BPTotty-
Good point about healthcare and maaser. Unfortunately payments for tuition at private schools are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions, I think.
SJS, I beg to differ about NNJ, I wouldn’t dismiss it so readily. My reason for mentioning it was to respond to Cherrybim’s comment that the obligation rests squarely on parents’ shoulders and it’s their shoulders that should bear the brunt.
BP, back to you – yes, education does pay. We want to see our children succeed in yahadus and have a chance at making a respectable parnassa. However, it’s coming at an increasingly higher cost these days and takes a bigger emotional, social, and financial toll than it once did. That price is becoming very steep. Furthermore, tuition payments help keep money out of retirement and targeted (eg saving for making a wedding, etc). Who’s going to fund parents’ living expenses when they can’t work anymore and have little or no savings? Their kids? Uncle Sam (and then he’ll raise taxes? Something to consider.
The problem here is that many families just cannot theoretically afford tuition these days. I know it’s nice and easy to say that tuition always pays, but that doesn’t even begin to answer what is a firmly entrenched economic problem.