We have three kids (adults now). We have told them from the very beginning that life isn’t “fair”. I honestly don’t know exactly how much we spent on each. They are very close together in age so most of the time we had 2 in college and one year we had all 3 in college (oldest was finishing her last few months of grad school). The oldest went to the least expensive school, but the younger two got more scholarships. All went to California public schools. We paid for the older two to get their masters, and helped with their cars, but the youngest, so far, doesn’t want a masters, and lives somewhere where he doesn’t need a car. That being said, we have set a budget for their weddings. The daughter will get twice what we give the boys.
The phrase fair not equal gets repeated at my house quite often.
I expect to be in a similar situation in a few years. The one who really needs the benefit of siblings in college at the same time may not get it. I think that some of the money I have saved for number two will probably end up going to number three. I’m going to make number two maximize his loans even though he probably doesn’t need to.
Is this the most fair way to do it? I don’t know. But my thinking is it also isn’t fair that he is going to have the benefit of 1-2 siblings in college which helped his financial aid. I am hoping that with what I have saved all of my kids will be able to basically max out their 4 years of student loans and I will be able to pay for the rest. In an ideal world I wouldn’t have them take any loans, but that’s not the financial situation we are in. Plus I don’t think it is a bad thing for them to feel like they have skin in the game as well.
When I was in college, I was the one who cost my parents the least. They tried to give me something to make up for it but I declined. The details were different but I appreciated that they were trying to be fair.
“Do you think your kids will care?”
My three kids count every penny, LOL. The first received a merit scholarship of about half the cost of attendance but at an expensive private school that still left about $35,000 - $40,000 a year to pay. She went to a public HS and advocated for her college choice by pointing out her HS was free. Number two went to a private HS but took a full ride merit scholarship to a state school for college. We’ll have spent about $120,000 more on child one by the time they graduate. Child 2 has graduate school plans and plans to enter a profession that will be low paying for quite a few years, so we plan to help him out. Child 3 no doubt will be the most expensive, but we plan to spend about the same as with child one so he will need to get scholarships if he wants to attend an expensive school.
We struggled with fair not being equal, especially when net costs are not the same, but mostly because there are so many unknowns when we began the process. The older child has the benefit of being born early - when costs were incrementally smaller plus the FA was better for a bigger family. But then we try to reconcile this with outside merit scholarships that one got. One got family help with a summer internship - that meant summer earnings were substantially more - while the other’s summer internship paid less, and required summer rent payments, and gas money.
My SIL went through a similar situation where the oldest got great merit, and the younger 2 got lots of need based aid. Then the second child became an RA and the costs were lowered as there were no R&B components required at his school for those 2 years. They expected the third child’s cost to increase - which they did, but then that child had medical issues and skipped 3 years - so it dragged the process out, and costs increased even more.
No matter what you think it might be, you won’t be able to predict to the penny ahead of time how you will handle it.
But you’ve shared with your kids that education is important. There are plenty of families that are wealthy enough (over represented here on CC) to afford to be full pay for all of their kids. Most families do not have that luxury. The lesson you give your kids is that you try to plan and make fair decisions such that you will do their best to help meet their needs.
Hopefully your relationship with all of your kids is that they know you will try your best to do what is right - you’re not encouraging sibling rivalries, this isn’t a situation where you expect one will say the other was loved more because you paid more. They will all understand that life isn’t fair nor always equitable - and that you all are working toward the benefit of the entire family. SIL told all of her kids - “When it comes time for you all to decide to put me in a nursing home, please remember I’ve tried to do what we consider is right based on the information we had, and could reasonably predict”
It’s much much easier to think fair is equal when you have more than enough to go around.
If I could afford it, I would make up the difference for child #3 not receiving the same level of need based aid as her older sibling (this coming from a child #5, for whom in-state costs had risen to what older siblings costs had been for private schools - my family and I found a plan that worked and seemed fair to all). To me that seems fair - the colleges are saying what they believe your family can pay, and presumably with only one in college, they are going to expect your family to pay more with only one child in college.
