Introduction
Something I spend a massive amount of time considering is: how do you actually set your kids up for the future, specifically in relation to private schooling? What will the landscape in 10-15 years look like? Will many people care about top universities? They really seem to have tarnished their name and the value of a degree has really fallen off a cliff.
My Background
I was born in Istanbul. My family were pretty comfortably upper-middle class. Not "we own the country's mines" level rich, but I definitely had it really good as a kid, maids, gardener. We were family friends with people that bordered on the actual bourgeois of the country. I went to a list of pretty decent private schools: British International School, ACI Okullari. I often joke that everyone I went to school with either ended up as a Patrick Bateman style finance guy or a hairy armpit, blue-haired communist. Though, almost all of them ended up at well-respected international universities.
I moved to the UK when I was 12-13 and started at a British state school. I've experienced both private and state schools, and my friends from private schools overall turned out as curious, well-rounded, emotionally mature, culturally in-tune, global people with great aspirations, where my government school friends almost entirely turned out as fat alcoholics with zero interest in life (though many also turned out alright). The difference was stark.
Disclaimers
A large amount of disclaimers: the following text is a large list of ideas bouncing around in my head, not a religion to be followed. I will almost certainly change my mind on some of these topics. I would also like to make it clear that I'm aware that my observations are almost entirely downstream of "the reason private schools are better is because they have more funding" and "the reason rich kids turn out better is because their parents have more money and they're around other people with money". Very simply put, you can solve problems better if you have more money.
Also, there's a lot of correlation/causation stuff going on here that would be practically impossible to unpick. The school is a convenient bundling mechanism, not the secret sauce. Sure, you could likely do a pick-and-mix style life curation for your children, but that sounds like a massive amount of work. My story also has a good dose of survivorship bias.
The Value of a Private Education
People who haven't been through both public and private education won't understand the difference. People are dogmatic one way or another; there are relatively few people who have been through both. It's similar to the biological men vs biological women cultural battle. No one (in the case of private/public schooling, few) have actually lived as both throughout their life, so much of the "X or Y have it better/worse" discourse is just speculation. My takeaways are as follows.
Private Schools
Teachers are curious, well-meaning, well-paid, well-rounded people who understand their work is raising the next generation.
Anecdote: I distinctly remember a maths teacher I had, Mustafa. There was a particular concept I couldn't quite figure out, so I misbehaved in class instead. I misbehaved so badly that I ended up getting a lunchtime detention. During that detention, rather than sending me off to the naughty corner, he sat down next to me and basically said "you're misbehaving because you're struggling" (correct). Then we had an hour-long, one-on-one tutoring session where I ended up not only understanding the topic (in one of those "oh shit, it really clicked" moments) but it inspired me to take a genuine interest in maths as a kid. I also developed a massive respect for that teacher. He genuinely wanted the best for me and was willing to take his lunchtime to tutor me.
Food is considerably better
The high-sugar junk they feed to children in state schools should be illegal to give to children. I can't overstate this enough. I can't help but think some amount of this ADHD and Autism stuff is just down to children eating absolute bullshit. Kids having massively caffeinated drinks filled with e-numbers, waking up and eating fucking frosted flakes from a young age is tantamount to child abuse. For lunch we would have these beautiful meals. Don't let the Redditor DSM brains tell you that kids drinking sugar and caffeine during their formative years is anything other than terrible for their development. This is in addition to all the physical exercise they'll be receiving, which basically means they're considerably less likely to have attention issues.
You're around families that are doing big things and have big expectations of their children.
This is another massive one. If you removed everything else from the equation, the simple fact is the whole concept of "you are the average of the 5 people you hang out with" is absolutely true, regardless of anything else. If all your friends and their families are along the lines of "yeah, that's Mert, his family owns all the water this side of Istanbul," then you're going to be on track to do quite well in life.
Extracurricular activities are expected: you become a more rounded person through music, languages, sports, whatever.
As a kid I swam, played tennis, was part of robotics club, was in a chess club, would ride dirt bikes, flew and drove RC planes/helicopters/cars with a tutor and my dad for years, and played the piano. I was unbelievably fortunate that my parents put me into all these extracurriculars, but this was normal. EVERY single one of my friends did a myriad of extracurriculars. I once again cannot overstate how important I believe all these extracurricular activities were for me as a kid.
