<p>Neither carrots or sticks worked with my kid. If either didn’t work at all or it was only for a very brief period of time. Nothing we tried worked until we pulled him out of his HS 9th grade after the first progress report came home and sent him to a private school. Didn’t do your homework - got detention, that afternoon. It only took once. His whole attitude changed completely in a week! </p>
<p>We did it then as we felt if we waited for the “light bulb” to go off, he would either have had a few years of crap grades on his transcript, or more likely, the bulb would never have gone on. I also did not want to spend 4 more years nagging, screaming and/or bribing. </p>
<p>He would never be at the school he is in now, or been accepted to the schools he got into if we had kept him at our public school - which is one of the best districts in the state.</p>
<p>We all work for incentives. Call it what you may, but whether its a potential bonus, higher salary, etc, its typically a pretty powerful motivator for most folks.</p>
<p>Didn’t have to bribe but gave reward after a steller performance such as a perfect SAT. Didn’t tell him beforehand.
The biggest reward is agreeing to pay for his dream school. Thought about bribing with a nice car for him to go to full-ride but decided not to.</p>
<p>We are now well into the realm of semantics, but as a passionate lover of language, I will carry on: “Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other person in charge of a public or legal duty.”</p>
<p>There are broader definitions of bribery, but I believe we are mostly discussing incentives here on CC, not outright bribery (though perhaps it may feel that way, at times). I see incentives as structural and transparent, whereas bribes are illicit and ‘unofficial’–outside of some ‘system’ (family, in this case) that presumes some level of integrity. Yes, some political or economic systems are based entirely on bribery and that <em>is</em> the system–but not talking about those places, here. Talking about families. </p>
<p>Incentive: you perform well = you get X.
Bribery: you do for me what you should be doing anyway and are already compensated for (existing duty, but service withheld without the bribe) OR do something that you shouldn’t be doing at all = I pay you, illicitly, on the side. Wink wink.</p>
<p>Well, with kids the “you do for me what you should abe doing anyway and already compensated for” part certainly holds when bribing kids. No “wink, winks” about it though. A real kick in the back side if it still doesn’t happen and these days that’s illicit.</p>
<p>"I am truely ignorant because I really do not see a huge difference between the top 20 universities and our state flagship that is ranked only 58 to warrant the extra costs. " - It very much depends on the kid, the major, the schools compared. </p>
<p>Note that there are some instances where students can go to a private school for the same cost or cheaper than state schools: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>very high, big merit scholarship at a good fit (but not tippy top) private college </p></li>
<li><p>very low EFC (less than state costs), attending private school that meets full need</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I would love to see UB become a school to New Yorkers like UVA is to VIrginians amd UMich is to those who live in Michigan (what are they called??), as well as a draw to out of staters. Right now though Binghamton is attracting better and better students each year, UB still does not get the top kids in NY State. There is a snowball effect to this. UB should not be losing kids to Syracuse, Rochester, and other privates in the area, and it is. And not just because they are discounting their prices. Their is a bit of the “birds of a feather” mentality about schools, and right now the SUNYs are not there in terms of attracting the kids with the highest test scores. </p>
<p>I’m paying full price for an OOS public for a son right now, and my youngest is looking at some OOS publics as well. He isn’t hearing it about UB and Bing, from his crowd.</p>
<p>To the original question–we told them early & often that every A earned in high school was potentially dollars in scholarship money. And we told them in jr high that if they got As there, they would find the As in hiugh school easier to obtain. We told them to think of their report cards as paychecks, but the pay would be coming when they had help to go to college.</p>
<p>Result–one daughter attended an Ivy bringing with her a National Merit Scholarship and another 5k/yr one from husband’s employer. </p>
<p>Other daughter attending a Jesuit school with a nice merit scholarship. </p>
<p>On the 60k income—no, if you can get into a school that either really really wants you (merit scholarships), or an Ivy, your 60k income will not have to pay much for that school. That’s part of why Ivies receive so many apps.</p>
<p>That’s ok. Brainwashing is a harsh phrase, yet good parents do a healthy dose of (good) brain-washing from the time the kids are toddlers: be nice to others, don’t hit, do well in school, you’re going to go to college, say thankyou, say please, and on and on and on.</p>
I’m still trying to figure out how middle class affords 60k or even 40k a year. We make over 200k. But we cannot do 60 k, no way. We are looking to spend a total of 40 to 45 total for four years in addition to unsubsidized stafford loans. I managed to find a school to make this work even when my son’s friends parents are spending 40 a year. I even feel bad that we can’t do the same. We just can’t.
