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

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<p>Well, yes, but I’m not really sure what you’re arguing. Are you saying that people should not major in humanities in college because they might radically change in interest and personality and decide in their 30s to become an engineer? That doesn’t seem very likely. </p>

<p>If you lack aptitude or interest in engineering or computer science at 20, you’re not going to be successful in those fields at any age. “Gaining skills” can mean different things to different people. “Skills” are context-dependent and their value is subject to market conditions that fluctuate wildly. That’s why I think that students who really need their degree to pay off immediately should keep debt as low as possible and consider getting trained in a trade. That’s not university education, though; that’s job training. Nothing wrong with it; just call it what it is.</p>

<p>Yep, I’m certainly more inclined to pay for useful vocational training.</p>

<p>So here are the skills and training that I would pay for because I believe they would serve you well in life (soon after or long after):
Foreign languages (preferably fluency in 2).
CS or stats or applied math or econ (or something like Stanford’s Science, Technology, and Society; maybe other social sciences combined with another skill).
You can convince me for most engineering.
If I feel you really want to help people, the health sciences as well (if med/dental school is your goal, you can study almost anything this way, though you’d still have to do well in the sciences to get in).
Most business (though I frankly think there’s a bubble in finance now and while now is the best time in decades for accountants, I’m not so certain about the future).
Definitely entrepreneurship if I think it fits you.
Many vocational majors.</p>

<p>Going to trade school.</p>

<p>You can convince me to spring for communications (which is really vocational) or analytic philosophy combined with another skill.</p>

<p>Frankly, if you can’t find something on this list that you have an aptitude or interest in, I don’t think you’re trying hard enough.</p>

<p>Unless you have millions, depleting your savings cushion for vocational majors like theatre or the arts where almost no one makes it (and where you don’t actually need to blow $250K on to become good), or in a dying industry like journalism, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.</p>

<p>PT, I don’t know what your actual position is, either. In one breath, you say, about my girl: And you know what, if she could work hard, put up with work crap, analyze, & have all those liberal arts skills, she didn’t need her major in college. You don’t need to be a liberal arts major to pick up liberal arts skills.</p>

<p>And later: If anything though, that’s an argument for gaining skills [related to lib arts, it seems] 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>Same mixed messages, it seems, about the intrinsic value of education.</p>

<p>I happen to love the engineering mind, but neither of my kids is going to make their contribution to the world in that arena. (And they have already been making contributions I respect.) So all this bolis down to one huge:
YMMV.</p>

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<p>Of course, someone who can earn $60,000 per year immediately after graduating from high school may not need to go to college immediately after graduating from high school.</p>

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<p>If they attend a college which has poor need-based financial aid, and where they do not get sufficient merit scholarships.</p>

<p>For example, the state schools in Pennsylvania tend to have poor in-state financial aid, so they tend to show up in the “highest student loan debt” lists, because low income people there have to finance their education with student loans. Many other state schools do not have good in-state financial aid either. Going to out-of-state public schools typically results in poor or non-existent financial aid. At private schools, it is mainly the most selective schools that “meet full need” – but, even then, “need” is defined by the school and may not result in an affordable net price after financial aid.</p>

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<p>Actually, four year graduation rates have been rising at UC over the decades, probably mainly due to increasing selectivity (the college characteristic that is most closely related to graduation rates). Increasing tuition may also give students more financial incentive to finish quickly rather than dawdle along taking minimum course loads.</p>

<p>I guess in my personal experience with kids around me, I know of only one that got in and out within the 4 year time frame. The transfer students seem to actually have the harder time getting out in 4 years.</p>

<p>Transfer students in majors where lower division courses are not readily available at community colleges often do have to take a lot of “catch up” courses after transfer, which increases the risk of needing an extra quarter or semester of school.</p>

<p>@sbjdorlo, all of my nephew and nieces graduated within 4 years if not sooner, one even triple major. All my coworker’s kids graduated within 4 years with super high GPA(3.9+) from top UCs. Mine is already ahead, she finished all lower division classes and starting upper division classes in sophomore. She doesn’t have to take summer schools. Her friends who decided to do summer school because they can’t stand living with their parents after freshman college year. It’s all myth about not graduating in 4 years.</p>

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<p>Did you mean spending $60,000/yr? You went on to say one of the parents went to a lower tier university and one to a “new Ivy” (are you referring to MIT or Stanford or a state school like UNC or UVA?) Yet, by your acct, I am assuming that both parents have successful careers?</p>

<p>Maybe these parents have insights you do not know about. It could be that they struggled to pay off loans for the new Ivy parent, but the lower tier parent didn’t have any loans. They may see that the lower tier education provided everything needed for a successful career and don’t think the $10s of thousands of extra cost are justified. </p>

<p>You didn’t say your friend is no longer planning on going to college (which says quite a bit, actually.) With those stats, there are plenty of opportunities at lower ranked schools that are close to free or under $10,000/yr. Schools like UAH would only cost food, books, and transportation. If the parents are encouraging the student to attend a school that doesn’t cost $240,000 bc they don’t see the justification in the cost, I’m sure they believe they are making the right decision not only for them, but their child as well.</p>

<p>It is not as if this student will be unable to get a decent education or a 4 yr degree. And he will have the satisfaction of managing it on his own. Those parents may know more than you think.</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus‌ Thank you. As a Pennsylvania resident with a relatively low income (EFC of 0 per federal methodology) and 2 teens with average to above-average stats, I’ve found (through running many NPCs) few schools, public or private, to which they could be admitted that would not require loans for them (and often for me). In contrast, 2 of my high-stat adult kids got great financial aid from Haverford. Ironically, my 3rd teen, a very low stat kid but excellent football player, whom I hope will reach the minimal academic level for NCAA eligibility, has a much better chance of going to college debt-free than his less athletic siblings.</p>