Absolutely no doubt that much of my autodidacticism (tutors were good, but you'd have to practice piano yourself and so on) and curiosity comes from the fact that I did such a wide array of things outside school.
The reason I lump this in with private schooling is because oftentimes the school will offer these extracurriculars AND it's completely normalised to have your kids in a sport, something intellectual, some language, music and so on. You genuinely would've been weird if your kid wasn't doing like 2-3 different hobbies at the same time.
Even now, all my friends from Turkey are still into classical music, tennis and the list goes on. People I know constantly harp on "I'd like to do X or I'd like to do Y" (piano, tennis, pilates) what have you, but they never actually seem to do anything. I can't help but think it's a mixture of laziness and never actually having it shown to them that people who play tennis aren't upper-class aliens. You can just go and join a club. It's not just them (specifically); this is one of my core issues with kids who didn't really grow up doing much: even as an adult they don't end up doing much.
People don't know how good life can be until they're exposed to it
Having started a new job, I got talking to the founder of the company. We're both private school kids. One of the points we agreed on was that people really don't know what could be out there for them. Whenever the inevitable "what would you do with 10 million quid in your bank account?" discussion comes up in an office, most people's initial reactions are always along the lines of "I'd buy a nice car then go on holiday to the same shitty place I always go in Spain." People are so unbelievably unimaginative when it comes to money. If I had ten million I would secure my family for the three generations it would take for them to squander it. Education, trusts, long-horizon investments... 10 million is where you start moving into family office money. People who never grew up around money don't even realise half this shit exists. One of the women in this office mentioned that "something I found out is rich people buy time, not things." Well yeah...? The main value of money isn't to make issues disappear, because money just changes what issues you have to deal with. It just gives you MUCH more breathing room when dealing with the horseshit the world will inevitably throw at you. Rich people still have issues; I know I'd rather deal with issues of having money than not having any.
You avoid the problem of the 'bottom 20%'
I've heard people talk about the issue of the 'bottom 20%', in schools teachers teach to the bottom 20%, kids who may be from bad homes, governments build society to make it work for the bottom 20% and so on... as valiant of a goal as this is, it basically just holds everyone else back. with private schools the 'bottom 20%' are still kids from likely more turbulent backgrounds, though nowhere near as bad as public schools. Once again, a powerful selection mechanism.
Public/Government Schools
A surprising amount of teachers are alcoholics and/or have serious and concerning personality flaws.
The amount of times the topic of one teacher was brought up in front of another one and the response we got was basically "yeah, it seems a bit nuts, but that's just the type of person they are." Essentially just admitting that this person, who was just seen as a liability, was allowed to engage with children. Teachers who get competitive and jealous of children and try to one-up them, teachers who randomly just argue with children, teachers that are known to be moody and unfair, teachers that pick favourites, teachers that literally flirt with children? Half of these people need to be in prison, never mind entrusted with kids' futures.
Drug and alcohol use is massively normalised
Though this is the case at private schools as well. I've heard the line that the only difference between public/private schools is private school kids have access to better drugs. Rich people's lives are set up to handle substances much better: better healthcare, better interventions and so on. There's the additional layer (in my case) that Turkey is still a relatively conservative country, so substance abuse is nowhere near as popular as it is in the UK.
Trying hard will make you unpopular. It's cool to not give a shit.
It was genuinely really upsetting to realise how uncool it made you to be someone who really tried. Coming from the private school culture of 2-3 extracurriculars at a time, private tutoring for schools, being competitive with your friends over exam results, to the UK state schooling system's at-best indifference, at worst outright social ostracisation of genuinely trying in school. The word "sweat" comes to mind... you don't want to be a "sweat"... Briefcase wanker
Teachers aren't necessarily ill-meaning. They just see it as a clock-in-clock-out job where they have a series of boxes to check.
Similar with healthcare, teaching shouldn't be treated as a 9-5 job. If you're someone who just does the bare minimum to get by in some mundane office job, who gives a shit. But if you send your kids to a school where the teachers just see their work as a job, you're setting them up to fail.