"How can middle class families afford college? "
I can see only 2 options:
-Do NOT attend the college that has high tuition. There are ways to accomplish that. One way I am aware of is great Merit scholarship. My D. attended the in-state public (for OOS students it was over $40k / year, which combined with living expenses will be about $60k / year total) on full tuition Merit scholarship. She also got great Merit scholarship at one private. She could have applied and get accepted at expensive Elite colleges, including Ivy’s, but she choose not even apply there. There are very few career paths where the name of your college is important. For great majority, it does not matter, the future success is up to a student, the name of institution has very little to do with it.
-Savings withdrawals, including 401k and others.
Both of these require couple decades of planning. I do not see any type of “spur of the moment” solution.
The first option requires a parent to find the way to tell the kid when they are 5 y o (15 y o is way too late), that doing her homework every day is a good thing and the most important thing in her life. (Proven to be a sure success!)
The second option requires to save over many years and the fastest way to save is definitely 401k since many employers are making matching contributions. When we could afford (pre-college years), we were putting maximum allowed into 401k plans. It paid off!
I do not know other option, but some other families are taking loans. It is another option. But our family ruled this option out because of specifics of our situation.
Repeating the same story ad nauseam does not make it any more accurate or helpful. The bottom line, Miami, is that it doesn’t matter what the “sticker price” is for any school. It doesn’t matter if the sticker price for MiamiOhio, for an OOS student, (your dau was instate) might be 60K. Its irrelevant. What matters is what you pay out of your pocket.Saving $40K over 4 years is nice, but spending $100k over those 4 years for room/board/incidentals/ allowance for a daughter who you say is not frugal is expensive, and there are many less expensive options. So while your daus instate tuition scholarship worth about $10K/year was nice, there are many similar scholarship opportunities and the goal is to minimize those out of pocket expenses. Many can attend excellent colleges for less than $25K/year. And there is NO guarantee that, while she was a strong student by your report, that
Many of us would love to assume that about our kids… especially if they didn’t apply! She could have applied, but no guarantee that she or any other student would have been admitted. So congrats on her $10K/year scholarship. Thats lovely. But its not the bees knees. You still paid, total, by your report, $100k for her undergrad college and related/ancillary expenses. Thats a lot of money.
There are threads like this all over CC. For me, the bottom line is that there are many colleges that we (less than $80,000 income) could NOT afford - even after generous merit aid. We told our kids this fact very early. Just like we could not afford to drive a Mercedes or wear designer clothes. So, our kids didn’t bother to apply to schools for which it was highly unlikely that they would get much merit aid. As a result, they both got accepted to “dream” schools that gave generous merit aid and became affordable for us (although not without some sacrifices and student loans). On our income, there was just no way to pay $60,000/year. Thankfully, that is not the only option.
The other thing to remember is that there are very few kids who go to college for “free.” Yes, full-ride scholarships and generous FA do exist - but not everyone is entitled or lucky enough to receive it. For most people, paying for college will be a stretch.
Not all students qualify for those that may exist.
Not everyone can afford to put money away in savings or 401Ks, so there’s no money to withdraw at college time.
It’s a mistake to assume that people don’t know that there are colleges that cost less than $60k/year, that all kids have stellar stats that qualify them for great merit aid (or COULD have if only the parents had kept on them and made them earn the necessary GPA and test scores), or that families didn’t know to save. Life happens and people do the best they can.
I think a lot of parents labor under the delusion promulgated by “experts” that there is lots of full ride scholarship money that magically appears; parents also mistake loan/grant money for scholarship money.
We are so typically middle class it isn’t funny. Our kids are great, but pretty academically ordinary and were offered little by the way of scholarships. Our sons work/ed to help pay for expenses, they chose a flagship, we get a tuition discount (which DH qualifies for by working a thankless job that is 1/2 of what industry would pay), they spent a year commuting, they live in apartments with no fancy student-driven amenities…We don’t buy anything we can’t live without, we don’t pay for services we can do ourselves, we don’t vacation, we drive/share old disgusting cars, we don’t eat out, we don’t go to movies, we don’t have cable, we don’t (okay, DH and I don’t) have cell phones. We saved everything we could since they were about 10 (shoulda been since they were born, but there was no money to save). And we consider ourselves blessed and lucky – blessed, and lucky — both will graduate without debt, the greatest gift we were in a position to give them.
*</p>