<p>Sold our families 2nd car (the one he mostly used - Toyota with 225K) to help pay tuition. If I win the lottery (I don’t play it) I’d buy him a car, right after I purchased one for me and his Mom.</p>
<p>I went to college with an 87 ford taurus with 185k miles on it… she served faithfully until this summer, when I had to get a new vehicle…</p>
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<p>It is amazing to me because I used to think that intelligence roughly=wealth, but most people on this website are way smarter than the people of my community and yet they have comparatively low incomes. And I don’t even live in a particularly rich area, just a typical suburb, so why is this?</p>
<p>My parents have replaced my old car which died last year. I live off campus and need a car to get around to where the buses don’t as I’m working/volunteering and will eventually have an internship.</p>
<p>However, they don’t pay anything for my college. They could hardly afford my car, let alone my college. But I really appreciate it. =-)</p>
<p>At my kids school it’s usually 17th birthday when the kids get their new cars. Parents are only too happy to do it so they wouldn’t have to drive any more. Most kids live at least 15-30 min away from school. No one is within walking distance, and local towns do not provide school bus service to their school.</p>
<p>oldfort, do the 17-year olds usually receive “new” cars, as in not previously owned?</p>
<p>Actually, onthefly, I live in a wealthy area and “we” tend to be mindful of where our pennies go and that including parents that drive old vehicles…(new) cars for kids is an unnecessary expense. My kids in high school have a car to drive because their grandpa had to give up the keys. It comes less from intelligence and more from generations of being drilled to spend money only on necessities. The guy four doors down has a family that hasn’t worked in a couple generations and his car is older than mine. It’s downright close to “vintage” license plates…I actually think he’s holding out for that. It’s all in the perspective.</p>
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<p>I hope you are coming to understand that this is simply not the case. Many highly intelligent people have jobs which don’t pay much at all. </p>
<p>Also bear in mind that some of us who could well afford to buy our kids a new car wouldn’t dream of doing so. I can understand getting a used car for a kid who really needs it for an off-campus job or something along those lines, but if they simply want wheels they need to earn the money and buy it themselves.</p>
<p>Excellent point, Booklady. We are not wealthy, but there are many things that we “could” have purchased that we chose not to, for a variety of reasons. Our son drives a 1995 car that we helped him to purchase during high school. He does his own repairs or pays for them and is responsible for gas and insurance. He is a college senior, and this is the first year he has taken the car to school. His choice. He couldn’t justify the expense until now.</p>
<p>DS also got a car about when he was 17 or so. It was self defense so we would NOT have to continue to drive him hither and yon. BUT it was a 14 year old Volvo. Cost us $1500. He used if for two years in high school. When it died, it was not replaced. It never went to college.</p>
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Not sure I get what you’re saying here – you’re assuming most people on CC have low incomes? And this is based on what – the fact hat we don’t all buy our kids a new car for college? Wow – talk about stringing things together trying to create a conclusion!</p>
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<p>I think you mean “rite of passage”. </p>
<p>Another one I’ve noticed on these boards: it’s holistic, not wholistic.</p>
<p>mafool - new is as brand new out of show room. D1 had the cheapest car in the parking lot, but it was a stick and it was cool. Most of her friends had X5, Audi, Cayenne, and Jeep every once in a while.</p>
<p>hahahahahahaha!!!
I thought the OP was kidding with this question!
Seriously, no car.</p>
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<p>But “right” may be unintentionally accurate, too!</p>
<p>thanks for the explanation, oldfort.</p>
<p>Around here, many if not most of the adults buy gently used vehicles, so getting a brand new car for a kid is quite unusual.</p>
<p>I certainly don’t think parents owe their college kids cars, whether old or new. </p>
<p>However, my son did get a new (small, inexpensive, manual transmission–but new) car when he went to college. It was bought with the money that was not spent on college because he chose to accept a very large merit scholarship instead of choosing a full-pay school. If he had not bought a car, the money would have been his to save for post-college plans. </p>
<p>When he got the new car, his younger sister got the old truck. She has been driving it for two years and it will go to college with her.</p>
<p>Son is very much a tight-wad. I fully expect he will still be driving that car 15 years from now. He stayed in his college city to work this summer. Most days he left the car at his apartment and took the bus to his job, to save on gas money. It does come in handy when he visits on breaks.</p>
<p>onthefly-- why on earth would you assume that my not buying my D a new car to go to college would have anything to do with whether or not I could afford it? It has no bearing at all on my choice, at all.</p>
<p>New cars? Hah!..S1 started college (in 2005) with a 1989 Ford Bronco II. S2 started college(2008) with a 1996 Toyota pick-up. Both have now been replaced with used pick-up trucks that are pushing nine and ten years old.
Both S’s plan to keep their “new” pick-ups for many years to come.</p>
<p>A new car? We don’t even buy ourselves new cars. But in any event my college junior still only has a learner’s permit.</p>
<p>BTW our income puts us in the top 10% of the country or so, but we also live in a high tax, high expense area and we definitely are not rich within the context of our county.</p>