D is thinking about a joint JD/MBA. That is a long way off. If she does take that path, I will pay, because I don’t want her having any education debt. I do expect her to contribute, however, through scholarships and some savings from her first few years working after undergrad before grad school.
My parents,immigrants from Eastern Europe, valued education—as such they paid for my undergraduate education and my brother’s. H and I were in fully funded graduate programs.
We paid for undergraduate school for both our daughters. Oldest went into a full-time MBA program when she was 28. She received some funding and the rest was paid for from an education trust that we created for our kids. My son-in-law is in a fully-funded doctoral program and also receives a stipend. Youngest D started an MFA acting program and used money from the trust to pay tuition. She is in her second year and has one more year. Last week, she learned that Brown/Trinity is now funding all its MFA acting students. Good news!! She won’t pay anything next year for tuition.
I did not intend to pay for a Masters for my daughter, but since she finished undergraduate in 2.5 years (IB Credits), I di d pay for 1.5 years of a Master’s as the total was 4 years.
Some things to consider:
What kind of grad study? For some professional degrees, funded programs don’t exist.
How old is the student? Do you feel differently about helping at 23 vs. 35?
Is there “leftover” money from undergrad - kid got big scholarships, picked a cheap school, or finished early
Are you trying to even things our or keep them equal between siblings? This one can be a giant can of worms.
What’s your philosophy concerning when someone should become completely responsible for himself or herself?
I’m not criticizing anyone about how they choose to spend their money, but I always find it interesting when people say that they value “education” but indicate that what they really value are vocational degrees and those with expected high financial return. And when there is also an implication that people of their background value it more than others, as a general rule, I find that kind of offensive, honestly. Its like embracing an ethnic stereotype only if it is a flattering one.
My H and I are not Jewish–I’m Irish, Welsh, and Finnish, and he’s mostly English and German–but we value education a lot, enough to put away the first big chunk in trust for S’s education when he was four. When we paid off his debt, his major was the highly remunerative field of French. 
We were only barely beginning to get back on our feet, financially, then and when we took a HELOC a year later. He has only been paying the HELOC interest for his graduate degree–in a field most would consider impractical, I’m sure–not the principal, since his income is predictably low despite two Ivy degrees.
@Consolation, I did not intend offense as I was not stating that other groups did or did not have the same feelings. To state the obvious, lots of folks highly value education (including perhaps all CC parents) and I did not mean to imply that this affinity for education was solely the province of the Jews or that it was shared by all Jews. I live in a pretty affluent, pretty Protestant suburb in the Northeast (about 15% Jewish) and have been surprised at the reluctance of some parents to fund education. But this reluctance includes some Jews: One set of my wife’s relatives decided they didn’t want to pay for their son to go to grad school at Oxford to get an MS in Finance or something like that. (His grandmother funded.) Nonetheless, I am going to say a few things below about why my statement is supported by data and is not merely a positive cultural stereotype.
I think your second point about whether grad school is supposed to be vocational is a good one. I never had to make the choice as my kids’ graduation education choices would lead to employment. I was wondering what I would have said if one of my kids wanted to get a masters degree in folkloric studies, which would not provide any particular than economic benefit (by the way, I’m just making this up as one of my relatives has such a degree and no employment related to it, so please take it as metaphorical). My guess is that I’d fund, but I might encourage a less expensive way of doing it (e.g., Canadian university, etc.) but would certainly spend time, as I did with my kids, thinking about their likely career paths. I don’t think undergrad should be primarily vocational, but I do think that kids should use the time to think about what kinds of life choices they are making.
I’m going to provide some documentation for what I said, but feel free to ignore if my apology was sufficient.
One can document a real affinity among Jews for higher education. According to the Pew Research Center, “Most Jews are college graduates (58%), including 28% who say they have earned a post-graduate degree. By comparison, 29% of U.S. adults say they graduated from college, including 10% who have a post-graduate degree.”
From a review (https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dobbin/files/2007_asq_karabel.pdf) of The Chosen by James Karabel, a thoroughly data-rich study of the admissions policies of HYP, “Early in the twentieth century, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale became alarmed at the number of Jews entering each year. At the time, these schools admitted all comers who could pass an entrance examination that was not particularly trying. For the most part, young men from the sorts of backgrounds that the Ivies would not have appreciated did not go to college, and if they did, they knew not to apply to these colleges. That changed as more and more sons of Jewish immigrants from Europe applied for admission. Columbia soon found that 40 percent of its entering class was Jewish. Harvard counted two or three Jews among every ten freshmen.” The bulk of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe was in the 1890s and early 1900s, so as Jews settled into the US, their college applications reflected their interest in higher education. Note that, unlike the earlier wave of German Jewish immigration, this group was far from affluent and hence, the affinity cannot be attributed to SES.
