Life isn’t fair at all. Might as well learn that lesson now.
At some point, kids are just different. When they’re young it’s easy to treat everything equal. As they grow and develop different interests, financial equality is unrealistic. Have an athlete and performing artist. His summer team cost 1k all in. Her 3 week Broadway theater camp cost 3k. We’re not giving him an additional 2k nor telling her she has to pay 2k. Their interests and skills within their interests are different.
Equality has become a focus of time and family support. We wouldn’t drag D around to S’s tournaments as it would mean her missing out on her activities. Sometimes it required M&D to divide and conquer. But each kid knew their interest was equally recognized and supported. Not abut money at all.
S attends an outstanding university with an even better UG Business school. That’s his professional lean. We’re paying for it. It costs a lot and is worth it. D will be applying to audition in BFA programs. Incredibly competitive but run the gambit on costs. If she gets in to two that will equally prepare her for a life in theater, and there is a big difference in cost, she’ll be fine with the lower cost program (provided it has similar access to what she needs) . If she doesn’t get in to any then a BA in theater at state U will be fine and she understands that. They’re different kids.
Fair doesn’t mean equal. Remember that.
Our first kid went to undergrad from 2003-2007.
Second kid went from 2006-2010.
Both went to private universities with similar costs. The second kid was about $20,000 a year more than the first because of cost increases.
Our agreement was that we would full fund undergrad school…but only help with grad school living expenses.
Well…
First kid went to grad school from 2007-2009 in a somewhat decent cost of living area. Funding living expenses was very reasonable.
Kid two started grad studies in 2015…in a high cost of living area…so not quite so reasonable!
If we had placed a fixed dollar amount on our college contributions, kid 2 would have had far fewer options.
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Just don’t back your kids into a corner you don’t want them to be in. People make all kinds of choices based on money and some of them are fine choices (buy a 2 year old, well maintained Honda instead of a cheaper new car which has a lousy repair record) and some of them are terrible choices (take out the biggest mortgage we can qualify for and assume that if we can’t make the payments, at some point we’ll just declare bankruptcy and let the banks sort it out).
This plays out with college choices as well-- a kid I know well went to the local, non-flagship state college near his house and bought a new car with the money he had “saved” his parents. The college has two very strong majors- K-12 education and allied health (with great internships available at a well regarded teaching hospital; great track record getting kids in to PT, OT, Speech grad programs). Kid wasn’t interested in those majors so he majored in one of the less well regarded majors.
Fast forward 7 years. His brand new car is no longer brand new. He didn’t get into the MBA program he wanted (didn’t get in to any of them, but especially not his not top choice). He’s marking time in a job which keeps him busy but offers no advancement, isn’t what he wants to be doing, and although he’s saving money by still living at home, he really can’t afford to be on his own yet.
He wanted the car- which his parents would not have bought him if he’d gone to the flagship U and had to pay for him to dorm. But his friends and HS classmates all seemed launched by now- grad school, good professional jobs, yes, paying off loans but they all seem to manage just fine. The ones living in big cities don’t have cars (where do you park in downtown Boston or DC?) but who needs a car when you have public transportation, zipcars and Uber late at night???
Parents are of course wondering what went wrong.
So I say- don’t offer your kid cash to pick a cheaper college. Offer something else- but not cash. Help with grad school tuition sounds reasonable. Help with a semester abroad sounds reasonable. Paying for an LSAT class if the kid wants to go to law school sounds reasonable. But cash? Too fungible. And too tempting for a teenager.
“But cash? Too fungible. And too tempting for a teenager.”
I think there’s a big difference between putting cash in their bank account now and allowing the college savings to be fungible (i.e. spent on something else like a house downpayment in 5-10 years time). It’s relatively easy if the money sits in a 529 owned by the parent, especially as the most tax advantageous outcome is for it to be spent on education.
So the example above (allowing it to be spent on a car) may be more the fault of the parent than the student. But there are big differences in people’s willingness to delay gratification (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-emotional-meter/201712/the-benefits-delaying-gratification%3famp) and it strongly correlates with being successful in life. (Which may of course be one factor in why the kid who wanted to spend his college savings on a car has been less successful, not his choice of college.) Thus although I find it somewhat bizarre, I’m pleased that my S18 is focused on using his summer earnings to open a Roth IRA.
