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

<p>While I concede that not all parents have the resources to pay for college, it really bugs me when parents who can afford to pay for their children’s education refuse to do so. I know a kid (35 ACT, 4.0 GPA, etc.) whose parents can easily afford to pay for college but claim that paying your own way through college builds character (since they both had to pay for their own tuition). Because of this, my friend has stopped looking at top schools like MIT because he thinks it would be impossibly difficult to succeed in academics while earning $60,000/year.</p>

<p>How do we know what other people can or cannot easily afford to pay? Just curious.</p>

<p>How much responsibility do parents have for helping pay for college? NONE If anything is done? it’s done out of kindness and blessing.</p>

<p>@lookingforward‌ Under what conditions would low-income people not get lots of financial aid? </p>

<p>

Maybe doctors working in the emergency room still have jobs - serving mostly lower-come patients? The “graveyard shift” aspect of an EM doctor’s life is less than desirable when the doctor is 50-60 yo though. It is like working for a night shift at a grocery store in a big city.</p>

<p>Sometimes I think why so many graduates from the very top colleges go into finance is because it may be where the jobs are now. After all, I heard that, as of today, US still has more multi-millionaires. “Serving the rich” (to help them move and grab the money) is the way to go (sadly)!</p>

<p>Nfl, the obvious is if the school doesn’t have the money to give. You ran an NPC and there are no tricky situations (divorce, remarriage, business owner, etc? Or assuming you will get a competitive merit award?) </p>

<p>At many schools with reasonable aid, one can kick in a family amount, student earnings from summer work, work study. At some, (not my experience, but it’s been noted,) the work study expectation is higher or the actual w/s jobs are limited. Many schools roll a loan into their “award.” So is that 5k including a loan? Just saying. You have to read all the print.</p>

<p>I do think OP should be running NPCs, too, but we probably scared him off. His kid could be in line for good aid. Or not. </p>

<p>@mcat2:</p>

<p>Finance is deflating now.</p>

<p>@DiscipulusBonus: Those parents are unreasonable. Do they know how much college costs now? Where did they go to college?</p>

<p>Someone mentioned “Cats in the Cradle.” Cats in the Cradle is about a dad who did not pay any attention to their son. Recommending majors that I will pay for is the exact opposite of CitC. It shows I am taking the time to teach my son things to make him successful. On another note, my parents did not guide me at all about college, my dad dropped out of school in 9th grade and went on to be very successful. I chose a worthless major and could not find a job to cover my loans. They ballooned to $140,000. To this day I wish I had-had some guidance. I eventually changed fields to something I should have gone into in the first place and paid them off over the course of a decade.</p>

<p>@PurpleTitan: I agree that they are being unreasonable. They know all the facts, but they stand firm on their convictions.</p>

<p>Oh, and one of them went to a lower-tier state school and the other went to a “new Ivy.”</p>

<p>@Mysonsdad:</p>

<p>THANK YOU. My parents had told me cautionary tales. When my mom was an immigrant student, one of her fellow classmates was a guy who was a little older. She was curious so she asked him what he was doing taking an intro MIS class with teenagers. Turns out that he had been a history major and had not been successful at getting anything well-paying, so now he’s pursuing the MIS degree (at least back then, if he had loans, they would have been small). My parents (who did not have a lot) were not willing to put what little they had in to me so that I could turn in to a cautionary tale as well, and my own kids will learn the value of certain skills as well as the value of money.</p>

<p>This is a pointless discussion because it ultimately runs up against the question of what you think college is for. Your answer to that question will depend upon your economic situation, your personal experience, your family educational history, etc. I don’t see college primarily as job training, and I am willing to spend a lot on a so-called “useless” major for my own child because people in my family have been university-educated for five generations and that’s just what we do. I don’t look at college as a financial investment but rather as a rite of passage and an exercise in self-cultivation (cue the eye-rolling from the vocational-training crowd).</p>

