How to get a "rich" kid to be thrifty about college choices

Parent Cafe
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<p>Well…here’s our view. The reality was that we could afford that expensive school. That being the case, we did not put financial limits on our kids’ college choices…either of them. They both knew and understood the cost issues for our family and that we (the parents) would be giving up some of OUR discretionary spending to help them with college costs. </p>

<p>I want to say…I feel our kids have been abundantly grateful to us. They have both worked hard, and gotten good grades and such. We are very proud that our son got his undergrad degree in four years and DD will do so also this coming June. </p>

<p>DS has thanked us more than once for giving him the gift of a college education. So has DD. </p>

<p>We DID require both kids to work during college and to pay ALL discretionary spending themselves. We didn’t give them a nickel for spending money.</p>

<p>With DD, we actually did mention that we would have “extra” money if she chose the less expensive option for college and that money would be available to her for a car, more frequent trips home, travel, etc. She also knew that NONE of those things would be funded by us if she chose the more expensive option. </p>

<p>DD will graduate with two bachelors degrees in two challenging areas of study on the four year plan in June. </p>

<p>Sorry…sometimes it’s not all about the money. </p>

<p>I know this digresses a bit…but we tried to teach our kids the value of a dollar all the way through life. They had to earn extra spending money and also were required to save a portion of their job earnings. They also didn’t get everything they asked for…and often had to wait to purchase or receive a more expensive item. </p>

<p>Teaching a kid to be “thrifty” should not only be a lesson about choosing a college. In fact, my opinion is that if the family really CAN afford this option, I’m not sure why they would need to teach the “let’s be thrifty lesson” with college choices. But this, of course is a personal family decision.</p>

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<p>I agree. (10 char)</p>

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<p>I don’t see that at all in my profession. A better school helps you get your foot in the door, true, but at that point it’s up to you, and no one actually sits there and looks at where you went to school to see if you deserve a promotion or a bigger opportunity. You prove yourself on the street, on your feet. I would find it really weird if someone started touting that their people went to XYZ school. I don’t care where your people went to school, I care that they can do for me what needs to be done. There are people with Ivy and similar degrees; and people from lower-tier state schools. If you’re smart and driven, it doesn’t matter once you have your foot in the door. “Rolling out the red carpet for Stanford” seems so dated.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the very thoughtful responses and some creative ideas on how to help our S grasp the meaning of $50,000 for a year of college. </p>

<p>Of course, each family and kid is different, but I thought there were some good ideas to consider that we could apply to our case. Our son is quite thrifty with regard to clothes, entertainment, etc. but you can tell from my posting-name that he is planning to major in fine arts–I think this may indicate that he is not exactly “Mr. Practical”…all the “top” art schools are $50,000 or more but there are some good programs in state schools. If he were trying to choose between MIT and local state U and planning to major in compsci the cost/benefit may have been easier to figure out given expected income from a highly marketable degree from a top school…but art school?!? most likely he will pursue an MFA because he is unlikely to be able to support himself with a BFA alone. Despite our thrifty side, neither his father nor I want to crush his dream or insist that a career should be determined by expected income…I think he can live simply and within his means and be happy if he can find a job/occupation that is highly creative. But as H and I are not artistically inclined (AT ALL) it is a real struggle to be supportive sometimes and not worry about his long term future; my husband and I were on a art school tour showing gorgeous paint studios, glass blowing classes, print rooms, etc full of kids spattered with paint, sporting dreadlocks and piercings…my husband whispered to me “they pay $40,000 per year to go to pre-school play time and they don’t even teach them to keep their nails clean.” My son was thankful that we keep such ideas to ourselves, and actually find ourselves sometimes envying these kids who can create such wonderful and beautiful things. Nevertheless, we recognize that only our son can truly gauge the value of an art education to him but we also know he is young, has barely worked, and has never had to struggle. We want to prepare him to make some tough financial decisions in his life starting with this first big one the value of a college/art school education. I take heart from the wonderful advice of a CC parent above that says that if and when they do have to struggle financially, the fact that they haven’t struggled before doesn’t mean they won’t be equipped to make tough decisions and work hard to overcome. You don’t have to make your child suffer to make them appreciate a hard-earned dollar you just have to demonstrate restraint, thrift and wisdom and they will use those lessons when they need them. I am hoping this is true.
Thanks CC community!</p>