TL;DR
Private schools, on average, produce overall better people in measurable and unmeasurable metrics. Many parents feel that their kids are just one way or another, but what I can tell you is that kids are clumps of clay that private schools are UNBELIEVABLY good at moulding into people who have on-average better outcomes.
There's clearly selection bias here: if your family is rich, chances are you have access to better genes, home life, tutoring and so on. Though many of the kids that go to private schools are from well-off families, many kids come from firmly middle-class families, some even from poorer backgrounds. There are many stories of single mothers living in squalor for the sake of putting their kids through private school. Though it's a tough image, I can absolutely see why.
A child's success comes down to: social circle + aptitude + personality + politics + interests + mental health to fit that mould. A competent schooling system will literally groom children into checking all of these boxes. They have orders of magnitude more resources than state schools to get kids to become competent individuals.
What Determines Your Children's Outcomes
Parenting and home culture
Often, well-off people will be more competent individuals. There's already a more positive tilt if you have money with this.
Peer group and environment
Being in aspirational circles where everyone's deep in their hobbies and schooling. This is set up perfectly.
Health and digital hygiene
As a kid I had such little time to myself because of my extracurriculars that I wasn't lost in technology and junk food.
Their own temperament
This is downstream of the others listed above.
A few key institutional brands
Built into the private schooling pipeline.
I'm a general believer that outcomes are 50% genes/unchangeables and 50% the life you choose to live. You CAN out-work bad unchangeables. The reason there's jacked guys in the gym in a wheelchair is because he's put 110% into things he can control. Sure, there's questions of "what if the kid comes out retarded" or whatever. I'm looking at the mid-case here.
Universities: Many Have Destroyed the Value of a Degree, Some Have Maintained It
One of the many reasons I dropped out of university is because I realised that a mid-rate university education in a general degree is basically valueless. I studied PPE at Loughborough University, a very respectably middle (some would argue middle-upper) of the pack university. I had a moment of realisation that almost anyone looking at my CV would just think "mediocre university, general subject, kind of irrelevant." In respect to my professional success, I basically wasted £40k going to university.
I'd even argue that going to a low or low-middle university would actually harm your job prospects. If I see someone with a business management degree from Coventry versus someone who just spent the last 3-4 years working, I would absolutely every single time hire the person who just worked. Not even close.
Then we move to "status universities": Ivy League, Oxbridge, LSE, St. Andrews and so on. Though these universities have tarnished their name in recent years by lowering their entry standards for people they consider to "need a university degree more because of their backgrounds." The example of George Abaraonye of Almost-Oxford-Union fame and his comments on the murder of Charlie Kirk. It came out that he managed to get an "ABB" in his A-levels. Funnily enough, this is almost the same as my "I don't really give a shit about university" A-level grade that got me into Loughborough.
There's still good value in these universities. There absolutely still are people who will treat you preferentially if you went to a particular list of schools. I will basically have to tell my children: you either do a general degree at a highly prestigious university (or decently strong one), or do a medicine/law/engineering degree at a middle-upper-middle university, or just don't bother with university and go to work/work with me.
The Future & My Children
A line I've been hearing more and more is: what is the point of teaching your kids X or Y if in 15-20 years it won't even be relevant any more? Public schools give you a list of facts to learn; private schools invoke curiosity, nurture aspirational thinking and focus heavily on becoming a well-rounded person.
The unchangeable M.E.T.A. (Most Effective Tactics Available) for raising children right now, and likely in decades to come, will be: prestigious schooling, mingling with rich kids and their families, MANY extracurriculars, prestigious degree from best-of-the-best university, high competence, high conscientiousness, and a good sprinkling of as much nepotism as you have the opportunity to give to them. There will always be value in being a competent, well-rounded person regardless of whether the robot drones take over.
I feel the appeal of the traditional "good school → good job" pipeline is disappearing as people are waking up to the realities of the modern world. It's not as easy as it once was. There are much more valuable additions to your children's life than the good school pipeline. As far as I'm concerned, high physical and mental resilience, awareness and avoidance of wireheading, high interpersonal skills, conscientiousness, sales, macro-economic knowledge and so on will be absolutely baked into my kids at a core level, because I will make an effort to do so. So that's why I don't mention them much. I feel this strategy is a good floor for otherwise mediocre children from well-off families.
