You just can’t argue that prep schools and public schools offer the same education and athletics. They are no where near the same. But for some reason, parents heads are in the sand, they don’t see the list of top high school lacrosse teams, the list of top lax players and where they go to high school. Or they just choose to ignore the reality of lacrosse being a highly skewed sport towards private and prep schools.
The resources a prep school or private school has to support students far exceeds the total government average per pupil funding in the US in 2021 of $14,840. If you don’t think that buys a better overall education and athletic experience, I don’t know what to tell you.
I have a kid in private school, so I'm not bashing it. But if you're gonna have the public vs. private debate please be real. The reason elite D1 teams have so many private school kids is because private schools pluck the very best players and give them free rides. The average rich private school kid isn't out there dominating because they attend a wealthy school and are getting more reps in on their lighted turf field. The best prep schools recruit top players and those players tend to start in public or parochial and then end up in private.
The number of "scholarships" is pretty high, but relatively few are "full rides." I think Niche and other websites point out what the average financial aid package is, and if there were 12 full scholarships for lax, 30 full scholarships for football, 5 for basketball, 6 for baseball, etc, those numbers would be MUCH higher than the typical "25% average financial aid."
Most of these schools want to see parents demonstrate that they are committed/invested in the kid's education and athletic development, partly because the aggravation over 9th & 10th grade transfers is sky high.
It also speaks to the importance of academics for lax. Much as D2/D3 don't have "athletic scholarships" but they have "academic scholarships for athletes who performed in the classroom." Same is very much true for prep schools and boarding schools.