I do think highly valuing education is baked into Jewish folks for two or three sets of cultural reasons. First, as I stated, if a group’s cultural history includes being kicked out of every country its members live in, it makes sense to invest in human capital. (See https://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/HistoryJewishPersecution/ for an incredble timeline). One study of Jewish literacy in Russia estimated that 64.6% of Jewish males were literate in Russian versus 38.7% of non-Jews, but this underestimates Russian Jewish literacy because many Jews were literate in Yiddish but not Russian. Second, at least in Eastern Europe and possibly in the Middle East, scholarship in Torah was highly valued. The smartest boy in town was often married by arranged marriage to the daughter of the richest man in town so he could advance the study of Torah (and have the most kids). Third, there is a study by economists Botticini and Eckstein that argues, with a fair bit of compelling data, that a shift in the practice of Judaism that occurred near the end of the first millenium requiring universal literacy among boys (I think at this point the Bar Mitzvah switched from just a ceremonial occasion to an event where the boy had to read from the Torah and perhaps interpret the reading), Jews who were able began investing in education and those who couldn’t dropped out of the faith. According to them, a significant percentage of the Jewish population chose to or had to become non-Jewish. What remained were people who highly valued education. [This last reason argument may also explain the previous observation].
Interestingly, a number of Indians and Chinese that we’ve met (and especially mothers of our kids’ friends/GFs) in the US think the Jews are sort of kindred spirits for the values that their cultures place on education and family. My son’s Chinese GF’s mother says that there is a group in China that believes Jews are super-intelligent beings sent to earth to help but also, some of the negative stereotypes of Jews that @Consolation mentions (being tight with money, too sharp in financial dealings, in a conspiracy to control the world, etc.) are seen in China as positive traits there.
By the way, if there is a conspiracy to control the world, how come they haven’t let me in it? Maybe if I spent less time on CC …?
Sorry for this digression.
My daughter is about to graduate and NOW her adviser is trying to get her to stay for grad school. I told her if he has $50k in his desk drawer for tuition and living expenses, go for it.
I think she’ll get a job and have the employer pay for a few classes.
@ordinarylives: “What’s your philosophy concerning when someone should become completely responsible for himself or herself?”
I think from a very young age (even though it may not be wise). I’ll be willing to fund the right HS, college, majors, degrees, etc., and if they made the decision (or heck, even if the decision was made for them) to not spend it all on HS/undergrad in order to save up for a good/useful grad degree, then I think that is commendable responsibility.
Oh, and I believe in funding both a good education (though I personally believe that a good liberal arts education is best experienced in HS) and good vocational skills (engineering/plumbing/medicine/etc.). In fact, I believe that the trades (like engineering) are often looked down upon too much on CC.
I had encouraged my son to do a joint 5 year bachelors/graduate program. Then I realized I didn’t have enough money saved to help him for the 5th year, and it would have been paid almost entirely with grad PLUS loans in his name. I then was relieved when he idecided to just do the bachelors degree and get a job. His employer now offers tuition assistance for grad classes.
One thing to keep in mind is that some schools give 5-year scholarships and sometimes it’s possible to get a bachelor and masters in 4 years (either through credit brought in to college or special programs).
We are similar to several here in that we had a budget for each equal to cost of flagship. Oldest got a full tuition scholarship at an LAC. With housing costs she used up about half. So we paid tuition for grad program to get her MAT in elementary ed which gave her highe salary. It was not a funded program. She’s lived at home and did a little part-time job.
Younger stayed at flagship and took the full ride and actually saved a nice chunk from overages and summer work. Cost to us? We paid her parking garage. So we were happy to contribute to grad. She is fisnishing masters where she got full tuition and stipend for two year and half tuition for third year (optional for PhD prep). She would Only do funded PhD but it’s not much to live on depending on school she chooses. We will likely help a bit but at this point she will use her savings from undergrad to help. We consider a PhD a choice to hold a low paying job for 5+ years so she will be more on her own. I will say we still haven’t spent the amount we set aside for undergrad. We want to help both our kids start off debt free. We are fortunate to be able to do it. And lucky to have kids that were able to get merit aid