<p>Great thread, and I agree that not one size fits all. However, I do think that at some point we need to let our kids assume their roles as independent adults in this world and to let them live with their choices and decisions. We’ve offered to pay for each child to attend 4 years of college at the current in-state public school cost (I see that others here do this as well). Our first child worked hard and got enough scholarships to lower the cost of his private college to that of public university. Second child is still in high school. We’ve encouraged the kids to think of this as their college money and to think about how best to use it. One child does have a disability, but we believe in treating our kids equally in terms of money. My H and I both come from families where one kid was particularly needy. My H’s parents funded that needy child and to this day, at age 55, that “child” is still needy and continues to drain the retired parents’ resources. My parents treated us all equally. It took a while for my needy sibling to figure out that, no matter how many problems he had, he was going to have to pay his own way in life. I appreciate my parents’ hardheadedness–he eventually learned to take care of himself. My H resents his sibling who is always in need, and his parents for being so weak with him. Yes, my H is successful, but he had to make plenty of sacrifices to get there, starting with forgoing parties to get his schoolwork done. Just another perspective. Roles are established early in families.</p>
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I certainly agree with this in principle … but, to me, it is a topic covered in grey.</p>
<p>If a set of parents is lucky enough to be in position to leave their kids a substantial inheritance when they die is it necessarily the best decision to make the child going to med school to go into massive debt and live with the debt for ~30 years to teach independence when the parents know the child will inherit the money later? I do not know what the best answer is but, to me, different solutions might be better for different families and kids.</p>
<p>Our neighbors were grumbling about this the other day. One is a stay-at-home mom and grumbles that her folks have always rescued her sister who is an attorney but always has made bad choices with men and relationships. They give her more of the family resources and tho she admits, “it’s their money,” she can’t help resenting that they keep enabling and bailing her out. These things do have long tails–these sibs are in their 50s!</p>
<p>We’re not sure what we’ll do going forward. Since S got substantial merit, we did not touch his college funds & he graduated with them intact. D got NO merit but did enter with 3 semesters of credit from CC. S currently has a stable and lucrative job in a solid field. D will get her BA in cinema and we are all curious to see where that will take her. We suspect we will have to help her financially and she may need to raid the few assets in her name. Don’t believe S will begrudge it, as he’s very happy with where he is.</p>
<p>3togo, I hear what you’re saying. Still, I think we need to remember that once our kids finish college, they are adults. When they were little, we made sure they each got the same number of cookies, but if one child chooses medical school and is saddled with debt, presumably, he made that decision based on what he wanted. His higher pay should offset the debt somewhat. But you raised a whole different issue: if you have money today and you know you’re going to leave it to your kids when you die, why not dispense it sooner, when they need it? I would certainly consider doing this, but I would still give each an equal amount. To give one more because he earned less would, to my thinking, degrade his ability to make a viable decision regarding his career and lifestyle choice.</p>
<p>I concur that it is a great, thought provoking question. And that every family will handle it differently for different kids/situations.</p>
<p>For us, we had 529 accounts set up that we <em>thought</em> would handle all college costs. D went to Ivy-league. She is a senior and the 529 is empty. S (younger) went to state school. Costs are lots less. We are “balancing” his and her accounts, but it feels like raiding his to pay for hers. Thank goodness he heard the 529 account as “to pay for college” not “for you”. And he doesn’t feel “raided”. Both kids will have their college education paid for. </p>
<p>But H and I had several long walks to talk it over and figure out what to do and if we felt OK with this balance. I thought we’d put the money there and we were done. Guess NOT! LOL communication between everyone is KEY!</p>
<p>And we hope to slide into our graves having spent our last dime. If not, kids will not have a LOT to squabble over. And they wouldn’t. My brother and I won’t…when the time comes. And I was the kid who got the expensive college education and he is the one who didn’t finish state school. For the inheritance, the school costs were so long ago that <em>I</em> certainly think it was water under the bridge… but I don’t know for sure what my SIL will say. Some things surprise me.</p>
<p>Both guys will have the same level of debt (max. sub Stafford limit, so about $19k each), but they have known that since middle school, as that, plus summer and term-time jobs were part of the price of getting to choose without the FA being the determining factor. Their incomes after graduation are likely to be substantially different, though.</p>
<p>OTOH, it has cost us less for S1 than for S2. S1 got a partial merit scholarship, plus his summer jobs have been pretty remunerative, so for a guy who does not give a fig about $$, he has a tidy bank account and has been responsible for funding ~40% of his COA and all of his summer expense working in other cities. </p>
<p>S2 is more aware and disconcerted that we are spending more on him than we did on his other brother, but S2 is living up to his end of the financial agreement we laid out, so it is OK by me. (S2 is also more openly appreciative, which helps.)</p>
<p>What we did was offer our three kids the same amount of money. Basically what we can afford is the cost of tuition at a state school. They can spend it as they please. We are very lucky because we live in a large urban area where they have many college options within driving distance. It’s never been an option for them to go to private school or out of state, unless they were to get full ride scholarships or we won the lottery. And we consider it a big luxury to live at a college when they can live at home but that’s their choice. My daughter ended up receiving scholarships and between these and having a decent paying summer job (at my husband’s company) she will graduate with only the maximum Stafford loan debt. My son who is a senior in high school and is unlikely to receive any scholarship money will commute to a good local school and likely graduate completely debt free. He wants to go to grad school and will save the going away and debt for that degree.</p>
<p>If you love your children AND are financially able, who wouldn’t want them to be debt free when they leave school? You may need them someday when you are in a nursing home! LOL! Seriously though, if one child needed expensive braces would you buy your other child a fancy TV in place of it since they had perfect teeth? NO, it is part of being in a family. If a child received scholarships great, it is still your responsibility to help the others, jusr as a righteous parental responsibility type of thing.</p>
<p>Life is NOT even or fair. S got a LOT more graduation & baby gifts than D because he was 1st & he was an exceptional scholar who also happened to have his Eagle Scout ceremony around the same time. His bank account is many times what D’s is. He also got LOTS of merit $$$ & a great job with good salary; he’s also very frugal & a great saver. D is outstanding on her own but much quieter way. Her bank account is much smaller but she is also pretty frugal and works hard. She got no merit $$$ but is doing very well in her chosen field. I have no idea whether she’ll get a well-paying (or any) job when she graduates in May and how much we’ll have to help her financially. We don’t expect to compensate S if we have to help D and he doesn’t expect us to as he’s VERY comfortable and living a very nice lifestyle.</p>
<p>LIFE isn’t exactly equal so I don’t feel I can make it so. I feel we do well to help our kids graduate from their chosen U (which happened to be the same one), without debt. We will help D as needed but hope she’ll get a job & figure out how to make a living in her challenging field (cinema).</p>
<p>While things can’t always be perfectly equal for a variety of reasons, I do think there should be some effort so that any differences aren’t “screaming obvious” and without serious reason (such as a special needs child).</p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t understand when people know that they have X in college funds, why they would agree to let Child #1 choose a school that will take a large share of those funds. Certainly during the college decision making time, if the cost for Year One is about 15-25% of all the family has saved for college, the handwriting is on the wall that there won’t be anything/much left for child #2 after paying for 4 years for Child #1…especially since college costs rise each year. </p>
<p>And at that College Decision time for Child #1, how can any family know that Child #2 isn’t going to want to go to the same/similar type of pricey school? </p>
<p>I don’t get that. If I have say $250-300k stashed in college fund accts (and I know that I’m not going to be paying with much of current income nor adding heavily to those accts anymore), then why would I let Child #1 choose a school that’s gong to take $200k of it and leave Child #2 with little choice at all? That seems odd to me. </p>
<p>BTW…just because a child isn’t mentioning anything about the disparities now, there’s no guarantee that the subject won’t come up later or that the child isn’t feeling a little bothered by it but knows saying anything won’t change anything.</p>
<p>To look at this from a non-college view…</p>
<p>I was the first D to get married in the family. My H was from OOS, so his attending guest list was not very big (just parents, some sibs & some friends). So, we had about 225 people at our wedding.</p>
<p>When my sister got married, her H was a local boy with a huge family. So, of course, they had a lot more people at their wedding…which of course cost more money. </p>
<p>However, since I was given the same “type” of wedding…church, flowers, dress, surf & turf reception, etc, I had no reason to ever feel cheated because I wasn’t cheated. The circumstances of my H having about 25 guests and my BIL having lots of guests were just unavoidable. It was what it was. It’s not like H and I would just invite extra people just to have a bigger wedding and spend more money…that would be silly. </p>
<p>But, if my parents had said to me, “you get the cheap wedding plan” but then gave my sister the big pricey dinner/open bar wedding, of course I would feel miffed unless there were extenuating circumstances (like parents just won the lottery…lol). </p>
<p>Or if my sis had married first, had the dream wedding, and had used up all my parents ability to pay and left my wedding budget paltry, I would have been miffed because I, too, had always dreamed of a nice wedding. Only a person who only desired a small wedding would be ok with such a situation. </p>
<p>That said, this sister has had a host of pricey health issues since she was 9 years old which has been a significant money drain for my parents (even during my sis’ adulthood). Do any of us feel jealous about that? No way…What would we be jealous of? Having a life-threatening chronic illness is nothing to desire just to have parents spend money on you. If my parents decided to leave every cent to her so that her health needs would be covered, that would be absolutely fine with every sibling. </p>
<p>I think that within reason, there should be an attempt to provide equivalent (maybe not “equal”) experiences for our kids.</p>
<p>My husband and his brother both attended college at no cost to their parents (one West Point and one football scholarship to William and Mary). Father-in-law married a woman with four grown kids–two with school loans that she was paying. He paid off her kids’ loans and when he died–he left almost everything to her. My husband, great guy that he is, commented: “He never did anything for me when he was alive; why would he do anything for me in death.”</p>
<p>We just changed beneficiary of 529 plan from son #1 to son #2 to pay tuition at an expensive private university. Son #1 was at community college and transferred to instate university which is much cheaper.</p>
<p>I think the best any of us can do is what we feel is right and works for our situations. We knew that we couldn’t pay full freight at two Us & knew our best chance of getting significant merit was with S who was a NMF. He DID apply to several dream/reach schools as well as several that he was pretty sure he’d get significant merit. He tossed out one acceptance that offered no merit (he wasn’t crazy about it & it was no higher ranked than the Us that offered merit $$$–he had never stepped foot on that campus either). He did choose among the 3 schools that offered significant merit & was happy with his choice. He was not accepted by pricey dream Us, so we never had to agonize about how those would be paid for as we don’t think we’d get ANYTHING from FAFSA & never applied.</p>
<p>Is it “fair” that D is able to attend the same private U her brother attended with NO merit aid & full freight from us? Would it be more fair if we only gave her options of choosing of attending Us that she could afford with the funds we were paying out of pocket for S after merit awards? Does D get credit for the year of private HS tuition she saved us? For the 1 semester she wasn’t at private U & saved us tuition?</p>
<p>With medical bills, are they supposed to be even too?</p>
<p>My folks paid very unequally for our college & professional educations (ranging from $0, $3000 to I believe over $100,000 for some). I have never heard any of us grumble about it and honestly think we’re all just grateful that they helped us get our college & grad degrees.</p>
<p>It does seem pretty unfair to me if one kiddo gets to go to dream school, using up the entire family savings & earnings while others have few to no options. We are happy that was not our immediate or nuclear family situation.</p>
<p>Some choices faced by families are pretty challenging. I think my kiddos are happy with the options they’ve had so far. They also seem relieved that H & I are not on as austere a budget as they had feared while paying their tuitions.</p>
<p>In my family, my parents agreed to pay for 5 years of college for both me and my sister- tuition only as we have some pretty decent schools within driving distance (we’re five years apart, so it worked out nicely). She slacked off in high school graduating with around a 3.2 GPA and a 24ish on her ACT. I worked hard and received a 3.7ish and a 33 on my ACT with many AP classes, honors classes, etc. The difference allowed me to receive a lot of merit aid whereas she was offered none. </p>
<p>Things changed and my parents aren’t able to pay anything for my college, and that’s fine. I have a decent amount of scholarships and will graduate with around $20k in debt. My sister screwed around in college, is now in her 7th year (and my parents cut her off at year 5) and refuses to go into debt at ALL to finish her degree. So while she’s making the choice not to graduate with debt, I’ll probably be done with my graduate degree by the time she’s done with undergrad.</p>
<p>In this case, it was the choice of my sister and I whether or not to go into debt. I was offered a full ride at my sister’s U (no debt plus a decent stipend) but chose one that left me with a few loans. My parents feel bad about not being able to help (there were a lot of unforeseen health problems) and have agreed to help me with my loans if need be (which I never asked them to as it’s my debt). They would NOT help my sister out though since they’ve already helped her so much. </p>
<p>I’ve never been bitter about my parents spending money on my sister and not me because I fully realize that times changed and they didn’t choose to get sick. Things would probably be different if they spent MY tuition money on her, but that was not the case.</p>
<p>From what I can tell, my parents are trying to be fair. I was always told that if I wanted to go out of state or to a private school that I would have to earn a scholarship. Luckily I did so I have tuition plus $7000 a year covered in merit aid, and for 2 of my 3 years so far, financial aid has covered the other $9000. My dad has a college fund for me of $20,000 and told me that that was what he could contribute. It looks like I’ll have most of that money left after undergrad, so I’ve been basically free for my parents for undergrad. I’m hoping that maybe this means they’ll help with med school? ;)</p>
<p>My sister on the other hand isn’t as academically motivated as I am, and my mom has told her that if she doesn’t get a scholarship, she’ll have to go somewhere public and in state. I’m not sure how my parents plan to handle her costs, but it is possible that she will end up with loans. I don’t think she realizes that it isn’t super easy to get scholarships because I’m the only example that she’s had. I just hope she’ll try to get more serious about school so she can achieve her dreams.</p>
<p>Im currently a senior in HS and im just about to send out my applications, 9 in total, 4 pretty expensive private schools and 5 public schools. Throughout the college process my parents have told me that money should not be a factor in deciding where i go to college but at the same time said they would ideally like to spend $25K a year and said that if i wanted to go to grad school i would be on my own for that.(which i am considering going to) im the oldest of two and my sister is five years younger than me so we wouldnt overlap.</p>
<p>I am just wondering whether you are applying to schools known for good merit aid? Have your folks tried the FAFSA calculator to estimate how much FAid your family may qualify for. It’s nice for families to say that cost is not a factor, but if “ideally” they want to spend $25K/year AND you’re thinking of grad school, many of the pricier schools can cost more than double that! Be sure there is at least one safety that your family can afford with NO aid and that you’ll be happy attending to avoid some nasty choices and discussions when spring rolls around.</p>
<p>Actually i would consider about 5 of the schools im applying to as low realistics or safties one of them being private and one of them(UMass) i apply for discounted tuition because UConn( i live in CT and im applying there) doesnt provide the same program as Umass (im going into engineering) and then 3 of the schools i would consider realistics and then one reach(but even then its not my number one)</p>
<p>Edit:
Plus also im going into a field that has usually high paying starting jobs and even higher if you go to grad school which you can also get employers to pay for.</p>
<p>Just a note that there are many more people who start in engineering than receive their degrees in it and even fewer make careers out of the field. It’s important not to assume the major you start will be the degree you actually earn. Do your best not to have you or your family incur significant debt to give you the most possible options going forward.</p>
<p>It is true that some employers will pay to help you get further education, especially in STEM. One issue is the difficulty folks have trying to balance school, work & personal lives. Just something more to consider.</p>