<p>GMTplus7 said earlier in the thread"The deal w made w S1 is that we will pay the ENTIRE full tuition at a 60k private school, only if he guarantees to pay our nursing home fees or changes our adult diapers in our old age." </p>

<p>We implied the same offer to S1 when he was accepted to his first choice very expensive school and he took it. He got a lot of brownie points by earning a 20% merit scholarship and having a job all through college. Now all he has to do is pay for the nursing home fees. S2 didn’t take us on our offer and stayed at the local state university where he has full scholarship. I guess we got (in theory at least) the best of both worlds.:)</p>

<p>Regardless, we thought it was our responsibility to pay for our children’s education at the best university they earned their admission to and since they were our responsibility from the moment they came into this world we started to plan accordingly as soon as they did.</p>

<p>Wait, how many of you would suddenly refuse to pay tuition if your elite university student were to choose an unexpected (and perhaps even “forbidden”) major at the end of sophomore year, possibly because they are doing poorly in their initial major and not because the new major is “fun”? In this country, students are admitted to schools, not majors, and many will switch. </p>

<p>Or if your student tried but failed to get the internship experience that would make their major marketable and is about to enter their senior year with no internship experience? (Or their major is no longer very marketable?)</p>

<p>What about if your student is close to graduation but both major and GPA are disappointing? Or a semester or two beyond an anticipated graduation date?</p>

<p>Asking these questions, as a parent whose children have graduated, because I have learned that sometimes things do not go smoothly as planned. </p>

<p>And not even beginning to ask about post-bac plans, when things do not go smoothly. Even those of us who did not consider ROI several years ago can be faced with the costs of re-training or supplementing undergrad education in this uncertain and increasingly competitive economy. </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 "- Cannot have it afte our k -12, they are not prepared for college currently, period, none of them, not even from the best HS. And another point - do you want the european type of compensation? I still do not think that we need to address the rigor of American colleges. Kids who wnat rigor, get rigor and above, there are many different Chem. classes (as one example), college student can take. I am trying to say that here (not in Europe, not in Russia or Japan), we have a really negative experience with the taxpayer funded public 5 - 12. Do we want to extand the same type to OUR (American, not German, French or Dutch) colleges? I am talking about American public education system that is absolutley nothing to be proud of, it is a huge waste of a taxpayer money and it puts us back, it makes colleges more expensive because of various remedial activites that are required to bring the kids up to a proper pre-college level. I can tell what will happen, peace of cake. Instead of bringing the education level up, the colleges will bring it down to match up to the level of upcoming HS kids. That is exactly what HAS happened to the k-12, yes, parents of the lazy kids demanded that the classes were equalize down to ther kid’s level of laziness. Everybody knows that, the k -12 used to be much better. </p>

<p>I love my children more than everything and I want to give them every advantage in life that I reasonably can. But some things (taking a second mortgage on the house, or depleting retirement savings, to make up the price difference between a public school and a private school) might be unreasonable.</p>

<p>As each one approaches college age, they will know that they can APPLY to any school they like, but decisions about what we can afford will be made only after seeing the FA offers and reviewing our finances at the time - and there might be some disappointment, and going to a second- or third-choice school instead of the “dream” private school. That’s life.</p>

<p>I just wanted to add my family’s experience, since I don’t think our approach seems very common on CC. We’re one of those middle-class families that makes too much to get significant financial aid, but not enough to comfortably pay for college - our EFC was equal to one of my parent’s take-home pay. We were also a single-income household for quite a while, but were double-income in time for when I went to college, so we didn’t have too much saved for college. Most of my education was paid for through my parents income, which worked out fine as we can survive on just one person’s income.</p>

<p>I realize I’m really lucky that my parents were willing and ble to do what they did, and that our approach probably wouldn’t work for most families. I’m perfectly happy with helping them out in their retirement, or doing the same for my kids. I had a job in undergrad, and have grad school funded, so I don’t think I’m entitled or anything. But I never understood why people assume that if you don’t have enough saved for college and you don’t get a ton of financial aid, you need to take out loans.</p>

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<p>I know this is sarcasm, but I have a few friends / know of a few people that were able to get internships at places like Facebook as high school students, or freshman. Most of their knowledge came from materials online and programming contests. I think it’s actually much easier to do something like this for programming than it is in other industries.</p>

<p>From cnn.com … <a href=“Fewer parents helping to pay for college”>Fewer parents helping to pay for college; … an article about less parents helping pay for college than in the past</p>

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<p>Perhaps CS is an unusual field combining things that rarely go together:</p>

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<li>Top talent is uncommon relative to demand for it. (However, mediocre talent needs to worry about substitution, including offshore outsourcing.)</li>
<li>External barriers to self-education and non-traditional education are lower than in many other subjects (e.g. computers are cheap compared to science and engineering labs, and free on-line CS course resources from high-reputation universities are not difficult to find).</li>
<li>Skill and talent levels are somewhat testable in job interviews, so indirect measures of skill and talent that are commonly used in hiring (credentials, degrees, and prestige of school granting the credential or degree) are less important.</li>
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<p>Think about this one" seated near every no post-secondary ed person in super-hi-tech, are probably others with lots of academic experiences. Why? Because in the end, these industries need the reference points of a broader education. Why do you think MIT, Caltech, the arts schools, etc, include more than the specific job skills or practice in the major? </p>