<p>My mother came from a lower-middle-class background and she went to two years of college at a midwestern state flagship before her brother started and the family decided that the male potential breadwinner needed the resources more than she did, because after all, she was just a girl. She finished college (Spanish literature major, Phi Beta Kappa) because my mother’s wealthy friend loaned her the money. I am named after than friend. My father came from an educated professional background (mother went to Oberlin as a music major, father was a doctor) and the idea of studying the best that has been thought and said (with apologies to Matthew Arnold) was important. We were raised to believe that education is never a waste, that it shapes you, and that it is the one thing that can never be taken from you. Hot vocational skills wax and wane. Any intelligent person who knows how to learn can figure it out. All applied skills get rusty if not used. Humanistic education lasts forever.</p>

<p>My H majored in “useless” political science and has been lucratively employed for 25+ years in an international business field that you can’t study in college. YMMV. The economy is certainly changing and getting employment is hard. But there is no “silver bullet” and if you really need to justify college ROI, keep debt low. You might also consider getting trained in a trade. The “college for all” message is really destructive IMHO.</p>

<p>Mind you, I believe in the value of a humanistic education as well. I feel lucky to have received what I believe to be a great one (one that I felt taught its students how to learn and how to question) from my high school for no cost (well, taxpayer cost). That’s the ideal place to gain a liberal arts education, if you can gain access to it, IMO.</p>

<p>I also believe that learning a trade is a great way to get yourself a safety net (as this country doesn’t really provide one otherwise). I’ve professed elsewhere an admiration for the German/Swiss system, where most people learn the skills of their occupation (including trades/crafts such as being a programmer or being a banker) through apprenticeship. Pity this country isn’t really set up for such a system. </p>

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<p>I do wish that our high schools were better at teaching high-level literacy, historical and cultural awareness, and critical thinking. At the same time, there are certain humanities subjects that require maturity (“You have to be over thirty to appreciate Proust”). An 18-year-old is not going to gain any real mastery of art, literature, politics, etc. </p>

<p>It’s true that the American college system offers subjects that aren’t considered university courses of study in other Western countries. It would be beneficial to separate them out and encourage college aspirants to clarify their goals. We have a cargo-cult attitude toward higher ed in this country that encourages ignorant kids to go into debt for no good reason. The American association of college with social mobility/prestige is a problem. </p>

<p>Way back on the first page, someone mentioned that the local state college is always an option. What if it doesn’t have the intended major? That’s the case right now for my rising senior. Neither the local Cal State nor the local UC have what my son is interested in. I have looked at every major every which way and nothing works for this most unusual student.</p>

<p>So, local simply isn’t always possible as much as I wish it were. There’s no point in going to a local college to major in something that a) doesn’t interest you, or b) might be too difficult for you, just so you can get a cheap(er) education.</p>

<p>Wait, there is nothing of interest at a UC or a CSU. Really? Those are some decent choices, btw. You could pay a lot more for a lot less very easily. Do you know how much out of state kids pay to attend a UC? Most unusual is right!</p>

<p>@sbjdorlo‌: It’s not just local colleges that may not have training in a particular desired major. I went to a liberal arts college that offers probably at most 25% of the majors that my kids could choose from at the large state university that’s just three blocks from where I live. But I don’t think any student at my undergraduate college found it impossible to choose any career in the world if he or she had the motivation and skill set to move in that direction after graduation. And I don’t your local colleges will be as limiting as they may seem to be.</p>

<p>Most college majors are not meant to be training for a particular <em>job</em> or occupation. If they do things right, however, they provide very good background training for a <em>career</em>. Every field, from humanities to sciences to social sciences to arts, or to health and medicine, or a religious ministry, has a fundamental or foundational set of courses that may be at least as valuable as any specialized courses that are taken in upper division years or in graduate and professional programs.</p>