The modern economy and job market values the real things you do in your life. You'll get a tech job if you have a track record of building software, not if you have a degree. My core point is they can build software while they're getting a degree from a good university. Why not hit both angles? If they can do better, then so be it.
The Geo-Arbitrage Plan
Since my family left, life in Turkey has become much harder for many people. Often I do still consider that if I were to start a family in Istanbul, our money would go 2-3x further than in the UK. Basically being a passport bro, not for the sake of finding desperate women to marry, but just so we can live an upper-class life for cheaper.
The Plan
Start a family in Turkey, while earning GBP through my UK Ltd
Send them to a highly respected private school
Put them into as many extracurriculars as possible
When they're 13-14, move back to the UK (I'm a British citizen, so they'll be as well) and put them into a good prep school
They go off to a prestigious university because their entire schooling up until that point has a long track record of putting kids into good universities
They get some cushy finance/consulting/law/medicine/tech job or just end up working with me
Advantages
Currency and economy risk mitigation: I get to avoid currency and economy risks of Turkey because my wealth and income will be in a stable currency, and my work can be done remotely. I'll keep almost all of my wealth in the UK, only pulling out what I need.
Cultural balance: Istanbul is still an interesting mixture between international/cosmopolitan while still having the underlying Islamic conservatism. My children's brains won't be molested by the postmodern monoculture that's prevalent in the west. That type of stuff doesn't really fly in Turkey.
"What if your son is gay?" Though I believe there are some kids that are gay, much of it comes down to what the culture pushes. Also, Istanbul isn't Saudi Arabia. It's relatively accepting and there are openly gay men in the public eye.
"What if your daughter wants to live independently?" Again, it's Istanbul, not Saudi Arabia.
"What if you want your family to be secular?" A large chunk of Istanbul is secular, it's fine.
As previously mentioned, there's almost two Istanbuls. The secular, cosmopolitan but still with conservative undertones European "side" (not necessarily geographical, more cultural), then there's the out-and-out Erdoganist side. The two don't often mix and the wealthier areas are primarily the former (unless you're talking about Erdogan's friends, I guess).
However, it is a good idea to mention to your family that they should probably just keep their mouths shut on politics. I've found that wealthier circles do this regardless of whether they're in Turkey or not. It can be seen as a bit gauche to openly talk about politics.
Geographic diversification: Though life is tough in Turkey, I do like the fact that they're kind of making their own way in the world. The EU/UK/US are the global economy. If shit hits the fan in the UK I can always just jump ship. Many of my Turkish friends are surprised I still maintain my dual citizenship. Many of them have renounced their Turkish citizenships. I asked my dad what 2008 was like (we still lived in Istanbul back then), and his response was "I barely noticed, to be honest." Turkey (and presumably my family too) wasn't too heavily intertwined for it to be that much of an issue. A country that's basically doing its own thing is one of the most powerful plan-B's you can possibly imagine. I would never give that up. I think that in the coming decades this will become increasingly valuable, so having children who are dual citizens seems like a decent move.
Cost of living: Our money will absolutely go further, I worked out by probably about 2-3x. Basic geographic arbitrage.
Quality of life: Being "rich" anywhere in the world, regardless of how the economy and life for the average person is, your quality of life is still great. I don't care to be in "it" places like NY or London. So long as there's good internet, good food, good gyms, good schools and other decently well-off people around, I'm happy. Quieter neighbourhoods in Istanbul check all of these boxes. There's PLENTY of money in Istanbul, so you're never going to be without things to do.
University fees: If you're in the UK for 3 years before uni, you don't get charged international student rates.
Accessible corruption: Need I say more? Know the right people, have a decent amount of money and life becomes pretty easy. To access western corruption you need hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.
Disadvantages
Smaller network pool: Private schooling in a country will get you in bed with the upper classes of that country. If you'd like to be friends with Turkish politicians, lawyers, financiers, business people then go ahead, the money pool is much smaller than the UK or US. It's the classic "small fish in a big pond or big fish in a small pond" dilemma, that I'm hoping an internationally prestigious university degree will help them get out of. There's the additional benefit that there is a massive Turkish diaspora globally, so the "I went to Robert College or Koç" may actually make you some friends.
