Easy way for parents to save money: cut down on tuition

agau168

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Tuition may help your children game the school system of getting good grades but can backfire if your children end up hating the subjects. No point spending so much money to force your children to study. Good grades are no guarantee of success in life.
 
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chopra

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save on tuition fee and
buy sti etf for ur kid.


more practical right?
 

bright_84

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Tuition is more that someone does after school care rather than about grades.
 

klarklar

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Parents should ask themselves this question. Based on their own personal experience, did having tuition give them an advantage in life over classmates who had no tuition? Did not having tuition give them a disadvantage?

I would like to ask the high-SES people on this money forum who live in condos, private housing, drive impressive cars.

Do you attribute your present success today to having tuition during your childhood?

For those who are not as successful, do you attribute your present lack of success today to having no tuition during your childhood?
 

JuniorLion

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Do you attribute your present success today to having tuition during your childhood?

For those who are not as successful, do you attribute your present lack of success today to having no tuition during your childhood?

2018 is not 1988.
 

dork32

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well tuition does work. my kids grades did improve after tuition.

recent survey show kids from challenged home did worse than their peers in exams

it could be down to 2 reasons.

these kids got stupid genes. it comes from their stupid parents. so their lives are condemned, their kids and grandkids lives are condemned

or, they have less resources. parents have no money to put them through tuition. they are at an disadvantage compared to the rest. so they did not do as well. But if they are willing to work hard, their kids can have better resources. they can have a better fighting chance.

if you have kids in RI and hwa chong, go ask them how many of their classmates live in private and how many in hdb. go ask the kids in the bedok xxx schools ask the same questions.
 

dork32

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Why is tuition important for financial success later in life in 2018 but not so in 1988?

if you do not mind your kids scoring 60 marks and other people kids scoring 90, it is perfectly fine if there is no tuition.

the fact is this. depending solely on school teachers is not enuf.
 

dork32

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Why is tuition important for financial success later in life in 2018 but not so in 1988?

if you score well in your school, chances are you will not be too badly off in life.

bill gates also drop out from uni but become a billionaire. how many dropouts become billionaire?
 

dork32

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during our time, it was different.

during my uni days, none of my close group of frens had parents who had uni degrees. we have mechanic, hawker, driver as parents. none of us had tuition. my dad have a teaching diploma after o level. he seems to be the smartest of my group of dads. all of us were quite ok in life.

these days it is very different. elite schools are filled rich kids and neighbourhood schools are filled with hdb kids.
 

dork32

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If you want to help your kid, why not save up the tuition money and use that money as a head-start for your kid?

which is better? to spend money on fishing lessons such that your kids can fish,
or to save money such that you can also buy more fish for your kids in the future.
 

Broadwalk

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which is better? to spend money on fishing lessons such that your kids can fish,
or to save money such that you can also buy more fish for your kids in the future.

You strive to put your children on the path of elitism thinking and be a pap member.:o
 

dork32

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sg uni fees is 9k+ per year. if you are going for honors or eng degree, it is 4 years at close to 40k of school fees.

save your 40k and use it as downpayment for your hdb or put it into your kids cpf sa so that your kid can have a headstart in life.
 

dork32

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You strive to put your children on the path of elitism thinking and be a pap member.:o

i do not support pap nor am i a tuition teacher.

if you prefer your kids go to the neighbourhood schools while my kids go to the good school, go ahead.
 

dork32

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i spend 800 on tuition + 600 on their CCA every month.

i only send my kids to tuition on subjects that i cannot make it. the rest, i will teach myself.

the more you teach on your own, the less you can spend on tuition.
 

ocs_woodlands

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The underlying issue is a lack of motivation.

I estimate that I came from the bottom 20% SES of the time and society I was in.

My girl comes from a family in the top 10% SES today. She has no hunger. She ia motivated BUT nowhere as hungry as her parents were. Her brain is filled with KPOP (hell has a special special for some.of them).

What does tuition do? It's a stop gap measure for us, to buy time, for her to grow older and perhaps more exposed to competitive pressures and sometime for her to develop her intrinsic motivation.

It is impossible to simulate for my daughter, her father's tough surroundings to motivate her.

That would mean I have to divorce her mother and not pay her alimony.
 

dork32

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my kid use cca to dsa into a top school.

the tuition and my teaching prepares him well academically such that he would have made it even if we did not dsa.

this is what i meant that kids with better resources tend to be more successful in school. yes, it does not guarantee success in life but i prefer that my kids do well than badly in school
 

dork32

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The underlying issue is a lack of motivation.

I estimate that I came from the bottom 20% SES of the time and society I was in.

My girl comes from a family in the top 10% SES today. She has no hunger. She ia motivated BUT nowhere as hungry as her parents were. Her brain is filled with KPOP (hell has a special special for some.of them).

What does tuition do? It's a stop gap measure for us, to buy time, for her to grow older and perhaps more exposed to competitive pressures and sometime for her to develop her intrinsic motivation.

It is impossible to simulate for my daughter, her father's tough surroundings to motivate her.

That would mean I have to divorce her mother and not pay her alimony.

you are right. motivation level for my kids are low. they do cca because i force them to. they study because i force them to.

do you want to do nothing and let them progress on their own? do you want to see them in ite while your friends kids are in top jc and uni? at the moment you just have to push your kids, in hope that they can wake up.
 

soneat

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Personally, I think it boils down to individual (i.e. the child's personality) and the environment he or she is in, what the child wants and what we as the parents want for the child.

My first child basically only had English enrichment 6 months before PSLE as English was her weakest subject. She ended up with pretty good results (qualified for ESIS and can qualify for any school based on academic merits). However, we (as well as herself) still opted for IP, but not to the 'elite' schools.

These are my observations (just to share):
1. Most students (almost all) have multiple tuitions.
2. Most parents enrol their children for tuition without a clear objective. Many parents are indeed spending a lot on tuition.
3. It is quite true that elite schools have a higher proportion of "rich" parents.

My child is currently in the IP cohort and doing relative well (almost hit max GPA) without any tuition and achieve it independently. My "running" cost for my elder child is almost zero as I invested her scholarship in REITs and the dividends are paying her various fees.

To me, the valuable skills or attributes to be imparted to a child are basically the "survival skills" in life such determination, discipline, resourcefulness, adaptability.

So...in short, I think it is generally correct to say that a lot of money is wasted when parents spend indiscriminately on tuition.
 
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