<p>Written agreements exist to give you and your attorney documentation to produce in court, should the need arise. Hopefully, that scenario isn’t relevant to your kid’s choice of a college.</p>
<p>They are also a good way of preserving a record between friends or family members in case of future doubts or questions. Otherwise, sometimes its hard to remember the details.</p>
<p>If the parents’ only stipulation is that the kid maintain a 3.0 GPA … that probably is going to be remembered without much need for anything in writing.</p>
<p>But if there are several things the parent wants agreed to – then it might make a lot of sense to write those down at some point. </p>
<p>I think we have to keep in mind that paying for college can be a tremendous sacrifice for parents these days, often with impact on other family members. So I don’t think it’s odd at all that some parents might want to be sure the kid who is the beneficiary of a 5-figure annual parental investment understands that the money does not come without obligation.</p>
<p>I didn’t have any oral or written contract or agreement with either child. Both of them knew it was a HUGE financial sacrifice (six figures per kid) for us to send them to their private U and both have always done their best to learn and explore different opportunities. S just graduated–we encouraged him to take the full 4 years instead of graduating a semester early. We were very proud of him & pleasantly surprised that he was able to graduate with honors in a very tough major.</p>
<p>D is now a junior at the same school & we believe on track to graduate in 2012 with all her buddies from HS. We will have paid for 3 semesters of CC & 3.5 years of expensive college but have no complaints. She is working hard and behaving responsibly. </p>
<p>We have always trusted both of kids to make good choices and to date, they have never let us down. We did have a verbal agreement with S that since he wanted a car, if we shipped him our old used car, he would be totally responsible for it–picking it up from the dock, driving it, getting parking, getting it registered & AAA, getting it serviced regularly, paying for gas & insurance, and dealing with any tickets. He has honored this agreement. We told D that she would have to be able to do the same if she wants a car.</p>
<p>My parents didn’t have any formal written or oral agreements with any of the 7 of us either. We all graduated within 4 years or less & 6 of us also got professional degrees. We all knew our parents were sacrificing for us to be able to get our educations. Our parents also repaid all our loans upon our graduations.</p>
<p>Perhaps if there are financial issues to spell out that you don’t think your student has been paying attention to, you could put it in wiriting. For example, you might say that if they lose their merit aid, you will not increase your payment, and htey must either get loans or transfer to a less expensive option. When we were on college visits, over yogurt I told D that grad school was on her. She was genuinely surprised that I would not fund her education forever.</p>
<p>Okay so I had the conversation with S last night and explained what we expected of him. I did not put in form of agreement but I did want some bullet points in writing so that he has them for a reminder. This is my first child going to college and an elite one at that. Thanks for the input and I will make sure that this is a positive reinforcement and not a negative.</p>
<p>I think you are right to do that. Agreements - or clarity of expectations - is not about trust, it’s about fairness and setting clear standards. Kids can’t always read their parent’s minds. What happens, for example, if a kid is earning C’s at an expensive private school, with the parents paying full freight? Those are passing grades, certainly enough to keep the kid off of academic probation… but if the student is capable of doing better, the parents might not like to pay premium dollars for lackluster performance. Being clear at the beginning can prevent disagreement down the line.</p>
<p>We made no contracts with our kids. Instead, I created a spreadsheet of projected college expenses for 4 years, including tuition, room, board, textbooks, fees, scholarships, loans, work-study, transportation, entertainment, etc. It showed how much the whole venture would cost (close to $200K), how much the student was contributing, in terms of scholarships, work-study, living expenses; how much we (parents) were paying, and how much will be taken out in loans by us. I stressed that we were willing to make this financial commitment, but it needed to be clear that the commitment was huge and represented personal sacrifice on our part. I also pointed out that the scholarships should be thought of as a ‘salary’ for going to school, i.e. it represented payment for doing a job. I finished by noting that that it would all be OK with us, as long as each of our kids ‘earned’ their diplomas and made good use of their time.</p>
<p>I think that kids are not always cognizant of their parents’ financial situation relative to the cost of an undergrad education, and it would be better to clear that up and state general expectations, rather than specify a GPA threshold, choice of major, limitation on ‘substance’ use or quantity of nookie (really?). There may be some kids who need defined limitations, but I would always hope that I had brought my kids up well enough that it would not be necessary.</p>
<p>Our son graduated on time and did well in virtually all his coursework. I might have argued with his choice of major, but other than that, we were well satisfied with his undergrad education. Our daughter is a Sophomore, and she is doing very well, and if anything, has overloaded herself with work and extracurriculars. I fear that the above-mentioned financial talk may have been a bit TOO effective; she is feeling guilty about our financial situation, and wants to figure out how to graduate a semester early. While I am not opposed to that, we are worried that she might overwork herself in order to make it happen.</p>
<p>I see a huge advantage behind the principle of the agreement, but little need for the agreement itself. The intent of the agreement is to point out all the parent’s expectations for the student, the gifts the parents will give in exchange, and possible consequences if the student does not meet expectations.
Too often parents and student assume what the other will do because it isn’t clearly spoken. What one party “knows” or “believes” may not be what the other intends. What is “good?” What is “good enough?” These assumptions can lead to huge disappointments and worse.</p>
<p>It isn’t a matter of trust at all.</p>
<p>We read here all the time about a parent that might yank funding if
a)student gets pregnant
b)fails a course
c)loses scholarship
d)has low gpa
e)wants to switch schools
and many other reasons.
Parents are the life-experienced adults. If they do not fully express any terms, conditions, or expectations before the student attends, then they have shortchanged the student.</p>
<p>The biggest benefit is not the legal ground to sue if student doesn’t perform, or that such an agreement would compel the student to perform, but the clarity of the expectations</p>
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<p>The discussion starts here and ends with a hand shake, hug, kiss, high five or whatever passes for agreement. No signature required.</p>
<p>No we would not have executed an actual written contract. There were enough conversations about mutual promises through the years. We also didn’t set a particular GPA but did discuss that the college required a B average to remain in the major and that was not unreasonable to achieve or maintain and that would be the benchmark for continued support. We had lots of “agreements”…you’ll have the car home by midnight and we followed up when there were consequences of not living up to the agreements so no reason to think the kids might not believe us if we said we would not pay for the particular college unless they had the GPA the college set…</p>
<p>People’s memories of hand shake agreements tend to differ over time. As long as things work out, there’s never any problem – its when things don’t, that the issues arise. </p>
<p>I assume that some parents are able and willing to financially subsidize their kids no matter what, giving unequivocal support – and of course they do not need an agreement. </p>
<p>But things don’t always go as expected. Kids who were straight-arrow, A students in high school sometimes go off to college, go wild, and mess up – and others work very hard at tough majors, but find that they are in over their heads and can’t keep up their grades. The parents of those kids sometimes post on CC, asking for advice on what to do – do they pull the plug? do they send the kid back for another semester? </p>
<p>Obviously, parents always have the power of the purse. I just think its more fair to be explicit about expectations in advance.</p>
<p>I know a parent who pays her kids’ tuition as follows: 100%/course for each A, 80% for each B, etc. I would have signed anything for my parents that might have given me an option against the student loans and constant working and doing-without that had me scrambling to pay for my education. Maybe this student has shown irresponsibility and taken parental help for granted before? I see many parents shrug off their kids’ certain behaviors and drinking habits and then appear shocked that their kids partied their way to a poor average.</p>