Been following this thread closely because our situation is very similar. We also promised kids we would fund undergrad to any school of their choice but grad school was on them. I am now second guessing that approach. Had no idea college would be so expensive when we made that promise to them years ago. D17 is full pay at a very selective LAC. S20 stats are significantly lower. We think he also would better at a small to mid-sized school which rules out most of our public schools (many of which are very hard to get into). I am now questioning whether the ROI is there for the private schools which I think he could get into. But I feel as if we have to stick to our original promise because both should have a choice of attend I g their best fit school. To OP’s question, once your D’s acceptances are in I don’t think there is anything wrong with sweetening the pot to make some of the lower cost options more inviting. I would only bring this up after acceptances, not at the time she is choosing schools to apply to because I wouldn’t want it to adversely influence the schools she chooses to apply to.
I have four kids and do not expect to pay equally for their college educations. If you have a certain amount to shell out and that is your limit, then let them know. If you’ve got a kid sitting on merit money that somehow ended up in her bank account, I think that kid should use that for school. But what you do with your money is your choice. I don’t think you need to necessarily hold to any agreement you made before you knew what was going to happen with each kid.
Unless your financial circumstances have changed, I think it would be a big mistake to change the deal since your older child already enrolled in a particular school on the basis of that original deal. Putting myself in your older daughter’s shoes, honestly, I’d be pretty mad if my parents told me that they’d pay for all of our undergrad degrees, period. And then when my younger sibling goes to school they tell him that if he goes to a cheaper school or gets merit money then he gets to keep the money. My initial response would be, wait a minute, I was offered merit money and you never made that option available to me, I might have made a different choice. I think it’s unfair to change the rules in the middle of the game, unless you’re compelled to do so by unforeseen circumstances.
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I don’t feel a child needs to “benefit” financially from a thrifty choice. The idea is to benefit academically and socially from the right college choice. NO, I would not offer money to sweeten the deal. And I’d encourage both kids to work for spending money, etc, as your older does.
When mine were little, someone shared with me that: Fair isn’t always equal and equal isn’t always fair. You will offer both kids a loan free college education. That’s sufficient, in my book. It would feel off, to me, to have one graduate and the other graduate with a new car or full bank account.
No “deal.” No complicated discussions. Encourage #2 to find the best colleges for her and get her excited about merit opps. No need to come into this burdened with guilty feelings or overthinking.
My D2 had the advantage of musical talent, had lesson and state orchestra fees, went to summer music camp. I did ask D1 if she wanted a summer program and she said no. We didn’t try to make up for this, other than in closeness, while her sis was gone, and appreciation for the assets she does have. No resentment. Try to think about, “Fair isn’t always equal.”
I have twin 12 year old nephews, and their parents can’t keep everything even for them, even now. One is sports, sports, sports, and he made the higher hockey team this year. It involves a little more travel than his brother’s team so probably a little more money. The second is very academic and always has been. He went to an academic camp this summer and his brother didn’t want to go.
I also love these types of discussions.
OP, I agree with you, your mistake was on the first one by devaluing the merit. You basically undid how the merit granting schools were trying to differentiate themselves. You tried a 0%(kid)/100% (parents) split of who would get the benefit of any merit award. I don’t think changing the split to 25%/75% will drive the results you want, I think it need to be closer to 100%/0%.
We are putting away an equal amount for both kids in a 529 plan. If one of the kids goes to a cheaper college and/or gets merit the account is theirs to use for graduate school or anything else they want (net of the tax counsequences).
OP is willing to renegotiate with D17 too. I think D17 might be happy with that. If she sticks to a position of “NO NO NO, D20 can’t get a better deal than I was offered or I’ll hold it against you forever” then D17 might be out some money too, that she could use for grad school. I think D17 benefits from D20 having more options.
@socaldad2002 I think that’s a fair way of handling this if they are close in years to each other, but I’m sure you are telling your kids this deal up front. In OP’s case, they told their kids a different deal and are now thinking of changing it after one is already part-way through with college, that’s what I think would be unfair.
I told my kids that we have $100,000 for each of them for their higher education and I feel bad it’s not more. Still, it’s a lot of money and kind of ridiculous that there options may be limited.
On the flip side, they know that the more they achieve and the better they do in high school, the better options they will have when they graduate.
Here is what I would do: I’d keep the arrangement you have. Allow your second child to choose the best fit, just as your first one did. Then, in a few years, when your #1 is done, and your #2 is in college, reassess your finances. If you think you can kick in money for grad school, divide it in half and offer each daughter the same amount. If not, well, you honored your promise to pay for undergrad.
