Freshman Spending Gone Wild

Parents Forum
21

If he is an authorized user on the CC, take him off, have him transfer the $2,000 he owes you from his savings to you before he can spend that too.

Ask him why he is attending his school, but going to Portland to visit his friend every weekend. $500 does sound alot, is it just food, or did they maybe get fake IDs and going to bars or staying at hotels, getting Ubers?

My take is that he doesn’t like it at his school. Is he getting a scholarship covering tuition? And you pay room and board? Tell him he has to make an effort to make friends, join clubs at his school and will have to keep his GPA up to keep his scholarship, or he will have to come home and commute to school next semester/year.

You pay for his room and board, his phone. His fun money should be on him.

22

Tell him upfront that his behavior doesn’t really seem like him and ask if there is anything going on that would explain it.

23

What we did was to give them their birthday/christening type money when they started college to use as spending money. After that it was on them to refresh it with summer jobs.

I buy books for her online with my credit card and she picks them up at the bookstore.

For food money, we put an agreed amount onto a pre-paid credit card for her to use.

if there is something else she needs money for, she has to ask and we put money on the card.

They spend differently if it is there money and not your money.

If you are worried about his mental health, i would go to campus and have a visit to see how things are going.

24

OSU isn’t your partner in parenting this student and is not in a position to help you diagnose what is occurring. If the student has mental health issues, short term counseling should be available. The college won’t impose financial management on its adult students.

25

A little bit of a different spin on what @roycroftmom is saying, is that schools are not allowed to share information with you because that is your son’s information and he is an adult, unless your son signs a form authorizing them to disclose information and discuss things with you. So you might have to spend more time, just observing for yourself, since you probably won’t get any feedback from anyone working for the college, including his RA, without that consent. Depending on the kid, you might be able to get the roommate to speak, but that puts him in a tough position. Good for you that you’re digging into this hard now and aren’t shying away from any possibilities. Best wishes.

26

Since his allowance was $150 a month (a super generous one BTW) he just blew through 14 months (3 semesters worth) of spending money.

You need to talk with him because if his denial doesn’t sound like him, he may be in trouble (mental health, drugs, unhealthy friendship, online gambling.) The college is not allowed to discuss this with you, so you need to know what’s up.
Do you have access to his grades?
Can you see what the money was spent on (ie., plane tickets, restaurants, purchases???)
You can require him to stay on campus, have a (3.0? 2.8?*) GPA, and find an 8-hour a week job.

  • Even for hard working students, depending on major (Engineering in particular), a 3.0 can be difficult freshman year, especially first semester.
27

Agree that the college won’t help you much. You could ask your son to make an appointment with the health center counseling service at school to discuss this situation. Or you could find a family counselor and take him for a visit with you (PM me if you need a Portland recommendation).

28

First semester is typically the riskiest in terms of college GPA, since the student is adjusting to college (versus high school). So be careful about setting a college GPA threshold. Perhaps better would be to require him to maintain satisfactory academic progress (not be on academic probation or dismissal, complete courses needed to graduate in eight semesters or fewer, etc.).

29

Plenty of kids crash/burn in first semester. I had two different kids flame out first semester. One pulled it together and stayed at the school and graduated on time. The other one (who was a crazy spender like your kid) got pulled from school, spent a few years working and going to CC, and finally graduated from another school on the six year plan. I think you are actually in a pretty good position to figure out what is going on and what to do about it.

For the next two months, the kid is not living in your house but is in a relatively safe place. Food, shelter, medical care, classes, books and phone are paid for. So even with absolutely zero money, the kid will not be homeless or in distress. So you need to make good use of that time to investigate, diagnose and decide.

First, put the kid on a reasonable but low cash budget, which you can fund weekly onto a debit card. No other access to cash or credit. If there’s an emergency, you can always get cash to the kid quickly. Make sure you can see the debit card transactions. Be on the lookout for cash withdrawals – for my kid that always meant drug purchases.

Second, be upfront with your kid that he (very luckily) has been awarded a full ride to college, but that the Mom/Dad full ride is renewable on a semester-by-semester basis. Make it clear that you have not yet written the check for spring semester and that you won’t be doing that until after the returns from fall semester are in. I wouldn’t get bogged down with anything specific like a GPA requirements. For now, just let the kid know that he needs to be serious and responsible about school and that, if he’s not, his full ride can easily be put on hold until some time in the future when he’s more pulled together.

