Why an Early Investment in Education Matters

It’s a common friendly debate among parents – do you invest in the best private education for your children while they are young, or do you stock away those resources until they’re older – so they can use it for college?
“In our experience,” says Tim Borruel, co-founder and superintendent emeritus of Legacy Christian Academy, “parents report that in many ways ITALICS because of their early investments in their children’s education, their high schoolers are earning scholarships to prestigious universities, saving big on out-of-pocket expenses for Mom and Dad.”
But does private education in elementary and middle school really make that big of a difference? It depends, says local education expert and Legacy head of school Matt Millett. “Parents have to take a variety of variables into consideration to ensure that their investment in early education makes financial sense for the long term.” Millett suggests comparing private versus public in the realms of class size/teacher:student ratios; technological resources; opportunities for high-quality enrichments like dedicated art, music, foreign language and technology classes; STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) programming, resources and curriculum; and campus investments for safety. Parents should also consider elements that may be important to their family culture, like character-building and faith education.
“What we’ve seen in the field of education over the years,” shares Ryan Anthony, Legacy’s middle-school dean of students, “is that one of the biggest predictors of success – from college graduation rates to career earnings and even in qualitative studies on happiness – is that education in childhood matters. A high-quality education early on prevents achievement gaps – there’s no ‘catching up’ in high school and college when you start ahead of the game.”
At Legacy’s recent alumni gathering, graduates new and old joined together to reminisce on their experience at Legacy – and how it shaped their experiences in high school, college and beyond. “The general consensus was: Legacy laid the groundwork for success in high school advanced-placement classes, which earned them scholarships to college, where they excelled because of the study skills they learned at Legacy… and then they entered their careers, excelling in the interview process because of the speaking and reasoning abilities they developed at Legacy!” says Carl Astrera, the Valencia campus’s alumni director.
Legacy Christian Academy serves a Kinder-through-eighth student population on their high-tech, Christian-based campus. Legacy Christian Academy at 661-257-7377.