Last week I was making dinner and commenting to my husband about preschool tuition costs. The conversation went like this:
Me: “I was reading in some blog about someone paying $7K per year for 3-K”
Him: “Wow, that’s a lot of money”
Me: “I know, I don’t think I could bring myself to pay that much for pre-K”
Him: “We can’t even bring ourselves to pay the $35 for ten weeks of Gym class for son #1” hahaha!
Just to clarify, our son is involved in three weekly activities that keep him busy in the mornings, so he’s not hurting for social interaction.
But since I touched on the pre-K subject, I just wanted to say this. I get it that some people think that this is important to send your child to 3-K for child development. However, going from my own experience. I went to pre-K when I was three years old and I am sure I had lots of fun. However, I always thought about how by the time I was 27 years old and finishing my second masters degree I had been studying most of my life. To put it in numbers, I had been “in school” for 22 out of those 27 years. I was feeling a little burnt out.
Is 3-K going to determine how well my son does academically in his future? I certainly think not. Actually I feel that my son would be better off if I put that $7K in a 529 for the one year and send him to 4-K instead. I feel it is smarter to invest in my son’s college education than in a year of pre-K.