Limited opportunities: The UK and US have MANY more opportunities for young people; not everyone can earn money remotely. Ultimately, the reason basically all of my friends ended up in the UK is there's almost no opportunity in Turkey. So we would HAVE to move back at some point.
Identity confusion: Being an international student is an awkward middle-ground. I was always seen as too British/International/Weird by Turkish kids and too Turkish/International/Weird by British kids. It actually took me a long time to settle into the UK. I do think that this awkwardness has actually resulted in me becoming a better person, though I would assume it's fucked many kids up as well.
Childhood trauma from moving: Moving countries and schools is kind of traumatic for a child. I moved schools a lot as a kid, then I moved country. My friend groups changed almost every 2-3 years and I just ended up becoming weirdly socially withdrawn. Fortunately I forced myself to make things work in my later teens, but it was definitely a tough point. Optimally, you could send your kids to the same primary and middle school, then move country and have high school and university in the same country. It would only be 2 schools + a university (and a country move) over their entire schooling, which is standard for non-international students.
Political/economic instability: Once again, corruption and overall political/economic instability. Great when it works for you, terrible when it works against you. Moving to a corrupt country is a highly leveraged strategy. Could end up going terribly wrong.
Turkey has genuinely changed a lot since I left. It's tilted relatively heavily Islamist and authoritarian. Stories of my mum's friends who are journalists getting locked up left and right over absolutely minor comments about the president and his party are of massive concern. We'll have to see how the next 10-20 years plays out, though I likely have only 10 years before I need to start a family.
Timing risks: 13-14 are highly socially formative years for children and this is a relatively risky move. They might end up socially retarded like me. The move would probably have to be done around 10 years old. Have 2-3 kids: 8, 9, 10, then move.
Future uncertainty: This plan optimises for a world that may not exist in 15 years. The network effect of this plan alone is the 80/20 of this. Simply being around the upper classes of a country is the overwhelming amount of the value you and your children will get from the schooling plan.
Nepotism Is Good, Actually
You know people's brains are fried when they see parents doing as much as they possibly can to see their kids succeed and label it as a bad thing. I'm an unabashed supporter of nepotism. I will do everything in my power to ensure my kids are set up as best as possible for their lives: financially, professionally, intellectually, physically, socially and so on. I prioritise my children's welfare over abstract egalitarianism.
"But you're unfairly advantaging them [my children] over more qualified people." Yes? That's the point. They carry my name and my blood and I will treat them preferentially over randoms. Clearly, if they're too far gone then it's a different story.
The risk you run with nepotism is you end up creating fail-sons. Kids who just seem to fail in life and somehow continue to maintain their positions. They will just end up being drains on your family, then almost certainly lose everything when you eventually pass.
One of the funniest things about how we conceptualise nepotism is that it's almost entirely seen as a negative thing in our culture. Sure, people who didn't necessarily earn a position end up getting further in life than people who would be better fits for the position. Clearly, when this becomes out of control you end up with failed states like Italy, South America, much of Africa and so on. Nepotism is a natural human impulse that needs to be controlled at the level of governance.
If you actually understand nepotism for what it is, it can be summarised as: "my dad was so cool his friends wanted me to work with them, so they gave me a job". Once again, modern culture attempting to rip down people who do well in life. I don't believe I've directly benefitted from nepotism. My success is a mixture of a highly fortunate childhood, natural curiosity and an absolutely disgusting amount of hard work.
Cold Pragmatism
Everything in this cold-optimisation strategy guide needs to be explicitly communicated to your partner and children. There will inevitably be a thousand "but what if"s. I usually approach things from a perspective of cold pragmatism. You will have to make up for this cold pragmatism by overall being a warm, well-meaning and competent parent, and explaining to your children that this is genuinely one of the best paths that they could've been put on.
I don't feel it's right to coddle my children. If my wife would like to do that then I'm fine playing the good cop/bad cop game, so long as it's constantly made clear that the path the children have been put on is the highest possible likelihood of working out.
