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novaparent, you have had 5 kids going off to college, but given your comment, I doubt any one of them had the kinds of emotional “issues” or concerns we are discussing here.</p>
<p>OP - As you sort through your decisions, think about the difficulty of the high school classes. If your son maintained a high GPA in some challenging classes (AP, IB, or tough honors classes), then he has a better shot at doing well in college. If his GPA was in easy classes based mostly on test scores (not tough homework and big projectes), then he may not do well in college.</p>
<p>College success requires brainpower and willpower. If you don’t think he’ll be able to hang in there for work he dislikes, then sit down and discuss the option of deferring for a year. Tell you son you think prhaps he should earn enough money so that he has some skin in the gamefor starting fall 2011. That should at least get some dialog going.</p>
<p>An architecture program is not something you mess around with. Is he getting financial aid? If he flunks out, you still have to pay back the money and tax on the grants.</p>
<p>Wow. I give you credit for doing all you can to be a good mom, but that seems to be part of the issue. Has he ever had a job? I wouldn’t have picked the concentration for him, but most kids don’t know what they want and pick something without much thought. Maybe a job and community college would be better and you could save the money until he decides.</p>
<p>I could be the OP (but I’m not)-- my S is 16, plays guitar, wants only to hang with friends and play video games. No interest in reading or doing anything intellectual, no interest in sports. GPA as of June (end of grade 10) was 2.88. He will be starting a PT job in mid Aug, which will continue through the school year and beyond, if he wants to.</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about the job. On the one hand, he isn’t doing anything else, so doing something constructive instead of video games is a positive. On the other hand, I’m worried it will eat into homework/study time and affect his grades and GPA, which I presume can’t get any lower if he’s to go to a 4-yr college. He knows, however, that if he wants his drivers license, he must have a 3.0. So, I am hoping that the license incentive, plus eventually figuring out that without a college degree he will be qualified to do only what he will be doing in his PT job, will light a fire under his behind. Fortunately he has 2 more yrs of high school, although I am well aware that his jr year grades will be uber important. Keeping fingers crossed…</p>
<p>BfloGal,</p>
<p>The trick is going to be: * How can you make the pt job eat into the time spent playing video games instead of school work?*</p>
<p>I don’t have any advice. My own S doesn’t like video games. He prefers to read–real books are preferred to web browsing too.</p>
<p>So good luck.</p>
<p>PS: Love the screen name. You originally from Buffalo?</p>
<p>Are you aware of tuition insurance? It would seem prudent.</p>
<p>The original question of the OP is unanswerable…will he succeed in college? No one can tell. Most responses have been based on one or two data points (their own children, particularly son’s). the few from college professors or persons with experience with many young college students seem the most helpful, but can never completely deal with the unique package of problems and potential that is the OP’s son. I think the advice about making the summer assignment a prerequisite to sending him to college may be good, but will the OP be able to actually carry such a threat out if the assignment is not completed? The other advice about maintaining progress and 2.0 or withdraw him from school may be easier to stick to. the OP really needs to understand what behaviour or progress is satisfactory for HER (HIM?) in order to fund S’s education. Once he/she feels confident what is her “breaking point” she should clearly tell son this and then stick to it. I am also very nervous about my recently HS grad son going to very expensive undergrad. H and I have said that as long as he passes, makes progress toward graduation on time, we will pay. Our big worry is whether he will continue his HS pattern…socialize and sleep too much, do minimal work, and with lots of nagging and support he did manage to get grades up (story of HS)…well, no longer our worry, we decided…the grades will show whether he will get his act together. we anticipate mediocre grades at first while he figures out how to manage his life at college but failure to make progress toward the degree and he is back home at cheap local U. H and I feel we can live with that kind of an ultimatum and stick to it. OP needs to think about his/her ability to stick to an ultimatum.</p>
<p>@ robinsue: yep, born in Buffalo and raised in a burb</p>
<p>Question for all: I’ve read a lot of posts that talk about not financially supporting a kid to continue in college if s/he flunks out or if GPA is too low. My question is, suppose the kid flunks out and has to come home. Then what? Does the kid sit on the sofa all day? Getting a job isn’t that easy or immediate. What do you do with a kid like that, esp if the parents are at work all day?</p>
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<p>That is the $6 Million Question, isn’t it?</p>
<p>For my own kids, min GPA is the min that’s needed to make academic progress. I really don’t care if they graduate with a 3.5+ or a 2.1 GPA as long as they do it in a timely fashion.</p>
<p>When D was in academic trouble, she also didn’t want to come home. So we told her she <em>had</em> to find a job 'cause we were not going to pay the rent on her apartment out in MI. We were lucky: D rose to the challenge and supported herself for a year with a job at Walmart. When she was ready to go back to school (at a different college in the same town), we stared supporting her again, but she’s actually resents the fact that she has to take our money. [It’s turned out to be a good incentive for her to get her degree done, and she did do a change of major that will allow her to graduate one semester earlier than originally planned.]</p>
<p>S has both merit money and need-based grant money at the college he starts at in the fall. He is worried about the min GPA needed for maintaining the merit. So was I when we were evaluating which of his colleges were financially feasible. I spent time talking to the FA people and the admissions people about this issue and they assured me that since the college is one that meets full need for all students, that if he winds up losing the scholarship, the it will be replaced by need-based grant aid due to our EFC. But both S and I still have our worries …</p>
<p>If either of my kids did rebound, I think I would make them spend several hours a day looking for a job and/or start working for me doing all kinds of delayed maintenance around our house. I’d pay them a bit more than min wage.</p>
<p>"Does the kid sit on the sofa all day? Getting a job isn’t that easy or immediate. What do you do with a kid like that, esp if the parents are at work all day? "</p>
<p>Kid could live at home and follow the family rules and pay rent.</p>
<p>Kid could do various major chores around the house (painting rooms, cleaning garage) – without pay (why should we pay someone we’re supporting?)-- until he got a job. </p>
<p>If he refused to do these things, he could move out and live with whomever would take him in.</p>
<p>Older S – flunked out of college and after working a 6 month job moved in with a well-meaning older relative, who didn’t have S pay rent or follow any house rules. After the relative retired and left town, S moved with 2 friends to another city and relatively quickly found a job and an apartment. When one of his friends refused to get a job, S and the other friend kicked the guy out. Last heard of, that ex friend is still – 4 years later – living with his well off dad, who apparently doesn’t mind having a jobless adult offspring living with him.</p>
<p>Good jobs may be hard for anyone to find. However, jobs like telemarketer, custodian, cashier exist often even in tight job markets. If all else fails, the young adult can do what some of my young friends do to earn money for college: do odd jobs for family friends, etc. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, though that way typically isn’t as comfy as was college.</p>
<p>NSM,</p>
<p>I’d pay my kid to do the delayed maintenance work because it’s, well, work. I’d also charge them rent at the same time.</p>
<p>You need to start punishing you son and making it clear to him that refusing to go to college has consequences.</p>