<p>When my brothers and I were growing up, my parents promised to pay full tuition for all 4 of us (my little sister included). My oldest brother enrolled at Northwestern which cost about 58000 and they paid a full 4 years and now he's in med school at JHU. Anyway, my other brother enrolled at Georgetown and they've paid for 3 years so far (59000 a year) and now he's almost done with his junior year. When I was admitted to Columbia ED, they promised to pay the 61000. Now in March, after I submitted my enrollment deposit, they said they won't pay anything unless I stay in SoCal. They want me to go to UCR or UCI, not even UCSD. They said that since I'm a girl I can't go anywhere. Plus they are afraid that if I'm in NY ill visit my boyfriend in DC and good off with him. Another thing is they had no problem with my boyfriend until I decided to go to Columbia, and now they want him dead yet they were happy when my brother had a kid at 18. Really?? Having children without marriage is taboo in our culture and you can get shunned. So they've always had double standards with me. Is this fair what they are doing. And before anyone says your 18, do whatever you want, I'm still 17 and in my culture I can't just leave.
I don't think this is fair. Would you do this to your child??</p>
<p>Of course it’s not fair…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Shame on your parents for changing the rules of the game this late and devaluing their daughters relative to their sons.</p></li>
<li><p>Unfortunately, your parents have full control over your college plans, unless you have a full ride merit scholarship somewhere so that you have no actual dependence on their money or financial aid information.</p></li>
<li><p>Your little sister should consider your parents unreliable in terms of college support and approval and make plans accordingly (i.e. include full ride merit scholarship schools on her application list).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think your parents will regret this some day. What they are doing is not right and not fair. How you deal with it is a different matter.</p>
<p>My culture also favors boys. My parents always assumed they would and could rely on their boys when they got older. But I am closer to my parents than my siblings, even though I am their daughter. </p>
<p>At the end of day, it is their money. I am not sure how you could change their mind.</p>
<p>When you were accepted ED to Columbia, didn’t you have to withdraw ALL of your other applications and acceptances? Did your parents see the ED contract?</p>
<p>based on what you’ve told us, it is unfair. Any conditions they had should have been discussed up-front.
If there were other conditions you didn’t tell us about, then we couldn’t say. Are they forcing you to renege on an ED agreement because the school is out of state? Is that ethical?
I know it is a small consolation, but they are still offering free school, and that is an advantage not all kids or young adults have. You’re in a terrific position to learn good and bad from their parenting, so if you someday choose to be a parent, you can be nearly perfect.</p>
<p>Personally, no, I would not add such restrictions after-the-fact for my child, unless my circumstances had changed that I could no longer afford to pay for college. I might have conditions, but I would discuss them up-front.</p>
<p>P.S.- I am guessing you are an immigrant to this country, or that English is not your first language. Please continue woking on improving your English, it will help you to rise in the college and employment world(here in the U.S.)</p>
<p>Actually I was born in California and English is my first language. I was typing the question in class on my phone, which is why I didn’t write properly.</p>
<p>Would I do this to my child? No. But on the other hand, my child (children) could write a post from their viewpoint that would make something I have done seem unfair, even though I thought it was fair. So we don’t know the whole story.</p>
<p>I’m thinking your parents have more of a problem with the boyfriend than with the college. They don’t trust you. Maybe you should talk to your parents about that.</p>
<p>There have been a number of posts on this forum about fairness, and some have addressed this issue in terms of what one spends for each child. I think you know, and we all know that what you are saying is not fair, but sometimes there are reasons for the unfairness.</p>
<p>To give you an example, when our oldest was looking at colleges, we were a lot younger. 15 years younger, and DH had some prospects that we had good reason to hope that we would be able to pay for whatever college choices that our kids made. So far, we had made and exceeded all of our financial goals and things were looking mighty good. The truth of the matter, was that we were deluding ourselves somewhat, because even with the much lower costs of a private college back then, it was more than we could handle. We borrowed, not so much to pay for his college but to afford private schools for the others. The costs for everything were more than anticipated, work did not go as well as we had hoped and some thing happened that really set us back. </p>
<p>So here we are having a top level income, living off the commitments we already made that are difficult and impossible to extricate ourselves from, and having others dependent on this standard of living, and having to face still more college costs even as we are just looking at reducing some of the loans taken out with the first kid. My teeth need about $20K of work this year and our car is now unreliable. Need some work on the house that is going well into 5 figures as well. Business is not so good and family members have needed some bailouts. I have a SIL who is undergoing medical tests and I expect to put in about $500 in the next month at least in the transportation and support costs to be with her, and the loss of my time from my business, but my brother is sick with worry, and… what should I do? I have a long list of these things that I don’t share with everyone. Basically, I can use every cent of what I am paying for my son’s college right now on other things. And that is a greatly reduced amount from what we paid for our oldest.</p>
<p>With the oldest we made a lot of mistakes due to the fact that he was the first around, and things were new to us. We were amateurs and still are. And too emotionally invested. I think, however, with the younger kids, we are more firmly grounded and pragmatic as we see issues about our future security looming. </p>