<p>I would bet, sbjdorlo, that your rising senior could find a major at one of the two colleges you mention that would lay an excellent foundation for his interests. (I bet I could point him to the right major or interdisciplinary course of study even at my small LAC. He would know how to read critically, write effectively, calculate, conduct scientific experiments – all foundational to many careers. I’m not advertising for the college, but rather just suggesting that you need to think more broadly about what college experience is about. I really like what @NJSue had to say a few posts above this one.) It’s just that based on coursework he might not be totally job-ready when he graduates. This is a major reason why students take jobs. internships, and externships while in college – to gain job experience, try out certain things, add to their credentials, figure out what they <em>don’t</em> want to do for a career. </p>

<p>So don’t look too narrowly at specific programs or majors that a college offers; look for critical skill-building courses, co-curricular experiences, internships, study abroad programs, and so forth. Back in my day, there were no majors in computer science at my college. There still aren’t. But the college produced some alumni who are now very well known for their contributions in this area. How? The kids were motivated, they were able to learn many things on their own, they took special courses during summers, they gained job experience that was itself foundational. But the college experience that they had was foundational for those careers.</p>

<p>As I watch how my own children’s careers have evolved, I see how they drew on their past experience, adapted and upgraded their skills, and followed their interests through a series of “jobs” (one or two that they quit, one or two that they were path-breakers on). Over a dozen years they’ve defined career paths that are unusual and rare (but not unique), and for which there was and is no undergraduate major. But what they learned in college, many of the skills, remain critical to their success now.</p>

<p>I know what you’re saying, but when there are specialties, a more specialized program is going to be necessary. My son might do game design, industrial design or music. While music is offered, it wouldn’t be at the level he would need. The CS programs have more math than he probably can do, and even looking at the interdisciplinary idea, I have scanned hundreds of courses and I am pretty sure it isn’t what he’s looking for, nor would it get him to his goal as far as I can tell.</p>

<p>Remember, these state and UC schools are exceptionally impacted and very in the box. They are not flexible about majors and classes, particularly if you want to graduate in 4 years (getting more rare, I understand).</p>

<p>Also, my oldest couldn’t go to the local state school because he’d done too much college work during high school. When you’re auditing the hardest undergrad physics class as a junior, you know this isn’t going to work for you. Fortunately for him, he got into a perfect fit school with both a boatload of need-based aid and a great yearly national merit and will graduate debt free with little to no help from us his last two years. He is most fortunate.</p>

<p>Good post, mackinaw. We had this issue with the flagship. Two profs taught her interests, both were floaters (really from other depts.) One was set to retire and the other (our friend) informed us the school had decided against funding a replacement. Ugh. If she had to go there, she would have had to make do. She would have found herself among a dept pool not nearly as interested, without the delight of course choices in her focus.</p>

<p>But many kids hit the grand buffet of college course options and find replacement or ancillary interests. </p>

<p>actingmg-no, that’s not what I said. I said the two local schools don’t have what my son wants. There is a Cal State that has a little bit of game design offering somewhat nearby (about a 60 minute drive). That one is on his list. But the local cal state is about 7 minutes away and all majors are impacted and uninteresting to him. It’s my alma mater and I may make him apply, but I certainly don’t think too much of what it has to offer for a lot of reasons.</p>

<p>And btw, it is no safety school-with an admit rate of 33%-because so many kids apply there.</p>

<p>We are no snobs. My son will be applying to an OOS school with a 93% admit rate. </p>

<p>Finding affordable schools that one can get admitted to in California is harder than you think.</p>

<p>@NJSue:</p>

<p>“An 18-year-old is not going to gain any real mastery of art, literature, politics, etc.”</p>

<p>Indeed. And neither is a 21 year-old.</p>

<p>Deep mastery of the liberal arts (not just the foundational education which gives you the tools to think analytically, write cogently, and read critically, which I believe can be gained in the high school years just as well as 4 years later) really can’t happen before 30 (which is when humans fully emotionally and mentally mature).</p>

<p>If anything though, that’s an argument for gaining skills when young (when memory is abundant and thinking analytically is easy) and a commitment to a life-long liberal arts education (when critical thinking can be leavened by the wisdom of experience).</p>

<p>In mid-life, a person trained as an engineer can more easily become a writer than a person trained as a writer become an engineer.</p>