Thanks to all that did not respond to my question, but spent their time schooling me on how wrong I am.
Thank you all for your unpleasant responses.
Thank you most of all for showing me that I can't come here for questions unrelated to FIRE, unless I am willing to be brutally berated and called names.
Some really unhappy folks that need to be right no matter what.
Thank you Chrissy for responding to my question.
Peace out.
purple monkey - I've re-read over all the replies and I think you are mistaken about the posts made here. The majority of posters did not call you names or berate you. The closest I could find is one person calling not vaccinating your child "stupid". Note this is very different from calling you stupid. Another refuted the idea that we are in a backwards state (your OP - quoted by radram 3 posts down now).
You asked for ideas and if anyone had experience, and many people shared their ideas and experiences. Getting a medical exemption was suggested by multiple people (including myself). others shared their experiences with the disease in college. I'll add my own - as an athlete in college we had meningitis rip through our squads not once but twice. Two of my teammates wound up in the hospital and had to red-shirt the year; a girl on a rival team died.
Others brought up the fact that colleges have a duty to protect their students and if you don't agree with their policies you can either fight to have them changed, ask for an exemption or choose a different school.
Since you asked for personal experiences I'll add this additional one: I am at a major university and TA field courses. I also have coached the athetic teams and been involved in theatre. For each of these activities (e.g. field trips, sports teams) there are often additional requirements for participation, including vaccination records and personal evacuation insurance. I will not allow any student to participate until these requirements have been met and the university gives me the authority to do so. You might disagree with me but my responsibility is first to the health and safety of everyone, and at times that means excluding people. This isn't just a hypothetical either - we recently had to block two foreign students from a field trip because they could not provide their medical records from their home country (they said they had all the vaccines, but without the records we could not allow them to participate).
Point is your child may find additional obstacles down the road.
Ultimately I hope you re-consider people's responses, even if you disagree with them. Most are not posting here out of malice, but to genuinely help others. As RetiredAt63 pointed out, this is a forum where we give out 'face-punches' for stupid financial decisions, and people will be critical. But critical does not mean ill-natured, nor does it mean they are calling you names or not answering your question.