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<p>I agree. Unless you’re joining an ‘good old boy’s network’ like Goldman Sach’s and a few other firms, I don’t think it makes much difference after the first job.</p>

<p>Our CEO makes $800,000 plus bonuses. I work in corporate and see him several times a week. I have no idea where he went to college and I doubt that many of our 13,000 employees do either. However, almost everyone knows which company he worked for before he came to work for us. And it wasn’t an ‘elite’ company at all.</p>

<p>He’s the CEO because he is good at what he does. Same goes for all of our VPs (most who went to the state U). Honestly, I’ve interviewed some Ivy leaguers who weren’t worthy to be an entry level Financial Analyst. Someone may look good on paper, they may have figured out how to game the education system enough to get into an Ivy league school but that doesn’t make them smart or capable. Just means they knew how to study a textbook. Obviously, a lot of those kids are bright but certainly not all.</p>

<p>In my profession, people who pass the CPA exam the first time are often looked on as ‘very bright’ but after you have hired a number of these people you begin to realize there is absolutely no correlation between intelligence and the ability to score high on a test or the ability to get into a ‘top’ school’.</p>

<p>There’s nothing wrong with going to a top school. My son has one or two on his list. But I don’t look at it in terms of his career but rather in terms of his education. I do subscribe to the theory that people tend to rise to the level of those around them and the top schools do attract a higher % of top students. However, I look at my son’s biology teacher who has a undergrad from Emory and a grad degree from Harvard and works at a local private HS. Nothing wrong with the noble profession of teaching but I probably make twice his salary and I was a stay at home mom for 10 years and both my UG and grad degree are from the State U. While I’m grateful my son has access to someone with a ‘top school’ education, I certainly don’t think that having an Ivy League education has helped this particular person very much, career wise. At the end of the day, MOST of us will work at ordinary companies in ordinary jobs - Top school or not.</p>

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<p>I wish my daughter would allow herself to dream a little bit more. Her true love is creative writing and she would probably love to do an MFA after college but even though she is just a high school senior she is already talking about law school. She says she doesn’t want a life of poverty, and I’m the one telling her that money is not so important.</p>

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<p>Fineartsmajormom…my son was a music performance major. He got his BM in performance from a VERY expensive private university with an excellent conservatory like music program. He got his MM in performance (on his dime…we helped with living expenses) at a small conservatory. </p>

<p>Arts education isn’t cheap…but our family also has a strong commitment to the arts and encouraging folks to pursue and view them.</p>

<p>Like I said in an earlier post…sometimes it’s not all about the money.</p>

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<p>One of our managers only hires from three state universities because they have specific majors that he is looking for. He has no ivy grads in his group. We’re talking cutting-edge patentable work.</p>

<p>Can you name 3 billionaires without a college degree? How about the two that only attended non-ivies?</p>

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<p>Our philosophy is similar to thumper1’s. We’ve worked on managing money and practicality over time. When I shop with the kids, I would talk about what was a better value, etc. My HS junior daughter, who loves shopping, is a great shopper (buys quality at good prices). My college freshman son would rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick than shop is probably less practical but spends very little. He’s not a price shopper when he spend, but pretty much he buys audiobooks and has gone to a couple of Bonnaroo concerts and a prom. He used to lose things but now he manages that well (pre-frontal cortex is developing). </p>

