Do you mean college, or are you referring to elementary or high school aged children? If you are talking about the younger folks, I have had both the public and private experience: public school for kindergarten through 8th grade and private for high school. For me, the differences were minimal with regards to the education I received. I think the general assumption is that the education at private schools is better somehow than that at a public school, but for me this wasn’t te case. My public school experience taught me to be accepting of all types of people (it was a very racially and economically diverse inner city school in Chicago), I learned Russian for 9 years, and the lessons I got in reading and writing were second to none. In private high school, I got a good education, but by no means was it superior to going to a good public high school in Chicago. As for diversity, mostly white, upper-lower-middle class girls is not what I’d call diversity, but we didn’t have cliques, as is the case in some all-girls schools. It is expensive (my parents paid more for me to go to high school than college), but I was very involved in theatre and the arts, so I think it was worth it. I loved wearing a uniform because it made life so much easier. I think it really depends on the school. You don’t have to pay a lot to get a good education, but private school has its benefits.