Hogwarts Tuition - Key Point

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 73585

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Fred Waldrop"
<fredwaldrop at y...> wrote:
> "megalynn44" <megalynn44 at h...> wrote:
> 
> BUt that's the thing it is NOT a big deal, it's just as normal to
> pay for education as it is for food, clothing, and everything else
> in life.
>  
> ~Megalynn
> ====================================================================
> 
> Hello all, Fred Waldrop here;
> 
> Megalynn, You mention that you HAVE to pay tuition to go to school, 
> therefore EVERYONE HAS to pay tuition. Then you mention that the 
> reason you HAVE to pay tuition is you go to collage. The problem 
> with your reasoning is, no one in Potterworld is in collage. 
> ...edited...
> 
> Fred Waldrop

bboy_mn:

Despite that fact that I don't agree with her(?), I will re-enforce
one of Megalynn's key points, and that is that she(?) finds it hard to
believe that a BOARDING school can be free. The expenses for housing,
 maintenance, and food would just be too high to make it cost
effective. Please note that added emphasis is to BOARDING and not
school. I'm sure Megalynn understands that free public schools are
very common.

So while I do understand her point, and can see that Boarding schools
incure additional cost beyond education, I'm still sticking with my
founder's endowment, and alumni funding theory. 

In the end, unless JKR come right out and says it, we will never know.
But I will make an additional point; it has been traditional in
fantasy and fairytale stories about wizards, for the wizard to train
students for free as appentices. They usually take poor disadvantaged
kids, frequently paying the kids parent a fee, and the kids comes to
live with the wizard and train as an apprentice. Now, I doubt that the
kids training is absolutely free. They usually have to serve the
wizard, maintain the castle, help with food preparation, etc... to
earn their keep. But the get a very expensive general education, an
education that is far beyond their normal financial means, plus the
get to learn lots of cool magic. My point is that if we take a broader
view, it is not unheard of for Master Wizard to train apprentices for
free. JKR does draw a lot of her themes and foundations from existing
mythology.

I've actually been wanting to add this comment (above re: boarding) to
this thread to let Megalynn know that even though I argued against
her(?), I did get her point, and this gave me a good opportunity  to
do that.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn