<p>Hunt-
Maybe not in your family is college tuition ‘a gift’. That’s fine, since each family’s situation is different.</p>
<p>We made many decisions over the years to be able to support our DS college education.
Skipping fancy vacations, driving older cars, etc allowed us to help him with both undergraduate and graduate degrees. He is very happy and appreciative of our help.
Both he and we absolutely view our help as ‘a gift’.</p>
<p>i see it differently, i view paying for your children’s education as a responsibility. Not unlike feeding them,clothing them,et al…What the “price point” of doing such is what one can afford…</p>
<p>Another vote for the responsibility side; we brought them into this world. Agree that education is like food and clothing.</p>
<p>I agree that educating kids is a parental obligation. But I don’t think “educating kids” necessarily means paying retail for NYU–not even for all parents with the means to do so.</p>
<p>Is your parents combined income 300k??</p>
<p>I absolutely agree with you, Sikorsky. One of the schools on my d’s original list was $56k per year. “Retail” rates are getting totally out of hand for so many families who,unfortunately, won’t qualify for any kind of aid whatsoever.</p>
<p>True, it’s quite impossible if you haven’t been saving for college from the get-go, and often still quite difficult even if you have been.</p>
<p>On the other hand, this is all a bit irrelevant to the OP’s NYU situation. I sincerely hope the OP’s parents intended to pay the price of NYU when they signed on to the whole early-decision thing.</p>