How much responsibility do parents have for helping pay for college?

<p>A family that can afford all sorts of perks is in an entirely different position that one that would struggle. </p>

<p>We made the choice to put them in private school (before college) based on some very real challenges in the publics here. (Highly educated folks here, but problematic public schools.) So, I understand that direction some families take. But that wasn’t simply to “put your child’s future over everything else.” Their futures depend on a lot more than where they went to college.</p>

<p>For D1’s choices, we did all the legwork all along, with respect to finaid potential and to her major. We had told D1 that no school can be a “dream school,” if the right aid doesn’t come through. To some extent, we were able to steer her toward those we thought would be affordable. </p>

<p>In our case, the aid was all basically the same. It was a greater gift to her, in that she could then choose among schools she could happily commit to, than going in blind and desperate. Both ended up at a top 20 LAC. But that’s far more than picking from US News. You look for the colleges where they can be well educated, thrive and be empowered. Not some school off a ranking list. Her very strong other choices were further down any ranking list, but would have been super in her major and right for her socially, as well. And did offer good aid.</p>

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<p>I don’t think limited opportunities are necessarily caused by poor decision making on the part of the parents. We live in Downstate NY and the lack of opportunity for the children has a lot to do with the lack of opportunity for the parents. Taxes are high, so companies pull out and people lose jobs. Our public employees salaries may be increasing an average of 11% a year, but many people’s salaries aren’t increasing at all. They’re lucky if they can keep the jobs they have, and many end up doing the jobs of their former coworkers for no extra pay. When college educated people are driving delivery trucks and/or stocking shelves at the grocery store to make ends meet, where is the money for college supposed to come from? When the college grads are taking the jobs high school grads used to do, where do the high school grads go to find work? Most families here seem to do all they can to help their kids afford college so the children have a chance at a better life, but parents who can’t fully fund college or afford to take out loans shouldn’t beat themselves up. Lots of students work their way through school, and not because their parents made bad financial decisions. </p>

<p>@Hunt - good post. There are so many articles advising people to ignore sticker prices when looking at colleges because of aid. And many schools fuel the perception that aid is abundantly available (even to the middle and upper middle class). If parents don’t do extensive research early in the process, they can easily find themselves in a position of not being able to keep their promises. The net price calculators help (but are not foolproof) in avoiding this predicament. </p>

<p>I made a promise to my two kids that I would pay for a 4yr college within certain parameters. If they chose an in-state option, they could graduate debt free. My oldest chose this path. If they chose an OOS or private, they had to get merit aid and take out the student Stafford loans. For various reasons, a small private is a much better fit for my youngest D. The merit requirement limited her college choices, but she understood. Unfortunately, keeping my end of the bargain on the private option is more difficult financially than I had anticipated. In hindsight, I wish I had set a clear dollar amount on my contribution. But a promise is a promise and I am selling my house to keep my end bargain. </p>

<p>We cannot afford and we still paying - there are other assets that could be used outside of your pay check. Why we are doing that - we appreciate that D. has chosen tuition free UG (Merit award), so we decided to award her paying for her Med. School. We never had a question of guilt or not, we jut wanted to do it. However, we need to draw, so we are in negative, so what? We still spoil ourselves as much as we can.</p>

<p>When our daughters were looking at colleges, we did exactly as Overtheedge did, EXCEPT we did set a dollar amount. Basically, we told our daughters if they went to a SUNY school, we could pay for their entire education and they would graduate debt free. Grad school was on them. D1 and D2 both chose a SUNY school and both chose grad school, so they were able to enter their grad programs debt free. D3 was much like Overtheedge’s youngest daughter, and opted for a small, private college. But we made it clear that she would need to get substantial merit there in order to attend and she knew the most we were able to pay was whatever the current cost of a SUNY school was. We also discouraged her from visiting, applying to and falling in love with schools where she was not likely to get merit money. This saved us and her much heartache come Spring of senior year. I think she was a bit annoyed at first. Many of her friends were applying to BC and she probably would have too, if we let her. But we knew she would never get the necessary merit money there and we certainly couldn’t afford to pay full freight there. From past experience, we knew we would not qualify for financial aid either. She ended up getting great $$ at the college she eventually attended. She is currently employed in the financial field and just the other day was commenting that she couldn’t believe her friends parents let her take out so much debt for school! Friend must live with parents and commute to job in NYC from pretty far out on Long Island, instead of living in NYC, as most of her friends do. She just cannot afford rent and school loans.</p>