<p>We are paying full ride at a $50K college for him but during 2008 we talked about what we would do if my income precipitously dropped. While we have fully funded 529s for both, the values had dropped a fair bit as a result of the financial crisis. Moreover, we are trying to pay for college out of current income so that the 529s can be used for grad school (or optimistically for grandchildren’s education). He said, “Well, I could go to UMass Amherst where I have free tuition” (although the fees are still pretty high. With my daughter, we have talked about comparing US schools with McGill and a couple of other Canadian schools. Since she’s a dual citizen, her tuition there would be very low and, because she is taking a gap year and could conceivably establish residency, it could be even lower. She and I have talked about the fact that we will pay $50K a year for a school that is better than the Canadian alternatives but if the US schools are comparable to the Canadian ones, it would make sense to choose Canada (and she could have a car, …). She seems to understand this, but she’s not applying until next year. My son did get into schools that would beat the Canadian threshold from our perspective. If my daughter does and wants to go there, that will be OK, though in her mind, she has been preparing for McGill for a while (she doesn’t see going there as an issue because all of our bright Canadian cousins have gone there and have gotten in to top notch grad schools).</p>

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<p>^It’s not my aim in life to have children who become billionaires. (Unless that’s what floats their boat of course.) We were lucky to have inherited a bunch of money which we earmarked for college - no way we could afford college on our income! My parents paid for my college (and architecture school too for that matter) and have always felt we should do the same for our kids. We’ve told them they can go to whatever college they like, but that they are responsible for their spending money. Our oldest has been on the Dean’s List every year and has worked every summer. At anyrate, we’ve approach the whole college business like Thumper and so far our kids haven’t disappointed us.</p>

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<p>OP: I don’t agree that a Fine Arts Degree is less practical than anything else these days except maybe health care.</p>

<p>With outsourcing and a shifting economy it is impossible to predict who will be employable.</p>

<p>I have encouraged my kids to pursue the fields that they excel in (they may have a skill set not everyone has) and that inspire them (they’ll be willing to work harder.)</p>

<p>My family could not understand my PhD in English when I could have gone to law school. I have always been employed and my schedule allowed me to raise my kids without nannies. I don’t disapprove of nannies, but I am a hands on kind of gal, and nannies are very expensive.</p>

<p>There is so much a Fine Arts person can do. Yes, we can’t set out to earn by being the next Frank Stella, but it could happen, and there are so many things your son can do along the way.</p>

<p>And in Fine Arts good connections and a prestigious department MAY be advantageous.</p>

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<p>“I’m not a CEO but in my experience companies have always rolled out red carpet for candidates from Stanford etc. at every level. Exec staff from top colleges are always known across the company because the company takes pride in their recruitment and will flash it whenever the oppertunity arise while a state flag ship exec will only be known by his work.
Most state flagship CEO’s go and do exec MBA from the top school to just lit up the company bio’s.”</p>

<p>I believe there are more CEOs who attended Wisconsin than any other school, including Stanford.</p>

<p>Judging by your name, a prestigious school may be important to you, which is fine. I’ve hired people for over 20 years; I’ve fired Ivy league graduates, me with my Big 10 education, and I have had stellar employees who went to the local state school. If you want to work for McKinsey, Bain, or Wall Street right out of school, then the prestigious school is definitely required, or so it seems. It seems to matter in politics also. Most people don’t work for McKinsey, Bain, or go into politics. I am reminded of a woman I met a few weeks back. Two of her kids went to Northwestern; the other went to Northern Illinois. She said the child who went to Northern Illinois is the most successful of the three, a CFO of a Chicago based company, and she was upset after all the money spent on Northwestern that her other two children never earned more than anyone else did in their fields, and have huge loans to pay back.</p>

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<p>Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Steve Jobs. All three are college drop-outs. The later two did not go to Ivies.</p>

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<p>Equally qualified grad from Cal and Stanford (to use your choice of 2 schools from earlier).</p>

<p>I’ll take the Cal grad (slightly biased as an alum), because I know that at least in my day there were no “gentleman’s C’s” where I went to school. It has always been much harder to get into Stanford but much harder to get out of Cal. I’ll take the one who had to compete during college, thanks.</p>

<p>And to the better college, better results, I’m still not buying that either.</p>

