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There are many reasons why the discussion of private vs public is initially difficult to enter into without knowing the actual parameters of the discussion.

Is the question related to the education, the curriculum, the teaching staff, the facilities or is it intended to compare the behavior of the students, the opportunity of networking with children of perhaps wealthier families and thereby assisting with establishing the children in a higher social status?

It is this contributor's intention to assume that it is the latter for which responses are sought, as it is obvious that a broader range of facilities and higher qualified teachers will inevitably be 'better' for the students learning experiences. However, these opportunities are, in this writer's opinion, not 'better' for the students in the long term.

Students who are educated in the more protected, closed environment of a private college, invariably do not experience all the 'real' world has to offer. Their sanitary world feeds them only that information it wishes to impart and allows them to experience events with other privileged students. That is not the way of the 'real' outside world where people from all walks of life have to co-exist.

An argument against public colleges is that there you find drugs, 'rough kids', and no discipline. However, the irony is that private college students generally have much greater access to money which they then use freely to buy drugs. As for 'rough kids', they exist in the 'real' world, whether they be kids or adults. The sooner children learn to respect that there are others who resort to violent behavior, the better it is for them. Much easier to learn to deal with ugly situations from an early age, rather than protecting the individual until adulthood who then finds him/herself suddenly in the midst of a world they didn't know even existed.

As for social status, in early school years it doesn't make much difference to children who comes from what sort of family. But as children become teenagers, they begin to understand more about family wealth and status. Often the parents of private school students are friends, or move in similar social circles making it easy for the children to become friends too. Should one child join one of the 'groups' at school, they often don't stay friends into adulthood unless they too can keep up financially.

So is Private better than Public? Basically no. Not unless you're prepared to accept someone who has more access to drugs, is a less 'well rounded' individual who is raised in a sterile, unrealistic environment.

The writer refers to personal experience in this article. She was educated in a private college beginning in primary school and ending at the end of high school. At the end of her education, she exited the college and entered a world totally different to the one in which she'd lived. Her own children were not educated in the same environment, a decision she has not regretted.

Learn more about this author, Lindy Laker.
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