“Huge expense” is still an understatement. Registration at our PUBLIC middle school was over $600 with all the fees (high school was less).  While that’s a smaller  expense it totally caught me off guard. Now add in “luxuries” like sports, music, technology, extra curricular.  Solidly set in the middle of middle class (according to the class calculator for our county) we forgo many actual luxuries like travel, eating out, lawn care. Affording college feels like a weird necessary luxury. Prom is this weekend, I was actually surprised the ticket cost a modest $105.