<p>I’ve been telling my daughter, your education is what you make of it. If your instructors know more than you and will help you, you have everything you need.</p>

<p>I’ll talk about a couple members of my family. All of were given a choice in HS. Go to Long Beach State, live at home and have the use of a car or we’ll pay R&B at your choice of schools (tuition was always our responsibility). Both siblings took the car.</p>

<p>Older brother - OP, if you are still reading, I think he was a perfect example of how to approach a career in the arts. He wanted to be a professional bassist. We come from a practical family, so all of us had jobs in HS. Brother’s was at McDonald’s. He worked himself up to management by the time he graduated and continued to work there (as plan B, if it turned out that he didn’t have the right stuff for a music career). He also found odd music jobs to supplement his lifestyle as well (we all were net savers of money during college, despite paying our own tuition). He did his performance major at Long Beach State (not exactly a highly ranked school) and studied with the best teachers he could find in LA. Started auditioning for smaller city orchestra jobs and managed to land one that also included the perk of college tuition, just before his senior year. So he finished his BFA while playing in this symphony, within a couple of years landed the principal’s job and gave up on Mickey D’s. Kept on with his education, getting advanced music degrees and took over the bass instruction positions at 3 colleges before the local symphony went belly-up. By that time he had so much other work (teaching, conducting, playing), that the orchestra job became unimportant. He still does this work to date and with his wife enjoy a stable and happy life.</p>

<p>For him taking the car, enabled him to do more (study and audition) for his career than going off to a more prestigous school.</p>

<p>My younger sister also took the car and also went to LB State. She didn’t have a dream profession, but like the rest of us was practical in her thinking. She did telephone solicitation as her side gig in HS. Took an accounting class, decided that she could do that for a living and got her degree. Went to work for the Federal Government. Rose rapidly through the ranks, despite the fact that Fed promotion favors vets and other groups. Got her MBA (through Central Michigan U in name) paid for by her agency. Is the youngest person of her level in the western region of her agency and basically has to decline opportunities to move into postitions where you have to constantly relocate. She doesn’t want to deal with the beltway folks. </p>

<p>For her, she valued stability in her life, so a career in the Federal Government has been ideal. It wouldn’t have mattered whether her degree was from Long Beach State or Stanford, you start at the same place on the pay scale. </p>

<p>Getting back to the OP’s situation, I can understand your struggle to find the right answer. There is a balance of “who he is” as a person right now vs. “where he wants to be” when he finished his education vs. “the opportunities to get there” offered by the state U and the private.</p>

<p>I brought up the 4 luxury cars, as most kids have a hard time understanding how much money $40K really is. To the extent that he can make good value of it in getting to those “opportunities”, it is good value. You say he is fairly conservative with regards to spending on smaller things. This is alway a good sign. It is difficult though to go from managing a colthing budget in the hundreds of dollars to managing a career in tens of thousands. Hopefully, all of you can sit down and put together the plan of how his educational options can help him get to where he wants to be.</p>

<p>I know with goaliegirl, we have the option of having her go to the state flagship here in town for free with money in her pocket. However, one of the things that pushed her to boarding school (ice hockey) is the thing that will take her away from that situation (no such thing as womens hockey here). Her development as an athlete has been very important in what she is interested in doing after school (military). Yeah, she can get any degree as an Army ROTC cadet, even from the local state flagship. But to be the person she is, competitive athletics in her favorite sport is pretty much inseparable from her development as a person. It’ll cost me some money to pay her room and board someplace 1000 miles from home and I’ll continue to miss her at home, but it is what is necessary for her. She knows the impact of her decision on our family finances and does not ask any more than is necessary for her to pursue her vision of her life. There are those who may say paying for her to go away to school to play hockey is vanity. They just don’t understand goaliegirl and what hockey has meant to her devleopment.</p>

<p>Just remember, value is what it does for your known objective. An education is what you make of it.</p>

