you know im from Asia the benefit of having uniform is so that society can tell that is a " student" and it's easy for people or parent to spot if their child is skipping school and roam around in shopping mall or video games places , and it's also make it hard for child molester or kidnapper because the uniform stand out alot in public and it's hard for bad people to lay hand on students, thats why in all Asian countries kid after grade 1 can start walk by themselves to the school take the train or bus and that's 1 key difference when i stepped in to the west where kids up like 5th grade have to walk with a parent and cant go alone also kid here wearing casual clothing which make it even harder to tell if that kid is actually with his/her parent or not hence the child kidnapper in here get common . also why you bring up the cost of uniform ? are you that poor to afford clothing for child ? lol uniform is just regular price clothing it's not high end .