I had one who did, and one who didn’t. For the one who did, it wouldn’t have mattered if I paid exactly the same, she still would have found something to complain about how unfair it all was. This wasn’t just for college but for everything - prom dresses, gameboys, clothing, shoes. When she was 8 she asked if she could have clothes for Christmas. I told her yes but that her sister wouldn’t want clothes so she had to be okay with things not being exactly the same. It took her 2 days to think about whether she wanted to be happy and get presents she really wanted or to take take another gift that would be exactly like her sister’s. 'fair and equal,'but not what she wanted. You’d that that would be an easy choice, but not for her.
I stopped telling her how much anything cost and I stopped worrying if she was happy about financial decisions I made. I think it is fair and she never will.
With our three, we kept costs about the same, the last one went to a private school, but first did two years of CC, then followed with two years at the LAC with merit aid. It worked out about the same cost. Kid #3 graduated HS at a pretty young age so it made sense to do the CC.
There are many ways to look at this, and it really comes down to a family decision. We did not set up equal standards for our many kids. But with the large time span in between the first and the last, costs had increased astronomically, and the stockmarket was not performing those years. We took things as they came.
Our youngest was the most expensive with his first choice school close to $70K/year. It was more than we wanted to spend and did not want to take parent loans or any loans this late in our lives. We had just paid off such loans we took out for the earlier kids. We did find that we could tighten the belt a lot more with all of the kids out of the house and pretty much on their own. Also the other kids decided they could pitch in about $15K ayear towards the youngest’s expenses. That and an inheritance and my brother pitching in some $s made it possible.
Mindful of the costs (and that he could have gone to college for free at other schools), he also managed to work and get free room and board his last year, which lowered costs considerably. So things did work out.
All of my kids had different journeys in terms of how much their college cost and how much they contributed. We did not have a set amount for each child.
I have a friend who was able and willing to pay full private school prices for her children, and offered each one the difference between that price and their choices.
It’s all about how you want to do things with your family.
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My kids only knew that they could not chose a full pay, no merit college, not how much the cost was for each of them. If they chose in-state, they would have to take no federal loans. If they chose private or OOS public that cost more than the in-state, they would have to take the federal loans. Otherwise, they really don’t know if we paid more for Kid 1 than Kid 3 (and even if everything were completely equal, we would pay more for Kid 3 because costs have escalated signficantly over time).
Our view was that we will pay for each kid to get an undergrad degree. No one has questioned actual costs for their siblings. We had individual conversations when each were looking and have a rough limit for costs. We had one at an instate public, one OOS public, and last will be at OOS private and planning on study abroad.
We didn’t compare EC costs in HS and they are each getting what they need and wanted in a school.
I consider it fair to provide 4 years of education at the child’s best acception(fit). One hit the FA jackpot, the other not so much. Money is not the measure
The “fairness” issue may not be just providing $X vs. providing “an education.” For those of us not in the upper income brackets, “an education,” without cost consideration isn’t going to be an option…ever. Good financial advice is to give the kids the budget so they can apply as appropriately as possible and avoid the heartbreak of the unaffordable dream school.
Fair may also be considered sticking to the established guidelines. If you’ve been telling the kids since #1 went to college that the criteria was $X, changing the rules so that #3 can go to the same college as #2, regardless of cost, may be far less fair to the older ones. Consistency in what you have been telling the children may the “fairest” of all.
There are things my husband and I believe should be as “equal” as possible with regard to spending on the kids (material goods, travel, for example), but education is not one of them. Kid #1 will end up costing us considerably less than Kid #2. Kid #1 (for reasons relating to his particular needs and fit) went to public school from 5th through 12th grade and got a good merit scholarship at his college. Kid #2 (for reasons relating to her own particular needs and fit) went to private school from 5th through 12th grade and is full pay at her college. We do not see any unfairness in this, as we think of education as a necessity that we feel very fortunate to be able to provide for our kids according to their needs.
