University Education for Kids

Hi Annabelle,

Do you have money saved for your kids university education?  Do you plan to contribute to it?  How does it factor in to your thoughts around money saving and frugality?

I was looking to get a general idea of how much university might cost.

		Tuition and Fees		Room and Board	Books and Supplies	Other Expenses	Total	Notes on Total
		In-state/CDN	Out-of-state/ International
CU-Boulder	USD	11,091	34,125	13,194	1,800	2,294	28,379	In state
Cornell	USD	34,209	50,953	13900			64,853	Out of state
Univsity of Ottawa	CDN	5,014
UBC	CDN	6081	31352
McGill	CDN	8780		14656	1000		24436	CDN rate
University of Toronto	CDN	7225		11493	1000	1000	20718	CDN rate

We were saying that we would like to help the kids be able to go to either a school in Canada or a state school without having much debt.  It means about 100K per kid in today's dollars though!  Back of the envelope Andrew was saying that is about 15K in today's dollars that we need to save every year.  Not cheap!

What are you guys thinking?

Hugs, Jen

Waldorf Schools Around the World

Hi Annabelle,

I should really be headed to bed, but our summer schedule of sleeping in has let me get quite nocturnal (my natural state).  The girls and I didn't come down for breakfast until 10 AM this morning.  Our big trees are being cut down next week and we need to be out of the house by 7:30 AM; it will feel very early!

I was just looking at the availability of Waldorf Schools in these various locations.  I really enjoy the Waldorf philosophy and Sage does say that she finds a lot of the kids are ready for a more formal education setting by the time they are 9 or so.  And I wouldn't want to leave the US before becoming a citizen anyways (even if Trump does get elected...urg).  So I think that would be about 2 years from now before I get my citizenship.  I don't want to ever go through all the immigration stuff again and you loose your green card if you don't live here.

Europe:

• Germany (Munich office): Looks like there are at least three (here, here, and here).  All German of course.  I like the idea of getting fluent in French and Spanish; I am not sure about learning German.  Mind you if Kate actually stayed there that would be a factor; but she doesn't enjoy living in Nuremberg and would like to move somewhere else (it is only 2 hours from Munich).
• Switzerland (Zurich office): One Waldorf school in Zurich.  It actually looks like it was one of the first in the world.  The tuition seems to be quite high, as a percentage of income.  School seems to be in German; Steiner did teach in German.  They do teach two foreign languages but I am not sure what they are.
• Ireland (Dublin office): There are a five Waldorf schools in Ireland and some of them are even funded by the education system.  Only one of them is anywhere near Dublin: the Kildare Steiner School (not funded by the government).  There are towns (Newbridge, Naas) that would be about a 20 min drive to the school and 40 min into Dublin so that could be feasible.  Some of Ber's family actually lives in this area as Kildare is the county where she grew up.
• UK (London office): there are a few (e.g. here, but others come up in Google search); the London Ontario one also came up for me which confused me at first
• France (Paris office, not sure how much Eng): talking to Andrew it doesn't seem like this office would actually work for a transfer
• Belgium (Brussels office, not sure there is very much Eng in this office): talking to Andrew it doesn't seem like this office would actually work for a transfer

 Asia/Australia:

• Japan (Tokyo office): I tried to look up Waldorf schools in Tokyo but it was pretty overwhelming; at the moment I am not that keen on living in Japan anyways so that is fine.  I definitely didn't see an obvious English speaking one!
• India (Hyderabad office, not sure how much opportunity to go here): There are actually a few English speaking Waldorf schools here (who knew!).  They are here, here, here.
• Singapore: there is a small group in Singapore which is trying to establish a primary level Waldorf School (they have a pre-school), it looks really cute.  Here is a description of different preschool options in Singapore that lays out who funds what.
• Australia (Sydney office): has "oldest Steiner school in Australia" (I think they said) called Glenaeon.  It is about a 20 min drive from the Google office.  Looks like a snazzy private school that happens to be Waldorf.  There is another one that is 45 min - 1 hour away in the hills that also looks neat.  There is even a Rudolf Steiner College in Sydney for adult education and teacher training (I sometimes wonder if I would get enough into Waldorf that I would like to teach).  Another one is only about 30 minutes away from the office in Belrose and is called Kamaroi.  It looks a little bit more homey (which I like) and it seems to only go to Grade 6 (but it definitely has a waiting list).  It seems that their terms are completely different than ours, and I guess start the year at the end of Jan/beginning of Feb.  For 2017 at one school it is: Term 1 Feb 1 - Apr 5, (3 week break), Term 2 Apr 26 - June 28, (3 week break), Term 3 July 19 - Sept 20, (3 week break), Term 4 Oct 11 - Dec 13 (more like 6 weeks here over Christmas and I suppose summer holidays).  I wonder if the public schools work on the same term system?  
• Notes to self: Sydney is warm; the low in winter is about 9 C.  Sydney is a 15.5 hour flight from Vancouver - direct!  That means at the very best it is a 22 hour travel time to Ottawa.  It would be a great place to access SEA, NZ, etc. IF we had the vacation time.