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<p>susanr64: I’ve not attended any university in USA and still makes more than 93% of the USA population according to my tax returns for the last 10 years. I’ve more than 10 USA and European patents. Does that means I wouldn’t have benefited from the top schools education.
I still think I would have. Education stays with you for ever. It is an experience that enrich your personality, outlook, and challenge your mind. I think it is worth any amount.</p>

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<p>Our son has his mind set on going to college out east. But we believe he wants this for all the wrong reasons. He wants the prestige and thinks he will make great networking contacts. Let me just say that our son could use a healthy dose of humble pie. Right or wrong, our solution is to let him go to a private midwest college ($15,000-20,000 less per year) and if after 2 years he has proven himself with good grades then we will let him transfer to where ever he wants. If he didn’t need a smaller environment (hopefully to stay focused) then we would have insisted his first two years be spent at a public university.</p>

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<p>Goaliedad…I think the car analogy is not bad. When we first moved to the US, my husband was unemployed so he bought the cheapest car he could find …a $2,000 wagon from a neighbor…it had almost 200,000 miles and had once been the luxury model. My husband loved that car and kept it for another 8 years and 100,000 miles. He still mourns its demise. As new immigrants, every time we considered buying something expensive he would value it in “mi carrito” (my little car) terms…say…that computer…it is worth the same as “mi carrito” ! It was always good for keeping things in perspective when we were tempted to go a bit nuts with all of the goodies you see in the stores here. </p>

<p>Not surprisingly, he pointed out that one year at CMU would buy 25 “carritos”…imagine owning a fleet of 100 1978 Nissan Stanza wagons instead of a 4 year degree from CMU! What an image! </p>

<p>I also agree with you about supporting your child’s dream–whether it is playing ice hockey or becoming the next David Hockney (cute parallel, don’t ya think?)…dreams deserve financial as well as emotional support, but the students also need to think in Carrito terms to keep things in perspective…</p>

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<p>If your child is a fine arts major, once he graduates, he will very likely need to think in “carrito” terms. But still…I strongly believe that a degree in the arts deserves as much support as a degree in engineering. I have one kiddo in each of those fields…and they both get the same emotional and financial support from the family.</p>

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<p>ParentofIvyHope: I don’t think anyone disagrees that education stays with you forever. Well, parts of it, what you learn, what you lay on top of that foundation after you leave school. Where the disagreement is in what type of school you need in order to achieve that education, as well as how much to spend. That is a personal or family decision. In my case, the smartest boss I ever had went to Long Beach State. I’ve had bosses who were Ivy League educated, one from Michigan, but still, the smartest boss - the one I learned the most from - went to Long Beach State. I, on the other hand, went to Ohio State, back in the days when you could get in if you were barely breathing and had a pulse, and I have done quite well for myself. I’ve made a decent amount of money, my retirement is set, and I get to watch great football on Saturday. My husband, who attended Truman State, has done equally as well. Neither of us feel we would have done any better if we had attended an elite school.</p>

<p>If my daughter were an outright genius, it might make sense to send her to a top notch school to really challenge her mind and hopefully a noted professor would pay attention to her while taking a 15 minute break from research. But she is not a genius. She is a great student, and the difference between sending her to a great school with merit aid and a great school without merit aid is not worth an incremental $100,000 - $200,000. That’s my reality - yours may be very different.</p>

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<p>susanr64: I’m very mathematical and analytical. Actual success is unpredictable but what is predictable is probability of success. If you tell me you won’t have benefited from a better school then it is not correct as you don’t know.
You can only say that you did well despite your humble education. Which is what true for me too. But I still understand and I’m quite positive about it that I would have done even better if I had a chance to attend a top school.
Probability does increase with better environment, better financial situation and better education opportunities. This is a fact.</p>

<p>I some time wonder why people deny facts. The top school will enhance your probability of success and there should not be any question about it.
Does that mean you cannot be successful if you don’t go to a top school? No, not at all.</p>

<p>So once again OP to answer the question, send the children to top schools if you can afford it and they get in.</p>