<p>I can tell you that it’s not at all unusual for the first grandchild in any family, regardless of the circumstances getting greeted with great joy and celebration, and the nth one…well, maybe he gets a card. My oldest got so many cards, that I can’t fit them in the pocket of his baby book. The youngest…uh, what baby book? I feel badly for my brother whose children have come so much later thatn mine in my mother’s life, and she is too old, tired and disinterested in children now to want to do more than a perfunctory pat on their heads. My friend whose DD is having their third grandchild is dreading telling her they won’t be babysitting much, as they fought to baby sit the first one and ended up being the primary child carers for the first two with the parents all working. Now they are done and tired. Fair? Nope, but reality. </p>
<p>Your parents have paid about a half million dollars in college by now, and it could be they are really feeling it now and the prospect of continuing down this path frightens them. I thought from an earlier post that your parents have paid a loan for you or some such thing for Columbia. Do you even still have your California options? You were supposed to have notified them of your ED acceptance and that should have been that for those choices. </p>
<p>The thing is, fair or not, it’s their money, and they can spend it any way they please. Whether you are 17 or 18 or 21, you are still dependent for purposes of college financial aid, so if you want your parents’ money, you have to convince them to pay. You should also find out before pushing too hard, whether there are some other financial issues as well. My kids know that we are stretched now as we share this info with them, but many families will not. </p>
<p>Hopefully, you and your parents come to some resolution over all of this.</p>
<p>Can you even go to the schools they want at this point? Didn’t you have to withdraw your applications after you were accepted ED? Or were you accepted prior to that?</p>
<p>I personally wouldn’t do that to my children (and they’re all girls in any event). But there’s not a whole lot you can do. They control the purse strings. Until you’re in a position to pay for college yourself (or until you choose to go off on your own and support yourself), you’re subject to their rules.</p>
<p>Hmmm, the fact that some UCs are forbidden but others are not indicates that cost may not be the entire story (if cost were the entire story, one would expect that if any UC were allowed, all UCs would be allowed, unless only one within commuting range were allowed).</p>
<p>"Is this fair what they are doing. And before anyone says your 18, do whatever you want, I’m still 17 and in my culture I can’t just leave. "</p>
<p>Sounds like your “culture” might be unfair. If you believe it is, then leaving is an option.</p>
<p>I doubt that Columbia will be able to come up with any FA for you, however.</p>
<p>It is most certainly not fair.</p>
<p>I will just say that one thing being an adult (parent) is to plan ahead. We planed for number of kids we could afford. If I had 100 bucks, and I had 2 kids, then each would get 50. In our case, financially we are better off when our younger one is in college, so we need to be more careful not to give her more than the older one. </p>
<p>I have always been been helpful with my parents and family, but my kids’ well being came before anyone else’s, which included their education. I told my kids I would pay for for the best college they could get into, and my family had to wait behind that.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: I live about 20 mi from UCR and about 17 mi from UCI, so it is a little cheaper since I don’t have to pay for boarding.</p>
<p>To everyone saying I should have withdrawn, I forgot to withdraw from the UC’s but I withdrew everywhere else.</p>
<p>Also, my parents can afford it. They literally make about $1.2 million a year. I know because I did their taxes as usual.</p>
<p>I hope your younger sister is paying attention here.</p>
<p>Its not “fair” that your parents aren’t giving you a quarter of a million dollars to go to school???</p>
<p>Go where they want to free, or come up with your own quarter million and go wherever you want. Quoting to them that the Internet says their parenting decision is “unfair” isnt going to sway them one iota.</p>
<p>It;s not too late to withdraw now as you are supposed to do with an ED acceptance. Those are the rules, you know. You signed a contract as did your counselor and a parent. Those schools should be off the table at this point. WHat you are doing is unethical and if Columbia should find out, they will rescind their acceptance and that would be the end of your dilemmas. Right now, your only choice school is Columbia, if you want to go by the agreements you all signed. If your parents won’t pay for you to go there, then you need to request a gap year, and sit it out and think about it and maybe redo the college process again. </p>
<p>You are not being fair or ethical in the way you are acting in terms of one of the first contracts that you and the adults in your life all signed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is not what is “unfair”. What is shameful on the parents’ part is leading the OP to believe that they would fund her college, but then change their mind late (after application season, especially after an ED admission). If they did not want to fund the OP’s college (or put restrictions on such funding), they should have said so before applications were due (rather than letting the OP apply ED to a college that they do not approve of).</p>
<p>The only fully ethical choices (in the context of ED) that the OP and parents have are Columbia (the ED admission) or not attend college at all (or maybe open-admission community college), since other college applications should have been cancelled upon receipt of the ED admission.</p>
<p>You wrote this about your Columbia financial package:
"I got it last week and I have to pay $47,000 out of 61,000. I thought they were full need but I really needed more money because my parents make 66,000. So the FA is ridiculous. "
But in this thread you say they make 1.2 million a year. Huh?</p>
<p>Very strange.</p>
<p>^^^^Thats for my cousin who got in ED too. His parents are poor but mine aren’t. He was using my account.</p>