of most state universities. My kids will have a choice of two in-state schools. If they can get into an Ivy League, that's fine, but they must fund the difference.
  - sjg007 9y ago
    Peer groups are what matter. If I hadn't had a friend whose parents were programmers back in the early 90s I'd be some plce else entirely.
  - bsenftner 9y ago
    It has very little to do with the coursework, and everything to do with the social bonds formed in Ivy League. However, I will point out, being a person that did my undergrad at Boston University but took my preferred computer science classes at Harvard, the Ivy League actually teaches! Their professors take a personal interest in their students success. I originally took a Harvard assembly language class because it was not offered at B.U., and that one class opened my eyes to their vast difference between Ivy League and non. I went on to take the majority of my core classes at Harvard night and summer schools, as the same classes at B.U. were foreign grad students with bad accents lecturing to the board. The Harvard classes were exhilarating and exciting, with my head filled with possibilities after every class. And that was practically every class I took there. At ivy League, the professors are self actualizing on their students, and that is HUGE.
    - madengr 9y ago
      Maybe I'm jaded then. My professors were American and also cared about student learning. No grad students teaching courses, other than myself (just the lab section). I also have no social bonds to class mates; most were foreign and were only there to study.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    I'd posit that the network strength that you get from Ivy schools are a boost in getting to 1~2 sigma above the mean, but 3 sigma variation will have a lot to do with luck on top of everything else.
dagw 9y ago
How much of this is driven by the heavy increase in postsecondary education costs I would guess that the biggest increase comes not from post-secondary education, but K-12. Back when I was a kid no one talked about the relative merits of different K-12 schools. You went to your closest school and that was that. Now that market is hyper competitive, almost more so than for colleges. People spend a lot of time, money and effort to get their kids into the 'right' kindergarten and fret that if their kids don't get into a good school from literally day 1 they'll be set on a track for failure for the rest of their life. Another factor is private tutoring and other academic extracurricular expenses that also seems to have skyrocketed.
- vostok 9y ago
  I think this is just your personal experience. People have been going to Andover since 1778 and to Eton since 1440. Is it possible that your peer group now is wealthier than your peer group as a child?
  - dagw 9y ago
    Is it possible that your peer group now is wealthier than your peer group as a child? I don't think that's it. While it's obviously true that the very elite have always cared about and spent a lot of money on their children's schooling if definitely feel like it's becoming more and more of thing even among 'normal' people. Much of this is probably connected to the fact that options to choose your own schools are becoming more and more available in ways they haven't been in the past.
  - orbitur 9y ago
    It's also possible there's a lot more private "elite" primary/secondary schools now.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ubernostrum 9y ago

It's more that, for people who have the money, the process of throwing serious money at education starts much earlier, and the amount of money is higher than ever. Go read about extremely-competitive pre-kindergarten programs with gigantic waiting lists for parents desperate to start their child on an Ivy League track as soon as possible. Follow up with top private schools, intense private tutoring, and parents who literally do things like buy a clinic or an orphanage somewhere in a developing country so their child can "work" there for a couple summers and write about the experience in their admissions application: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/to-get-to-harvard-go-to-haiti.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/to-get-to-... Richard Weissbourd, a child psychologist and Harvard lecturer who has studied the admissions process in the interest of reforming it, recalled speaking with wealthy parents who had bought an orphanage in Botswana so their children could have a project to write and talk about. He later became aware of other parents who had bought an AIDS clinic in a similarly poor country for the same reason.

madengr 9y ago
Funny, everyone I know who is doing well never went to an Ivy League school. The most wealthy (net worth probably $100M) never went to college. I'd say wealth is built from grit, education, and frugality, not pedigree. If anything, all the online, open courseware has shown me that the Ivy Leauge coursework is no different than that of most state universities. My kids will have a choice of two in-state schools. If they can get into an Ivy League, that's fine, but they must fund the difference.
- sjg007 9y ago
  Peer groups are what matter. If I hadn't had a friend whose parents were programmers back in the early 90s I'd be some plce else entirely.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  It has very little to do with the coursework, and everything to do with the social bonds formed in Ivy League. However, I will point out, being a person that did my undergrad at Boston University but took my preferred computer science classes at Harvard, the Ivy League actually teaches! Their professors take a personal interest in their students success. I originally took a Harvard assembly language class because it was not offered at B.U., and that one class opened my eyes to their vast difference between Ivy League and non. I went on to take the majority of my core classes at Harvard night and summer schools, as the same classes at B.U. were foreign grad students with bad accents lecturing to the board. The Harvard classes were exhilarating and exciting, with my head filled with possibilities after every class. And that was practically every class I took there. At ivy League, the professors are self actualizing on their students, and that is HUGE.
  - madengr 9y ago
    Maybe I'm jaded then. My professors were American and also cared about student learning. No grad students teaching courses, other than myself (just the lab section). I also have no social bonds to class mates; most were foreign and were only there to study.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  I'd posit that the network strength that you get from Ivy schools are a boost in getting to 1~2 sigma above the mean, but 3 sigma variation will have a lot to do with luck on top of everything else.

dagw 9y ago

How much of this is driven by the heavy increase in postsecondary education costs I would guess that the biggest increase comes not from post-secondary education, but K-12. Back when I was a kid no one talked about the relative merits of different K-12 schools. You went to your closest school and that was that. Now that market is hyper competitive, almost more so than for colleges. People spend a lot of time, money and effort to get their kids into the 'right' kindergarten and fret that if their kids don't get into a good school from literally day 1 they'll be set on a track for failure for the rest of their life. Another factor is private tutoring and other academic extracurricular expenses that also seems to have skyrocketed.

vostok 9y ago
I think this is just your personal experience. People have been going to Andover since 1778 and to Eton since 1440. Is it possible that your peer group now is wealthier than your peer group as a child?
- dagw 9y ago
  Is it possible that your peer group now is wealthier than your peer group as a child? I don't think that's it. While it's obviously true that the very elite have always cared about and spent a lot of money on their children's schooling if definitely feel like it's becoming more and more of thing even among 'normal' people. Much of this is probably connected to the fact that options to choose your own schools are becoming more and more available in ways they haven't been in the past.
- orbitur 9y ago
  It's also possible there's a lot more private "elite" primary/secondary schools now.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]