Third, make your kid turn over all his passwords for the university email and online academic systems as a condition of the full ride. You don’t have to look at those, but your kid needs to know that you can. If he’s having problems (academic or otherwise) it will show up there. If he knows you can see that stuff, he’ll be much more forthcoming and honest about what is really going on. It is just so much easier to log onto the kid’s accounts directly yourself than deal with all the university privacy BS. Since the kids communicate with friends mostly via social media, you are really not intruding too much into the personal by accessing the university systems directly.

Fourth, after laying out the parameters above, listen to your kid about what is going on. Could be anything – a bad college fit, mental health, drugs, booze, etc. etc. Do this face-to-face asap.

Good luck.

30

I doubt he knows how he spent it all.

You can see how various scenarios race through your mind. But there’s a satisfaction that comes from having money to burn, (we all know the feeling,) and you gave him a credit csrd.

It takes maturity to manage choices (financial, time, and more,) a lot of self control. And many kids are just not there just because they’re now in college.

I’m not one to threaten to pull him out, not yet. Instead, I tend to see this as part of life lessons you need to teach him. Somehow. He pays you back the whole bill now (you said he has savings,) let him feel it. You give him a $100 debit card and maybe he gets a campus job.

In time, you review his progress.

We had a similar issue with one, later.

31

Hugs. This is tough.

I agree with @yoamogatos and @doschicos that I’d suspect he isn’t bankrolling his friends, but is instead getting reimbursed by them and using the money he receives in cash or through some app to spend money on things he doesn’t want you to know about–drugs, gambling, etc. Any casinos in the vicinity of where he’s going?

It could also be that he’s fallen in love and the person he’s in love with is the person he’s spending the money on. He would have to have found a pretty awful set of kids for friends to take advantage of him and “mooch” while he buys everything for them. It would be an all together different matter if it were a romance.

One of my cousins did something similar. It was a girl. They did marry and AFAIK had an extremely happy marriage.

32

OP, if that were my DS he would be cut off from $ so fast it would make his head spin! No remorse? I think a serious attitude adjustment is in order. I would have had a face-to-face with him as soon as no remorse was shown.

Going forward I get him a prepaid card and load it with an agreed upon amount on the first of every month (assuming you continue to fund him). If he uses all the & before the month is up that is too bad. Did this with our DS and he very quickly learned how to prioritize his spending and adhere to a budget.

Don’t expect any help or info from the school due to privacy laws.

33

I think it’s counterproductive to race to name vices. One step at a time.

As for remorse, it takes maturity to view your actions and their results, then weigh them and realize you were wrong or even foolish. It’s childish to just flip this off.

Until you learn more, my guess is this is immaturity.

34

My kids too were responsible for all books and social life expenses. They are very cheap when it comes to spending their own money!

Definitely time for a “come to Jesus” type talk, not in the religious sense but in the where are your morals sense.

35

Another poster commented to take his money away and that he’s in a safe environment. At this point, you have no idea what’s going on. It could be as innocent as a romance and not realizing (and no contrition because he doesn’t know how to deal with the problem), or as bad as gambling or drugs. I know 1 guy in college who turned to selling drugs when his parents cut him off, and I know another guy whose parents had to refinance their house because the mob was literally going to kill him if he didn’t pay. I think you’re doing the right thing to try to get to the bottom of this so your response can be appropriate. Hopefully it’s no big deal and he’s just embarrassed.

36

So maybe OP’s going to refi the house to pay the mob? Umm.

@tuscangal Best wishes. Imo, communication is key. My kiddo’s wildfire spending wasn’t on mob debts or drugs. It was reckless, idiotic, mindless, at-will spending. It was her own money, inherited.

37

I agree with debit card.

38

I’m sorry… did I miss something? It’s a credit card. Just look up where the charges were

Let’s not give the OP a heart attack by even putting out the (extremely, EXTREMELY unlikely) idea that her son is mixed up with a freaking mob.

39

You can rack up fairly huge bills just taking a group of people out to eat, I wouldn’t be so fast to ascribe worse vices. But they’re possible, and it’s good to get ground rules set.

40

^I think the point being suggested is that it would be unusual for a bunch of kids to always let one pay, and that what could be going on is that he’s paying with the card and they’re reimbursing him. Thus the bills will show up, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t spending the money elsewhere (not saying that’s the case, but the supposition is reasonable.)