<p>Bottom line is we all would send our kids to their “dream school,” not matter what the price if we could afford it, but most of us cannot. We also cannot rely on getting substantial merit or financial aid from schools that are so selective. We have to set the boundaries for these kids, for their own sake, as well as ours. Saddling ourselves or 21 year-olds with massive debt just to get a college education does a disservice to all involved. As parents we need to be realistic about what we can afford, what we are willing to let our kids assume as post grad debt, and act accordingly. Getting off my soapbox now…lol</p>

<p>Did not se it right away: “Free College For All: Dream, Promise Or Fantasy”

  • What is the most important concept in Econ101 - “there is no such thing as a free lunch”.
    In the societies where many things are paid by taxpayer (no single one is free, no medicine is free, no education is free and our “free” public k -12 education is actually one of the most expansive and definitely one of the worst in the whole world, I mean, some countires in Africa are beating our k-12 system). OK, so, based on the “exceptionally positive” experience with the “free” k-12, we should move ahead with the “free” college, correct?. I hope that my grandkids have a chance to finish college before it is free. I also hope that they will work very hard to get it for free. BTW, ALL of the D’s scholarships (about 10) that covered her tuition at the state public UG were privately donated. So, here you go, if you want it free, donate everything you have and convince your family and friends to do the same. D. is definitely planning to give back when she can afford it. Now she is the poorest of the poor, Medical Students cannot afford working at all, not a peep and no summers off. </p>

<p>The parents can have a number of reasons not to file taxes. They may not be in the US legally and be working illegally at a company that is operating illegally. They may also owe so much by now that to pay them is a problem. They may have been doing this for many years and have not gotten caught and don’t want to rock the boat. Once you fill out a form stipulating something, it may come up for verification, and then all sorts of flags can be raised. A simple perusal of bank accounts and living expenses can raise questions as to how much someone is making. </p>

<p>I have a friend who qualified for food stamps, PELL all sorts of low income things though she lived in a million dollar house. She had to go through all sorts of verification each time she applied for anything–rebate on her electric bill, all sorts of thing. She was legit and passed muster each time much to some people’s resentment, but you had better believe every bank statement, bill, expenses paid, anything was examined six time to sunday. once she applied for anything . If she’d had an illegal side business or was getting income from some sources, it was very likely to be caught. Otherwise no one cared about how she made ends meet.</p>

<p>So you net out about $80K a year and live up to every cent of it and more and you now owe about that amount or more in back taxes because you never paid a dime of it. How eager are you going to be to file your tax returm fill out FAFSA for $5500 in loans for your kid? You are living hand to mouth, owe money as it is. </p>

<p>My DH comes from a part of the country where this sort of thing is very usual, by the way. A lot of Americans don’t bother with their taxes either, and in a cash business, it’s hard to catch them. But then when they get old and can’t work, they do not qualify for SS. It becomes a hug problem. But it’s out there. </p>

<p>Parents are not responsible to pay for college. Period. The vast majority of college students are legal adults (or will be by the time the 1st semester ends). As such it is incumbent upon the student to grow up and take responsibility for their own education.</p>

<p>Now, that is not to say some parents would not want to help. A student may appeal to parents with the resources to help fund their education. Better for it to be driven by the student. </p>

<p>It is truly sad how many people ardently believe it is the responsibility of the parents to fund college. It is no wonder we continue to produce so many students who are incapable of handling life’s ups and downs when are ‘helicoptered’ to no end by well-meaning, but controlling parents. </p>

<p>Thousands of parents have gone broke getting students into expensive colleges that did nothing to improve the ability of the student to earn an income.</p>

<p>A friend of ours mortgaged the family home to pay for daughter to go to Marquette. She switched to an elementary ed major which could have been earned at any of a number of regional state schools and garnered the exact same jobs and starting wages. Had the student been responsible for paying for her own schooling, her choices may have been better. Don’t let poorly directled guilt convince you that you OWE your children the “best” education. If you choose to do so, fine. It is not an obligation. It is not even a measure of your love for them. Many times, teaching them to be self-sufficient is more loving than throwing dollars at them.</p>

<p>I’d like to add one more thing:
6. If you say you can’t “afford” something, this should mean that you can’t afford it without unacceptable sacrifice of some other thing that you value, like retirement security, education of other children, or service of debt. Don’t say that you can’t afford it if what you really mean is that you don’t value it, or that you think children should pay their own way, etc. I guess this is a corollary of #1: tell the truth.</p>

