Private School Is Becoming Out of Reach for Middle-Class America

These days, private school really is just for rich kids. While the enrollment rate for children from middle-income families in U.S. private elementary schools has declined significantly over the last five decades, the level for high-income families has been relatively steady, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study released this month -- a trend that could come to perpetuate the nation’s growing wealth divide. The shift is most apparent in urban areas, where the enrollment gap between kids from high- and median-income families increased from 5 percentage points in 1968 to 19 points in 2013.