Americas:

• Argentina (Buenos Aires office, not much Eng here): Andrew says this probably wouldn't work for a transfer as the main Eng office is in San Paulo.
• Canada (Waterloo office): only an hour from YYZ and a 5-6 hour drive home.  It looks like there are not Waldorf schools in Kitchener-Waterloo.  You have to go to Burlington (1 h drive), London (1.25 hr drive), or Guelph (30 min drive; this could work).  The London one has a one day a week program for homeschoolers (I originally thought it was in London, UK and that this boded well for homeschooling being prevalent there!).

Well it has been a few days since I wrote the intro.  Turns out they just cancelled our tree cutting for Wed, so now it will be in August.  It was really interesting to see all the different schools; does highlight for me how much I like the look of Waldorf schools.

Hugs, Jen

Home Schooling Around The World

Hi Annabelle,

I am musing tonight about where we might live in the future.  The prospect of Trump winning the election has us thinking about other places with Google offices around the world that might make a good home.  Not that we are super serious but we do talk about wanting to travel and see more of the world.  We often talk about either 1) taking a year or two and traveling, kind of like a sabbatical, or 2) transferring to another office and then traveling in the "nearby" area.

I was looking tonight a bit at the sunshine hours in various cities (I like the website WeatherSpark).  It is sure hard to beat Colorado on sunshine and it has been amazingly lovely for Andrew to not have SAD.

Then I remembered that homeschooling is illegal in some countries and that I am not sure I want to enroll my kids in school.  I know if we were just traveling through this wouldn't be an issue, but if we are living and working there I think this is a factor to consider.  That said we might feel that being abroad is a great time for them to be in school since they could learn another language.  I guess it would depend on how old they were and what path we follow as homeschoolers.

So info is below.  It is from an Advocates for Homeschooling website, so I am curious if they are a bit biased.  But I figure it gives a general picture of where could work.  More research would have to be done if we were actually getting serious.

• Europe:
• Germany (Munich office): illegal
• Switzerland (Zurich office): legal but varies by canton; Zurich now requires teaching credential; wonder if not being fluent in one of their official languages (German, French, Italian) would be an issue as well
• Ireland (Dublin office): legal but seems to have onerous registration and legal actions taken when not followed
• UK (London office): legal and do not have registration requirements unless have been in school
• France (Paris office, not sure how much Eng): legal, need to notify annually, doesn't seem to be always positive with the evaluators
• Belgium (Brussels office, not sure there is very much Eng in this office): legal, likely need to have testing (varies by region of country)
•  Asia/Australia:
• Japan (Tokyo office): this site I am reading says "The law is vague and the business community is supporting home schooling, so home schoolers are largely left alone."
• India (Hyderabad office, not sure how much opportunity to go here): law is to go to mandatory school, but it seems that the state has said it is not going to worry about some families who choose to homeschool
• Singapore: legal (do you know they only have 6 years of mandatory schooling, even if you aren't homeschooled!)
• Australia (Sydney office): homeschooling is legal but varies by state in how many hoops there are to go through, other people go through distance learning programs that are discussed in the same category in that you are learning at home, it appears that NSW (where Sydney is located) has the most restrictive guidelines and you have to teach the curriculum.  Here is a comparison between home education and distance learning in NSW.
• Americas:
• Argentina (Buenos Aires office, not much Eng here): no legislation that prohibits
• Canada (Waterloo office): Ontario law is quite supportive of homeschooling, with no testing requirements (although one must notify), unless they become suspicious of you for some reason

It is kind of funny to think about living somewhere else and homeschooling but part of the concern is that once you are in the school system you have all the truancy and attendance issues.  And if we want to be traveling around the area, or back home, this seems restrictive.

Hugs, 

Jen