We do not spend equal amts of $$ on our kids. In parenting we are each according to their need. We have high performing kids who have easily qualified for merit scholarships. We have kids who are more avg students who don’t. The avg kids don’t get to go to “dream schools” by any stretch, but their living at home and commuting can end up costing more than a sibling attending a different 4 yr U on full scholarship.
Our kids have grown up in a household where our 2nd child is a high functioning autistic with an extremely high IQ but completely disabled by anxiety, OCD, and executive function deficits. By far, we have spent more $$ on him and continue to spend more $$ on him than all of our other children. (He is 27, so definitely not a child.)
Our perspective is that we help all of them to the best of our ability within the realm of what we believe appropriate as parents. If they grow up and hold a grudge bc we spent X on one child and Y on another, then they are not living with the values that we attempted to instill in them when they were growing up. (Since we have kids from 30 down to 9 and 5 are adults, no real concerns about this. Though we have told them that they will likely see their youngest sibling get to travel in a way they never did. Plane tickets and hotel rooms for 9 (7 kids and 2 parents, the most we had at home at one time) is far different than for 3. Such is life…not fair. 
)
Chiming in on the adult child part of this . DH was the oldest of 3 and Was the worst academically. He was compelled by his parents to get multiple part time jobs to finance his education as his father had a set number in mind for each child. Fast forward 30 years-he is now the highest earning of the 3, having attended the least “prestigious” college. The value of his having to work his ass off set him straight and put him on a course to be successful in his current position in education. As someone said about, fair and equal are two different things. FIL tried to be FAIR! But it ended up giving an unequal education on life!
I have a different take than most on this thread. It’s pretty simple. It’s my money so I decide what’s fair! We have the ability to pay full pay for both kids. That doesn’t mean I will. We are for kid 1. We feel he earned it and will greatly benefit from it based on his scenario. Kid 2 likely won’t benefit that much more from a full pay expensive private based on her goals, career ambition, etc. So, in our example we’ll pay 70k x4 for 1 and probably half that for 2. We’re certainly not going to give the other 35k x 4 to 2 just because it cost less. To them it cost nothing.
The other thing that may change is your ability to change MAY fluctuate over the years that you are paying. Even though we only had two children, our ability to pay did fluctuate substantially in the years our kids were in HS and college. Fortunately, we were able to handle the increased costs of D attending the same U as S, full pay. We would never have predicted we would have been able to shoulder that financial burden without huge loans.
Our kids have said that they are very grateful that both were able to graduate from their U with no debt. Neither has counted the amounts we have paid toward their private HS, U and D’s CCollege.
What’s fair is that kid 2 got merit aid due to hard work and diligence.
If you think that kid 3 worked really hard and just has less to work with, you can think about spending more on that child without violating what’s fair.
Given that each of your older kids got a virtually free education, no one is in a position to say a word if a bit more is spent on child 3.
@citykid RE your post #33 -
Not to pick on you, but I’m just curious if your Kid #1 thinks that its fair that you paid a lot more for Kid #2 due to a private high school, then to a full pay college with no merit.
I don’t begrudge any family for doing what it thinks is best, and I like your perspective, especially as you feel fortunate to be able to meet their needs.
I think it is less likely that kids will think their parents are unfair, or that they treat one child better than another, when the family is able to pay the costs of their kids education.
When families can’t afford it, and they decide to favor one child over another, then resentment is more likely to appear.
@ordinarylives RE post #31 - I agree that sticking to the guidelines is a good way to try to be fair, but two problems come up with this approach. First, and I think the OP is struggling with this, is the problem of where to draw the lines and establish the guidelines when the costs are unknown. Parents want to do their best to help all of their children. Second, what do you do if / when employment changes, or the stock market crashes, or other drastic financial issues like divorce or medical issues arise. and you can no longer meet what you planned on?
Apologies, I haven’t read the other posts.
In our house, we pay for what’s going to be best for each kid. Kid 1 goes to an expensive private school. We felt that was the best option for her. Kid 2 thought it was crazy to spend all that money (though we were prepared to do so) and opted for the least costly option. It’s not like he gets the difference in cost. Each kid is responsible for their spending money in college. Pretty simple.