If you went to a private intl school, I imagine the tuition wasn't cheap. That right there is the difference. When you're paying big bucks, your parents will want to do everything to make sure you don't fall behind. I assume with that kind of education you also went on to complete a university degree of some kind.

Contrast that to the public high school system in the US, where resources are lacking, and students may not even have the tools at home to follow through with remote learning, let alone hope to go to college, which is still 5 figures a year minimum.

> still 5 figures a year minimum

Speaking from personal experience, if you did decently well academically in high school, you can get upwards of 16K a year in grants alone (Pell Grant ~6K, State Grant ~5K, University Grant ~5K) if your situation is documented poor based on your parent's and your tax returns.

My state school (UT Austin) charges tuition of about $5.5k/semester if you take >= 12 hours of classes a semester.

Of course, I realize this advice only applies to those who are demonstrably poor and perform decently academically. But college is (better than) free if you fall in this category.

The problem comes with families who aren't "poor" but aren't rich enough to afford spending an extra $20k/year ($11.k for UT Austin plus $10k for living expenses) for four years, for each kid. If you have three kids it's like buying an extra house, which isn't that affordable for most families.

Often times when parents are taking international positions for their firm, the employer will pay for private international school.

I expect it's a bigger problem for high schoolers in general--especially seniors if it ends up meaning some students don't graduate and just drop out.

If I think back to my grade school experience, I was admittedly a pretty good student but I can't really imagine any single semester being all that critical. (And, in fact, I ended up skipping 8th grade.)