We had a very similar situation to yours. D got a massive scholarship to Mount Holyoke (I think this is the same school that offered your D a scholarship, right?), but picked Wellesley, which has no merit aid. So we were full pay. Two years later, her brother was deciding between a school that was full pay, and Oberlin, which gave him a large scholarship. He picked Oberlin. So his education has been cheaper, minus the flights back and forth to school. We invested the money we saved, and kicked a little more in, and now they have some money for grad school. (This was never part of our deal, it just worked out well.)
D is using some of her share for grad school, but also got financial aid, because the beauty of grad school is that parental income is not considered when the student is on her own. So even if you decide to pay for some of their graduate education, the school may also give them aid.
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I don’t think you made a mistake, you are 99.9% sure that first child would have chosen the same dream school. You are affording it, she is happy, that is a win. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, what if she’d chosen a merit offer and been miserable? Pretty sure you’d pay more $$$ for some happiness.
Isn’t our first kid the practice one, and we get to try to make better decisions with our experience and expanded knowledge with any younger ones? You thought you had a great strategy for paying for college, now you have a bit more perspective. There were no contracts signed, if your first child gets upset because you are trying to help the second make the best college choice for under and post grad, she has bigger problems then any ‘unfairness.’
My crystal ball suspects that in a few years when your oldest is applying to law schools you will struggle with the amount of debt she will be taking on and be changing her deal anyway.
My experience is that when you make declarative statements regarding college choice and funding you may live to regret them. We agreed that we would fully fund a highly selective fit school for four years only. DS realized that he hated most of the classes in his major part way through sophomore year but decided he could not switch specializations without adding more time, so did not let on. After watching the misery of the last year+, I would gladly pay for another semester for a happier kid. (Easy for me to say that DH could work another few months at the end of his career for that trade.) We will have different policies that won’t work for the next two kids…
We have a set amount that we will be able to contribute for our two kids. I guess the good thing is college will definitely cost more that, so we won’t be worried about making a deal and changing it. If by some miracle one of them gets enough merit aid that we don’t have to come up with all the money we are comfortable with they don’t get the extra. But they will get a few extra bucks here or there.
Yes it’s fair. Different kids, different time, different situation. Stuff happens. Job loss, supporting elderly parents, illness. However, given that there haven’t been any big changes in the family situation, I don’t know if I’d offer one cash the other didn’t get. I told each what I could spend a year on school. Spending money and books were on them. My “deal” was that if the kids took free tuition (I also work in higher ed) at my employer or a sister school, I’d get them a bottom of the line new car at graduation. They did. I did. Thanks to a large, renewable outside scholarship, I spent considerably less on one than the other, but the deal they got remained the same. It was about what they could get (a no loan education) and not about what I paid. So nobody got cash or more help with grad school or a better car for going farther under budget.
OP, remember how doubly blessed you are to have 2 wonderful children capable of attending higher education.
Additionally, you are very fortunate to be in a financial position such that you describe - being able to afford to be full pay at their choice of undergrad schools where they get accepted. This puts you in a significantly higher financial status than the vast vast majority of families of college students, since most families struggle to afford each year of undergrad.
I was initially confused by how you referred to your children as D17 and D20 - I thought at first these were their ages but it sounds like you are referring to their HS grad years. In my point of view, from a family that has benefitted greatly from 100% needs-based aid at elite schools, it is entirely appropriate to do your best to meet your children’s different needs because the costs will inevitably be different, as long as they are in different years, and attend different schools.
It is likely that whatever you decide, you will be discussing this with both your children and that they will both know that you are doing your best to do right by both of them. You aren’t playing favorites, you are not keeping a secret ledger where their ultimate inheritance is based what was spent on each of them since birth down to every penny, because they are different kids with different needs. You are trying to be fair to them and while that doesn’t necessarily mean equal, your goal has always been to meet their needs.
Now you understand how everything works (better than you did before you made you initial agreements with your D17 before she made her decisions). It makes perfect sense to me to ask your older D now for her thoughts on how she would have reacted if she had the same option then - and with 20/20 hindsight you believe that since she landed at a great fit school for her, it probably would not have made a difference to her, but you don’t want to change the rules for your D20 without your older D’s input. I am sure both of your kids are grateful for all the support, they know you are not trying to use your parental money to control their lives. It’s just that you know families of all kinds of financial situations do their best to meet their kids’ needs and to set them up to be successful grown-ups - but you don’t want there to be resentment so you are talking to them as adults.
Since there is not an unlimited well of money flowing, you are also attempting to teach your kids another valuable lesson in life - not just that education is valuable and worth paying for, but that there will be other needs in the future that are also worth pursuing.