<p>@MiamiDAP:</p>

<p>Ask virtually any French, German, or Dutch person who studied in their home country and they’d tell you that their nearly-all tax-payer-funded university education is more rigorous/better than the undergraduate education that many Americans pay an arm and a leg for (though they would concede that the graduate education in the US is stellar).</p>

<p>I think it’s important to note that for a lot of families, the decision was never a fancy house or luxurious vacation versus a college fund fit to finance a private school - oftentimes lay offs, medical bills, and simply struggling to make ends meet are the opposing forces to a college fund. </p>

<p>@Hunt: Don’t value it as much or not financially suicidal, you mean. Because not being willing to jeopardize your retirement security or not being willing to take on 6 figures in debt doesn’t mean you don’t value higher education for your kids at all; it merely means that you believe that taking the chance of being homeless in your old age is not worth the sacrifice to get your little darling in to his/her dream school rather than an affordable option (and there are few in the middle-class who do not have an affordable college option).</p>

<p>We are alreadyalmost to the point where Ivies and the like are luxury goods. 20 years from now, we will be there.</p>

<p>I think parents have a moral obligation to put their children it the best position to succeed. Part of that includes college. You don’t have to go to a school that is $60,000. A student can go to a public state school for $8,000 per year and have a very successful life. I think that it is a moral injustice to deprive your child of this. Today, college isn’t an option, it is a basic necessity and a prerequisite to success.</p>

<p>@preamble1776 Sacrifice is sacrifice. Everyone has the opportunity to be successful and make a living. If a parent doesn’t take advantage of what is given to them, their child shouldn’t have to suffer.</p>

<p>@AnnieBeats - But I was talking specifically about medical bills and making ends meet - there’s a difference between sacrificing the opportunity to get a new SUV in order to put away money for your child’s college fund and sacrificing a mortgage payment at risk of the bank putting a lien on the house for college savings. People have vastly different financial situations that they deal with and saying “sacrifice is sacrifice” lumps them together with the same degree of gravity. </p>

<p>I had a moral obligation to my parents to not choose a school that would jeopardize their retirement and leave them at risk of becoming homeless in their old age because of six figure debt from Sallie Mae - so I opted for the more affordable but albeit less shiny option. Some families just flat out cannot help their children when it comes to college - I live in a city where a large portion of the population is on some sort of government assistance - so bar the handful of students who have the grades to get into the most generous (and most selective) schools in the country, a lot of kids are flat out of luck. </p>

<p>Edited because I am speechless</p>

<p>@preamble1776 Who’s fault is that?</p>

<p>@AnnieBeats - What situation are you asking about specifically? </p>

<p>And by flat out of luck in my previous post - I meant flat out of luck in terms of getting their parents to help them pay for college. </p>

<p>There are parents out there who have flat out said that they aren’t paying penny one for college. Though my parents did not say that, my father made it clear that I could go for free to local college program with which he was affiliated, so he felt he had provided for ALL of his kids’ colleges given the field of work he had chosen. All well and good, but I had no desire or intention to going to satellite 2 year college though it was with the assurance that my dad would pay for me to go to the main campus when I made junior standing. Tuition would still be free, but room board, transportation costs would go up at that transition point, and he was happily prepared to pay that. </p>

<p>That was not my plan, so I applied to a number of schools that I liked better, had Dad fill out the financial aid forms and applied for a lot of scholarships. Went to one of the schools that offered the best deals. SO did each of my brothers. We laugh about that now. </p>

<p>But it isn’t that much different than what a lot of parents might offer up these days. There is a comfortable family home, food on the table, a place to put things and sleep, and college student can continue living there right on after high school. Maybe use of a family car or help with rides, or a used car gets acquired, or public transportation (which would have been how I would have gotten to that branch college) Get a part time job, get to know people and can then maybe car pool or get some help in the transportation dept. Mom and Dad kick in a few bucks here and there maybe for books supplies, handouts. Life goes on just as it had in high school. </p>

<p>If two years into the journey, Local State U or COmmunity C doesn’t have the classes needed, maybe a transfer is needed to a school not within commuting distance. But at this point we are talking about $50K average cost for a state school. With $15K in direct loans available, if even $5K has been saved over the last 2 years towards this, we are taling about $15K a year additional needed to get that degree. AT that point parent loans may be some thing to consider. Heck, I’d bet $30K a kid who has made junior status will get done at state U. Not a teen any more and knows his direction a bit better. </p>

<p>But this is not the model a lot of kid and parent expect, though it’s really all they can uncomfortably afford without putting themselves in bad financial straits.</p>