Guilt of refusing to pay 300K for elite college

"Jumping around and chirping about how he’ll have a full time job, will be independent, and will not live with his ‘mommy’ " sounds immature. And it seems the to-do list (tax questions, residency, etc,) is falling on “mommy.”

Part of our responsibility is to grow them to handle responsibilities. I’m not randomly loading on this kid, but responding to the picture OP creates. The thread began with some fears on OP’s part and I do believe, at 17, parents still have their own charge to iron out these kinks.

As for taxes, plenty of CT workers will file a CT NR plus one for the state their perm home is in. (Happen lots when you’re near a border or commute. ) It’s not extra tax, there’s a reciprocal agreement in place. Rather than point out, over and over, that OP needs to see how it handshakes, she needs to get to do that checking. Or maybe, her son should.

Likewise, plenty of kids take gap time out of state- or country- and don’t magically lose status. It’s a gap, a temporary delay in starting college. Permanent residence remains Indiana and the temp local address is what it is. OP (or the son) can easily clarify with the college.

An for IU, it says residency is determined at the time of admit. Seems he is thus a resident per records.? You can verify this.

And some parents - even wealthy ones - are budget and value conscious in making their decisions. The choice, in this case, is to go to Purdue to study CS at in-state rates with a 50% tuition remission or NYU or Boston U at full pay. The math is not about “college” it’s about lifestyle. (And I realize that at this point the kid has been admitted to neither, but an ED commitment to NYU or BU prior to hearing from Purdue would hardly make any sense).

@calmom ok…I’m giving op my opinion. She can take it however she wants. Wealthy or not, it all really comes down to if she wants to pay the money. Nothing wrong with it if she doesn’t want to. Different families, different priorities.

I haven’t had time to read the entire thread, but all I have to say is I’m VERY jealous of your son. I really hope your son realizes how extremely fortunately he is.

I can’t even comprehend the idea of getting to spend $100k for college and getting a $60k gift after graduation.

Good grief. That is the mom’s characterization – the young man probably is not really “jumping” and “chirping” … just cheerful. And yes he is “immature” in the sense that most 18 year olds are.

And the “to-do” list is one imposed by a variety of CC’ers who seem to have some sort of desire to rain on the kid’s parade now that he’s been offered the out-of-state job. The OP did not once ask for anyone’s opinion on those things, much less indicated that she had taken over the decision-making process concerning a job that apparently was only formally offered this morning.

Purdue has a residency FAQ page here:
https://www.purdue.edu/registrar/currentStudents/residency/faq.html

So it pretty much goes back to what I wrote before about “domicile”. I would probably OP’s son against purchasing a home Connecticut and filing a homestead exemption.

It’s probably best for the son also to keep his voter registration in Indiana and vote absentee if he opts to extend his employment and take a gap year next year, rather than voting in Connecticut.

As noted above, it’s a “domicile” thing. Purdue is actually fine with him being out of state for up to 4 years if he maintains the intent to return.