<p>.....or do you think its the responsibility of the student or a combination of both?</p>
<p>Do you mean to like pay for tuition? Or do you mean to just give the student a little spending money? Or do you mean just give the student money to buy snacks/groceries for their dorm/apartment?</p>
<p>I’m talking about pretty much anything. Mainly tuition though.</p>
<p>Hmmm, yes. Its there money oc course and they can do whatever they want with it, but if they had the money to cover something like tuition, why wouldn’t they pay for it? I can’t imagine a person having the money and then just letting their child take out loans instead. Its a different story of course if the child won enough scholarship money to cover it on their own, but most people don’t do that.</p>
<p>My parents didn’t have the money for tuition, but they bought me most of what I needed for my dorm, my grandmother pays for my books and last year my mom even gave me money each month to use for groceries. I think that the family should help out with things like this for a few years, but as you grow older you’ll take on more of the costs yourself. Thats part of growing up after all.</p>
<p>I think that if parents have the means to, they should contribute a partial amount to avoid saddling their child with thousands of dollars of debt. But I think it is totally their prerogative to make their kid pay at least part of their tuition and their own housing/food etc. because kids need to understand the value of money, learn how to work and go to school at the same time etc. You can almost always tell when parents pay their kids’ everything (tuition/room/board/cell phone bill/insurance) because they rarely have a job, always have a nice car/electronics and don’t understand the concept of saving/using coupons/being thrifty. Those kids drive me nuts!</p>
<p>If they are able to, I think they should. I think it’s stupid to burden your child with unnecessary debt in the name of some noble lesson.</p>
<p>Personally I am of the opinion that if we are going to require that financial aid be determined based on the parents income, the parents should be /required/ to contribute. Because when they refuse regardless of whether or not they can afford it and the student can’t get financial aid because of the parents income, that’s completely unfair to the young adult in question and there is nothing they can do about it.</p>
<p>Because so many jobs require a college degree, my parents felt it was their responsibility to me and my brother to at least help as much as they could with sending us to college. My mom insisted we live at school, even if just down the road, because in her own experience, living at home meant babysitting,etc, for family members and it hurt her college success. My parents paid for college, I got grants, loans which were very manageable and taught me a lot in the process of paying them back, and I held a job every year of college for my own spending money, books, etc.</p>
<p>Now that I am sending my own child to college, my husband and I feel much the same way. Part of raising children is to prepare them to be able to live on their own. To do so with stability today means a decent job, which typically means some college education at least (or a good trade if that is what the child wants). We don’t have “extra” money by any means, but we are doing what we can to afford college reasonably, instead of just saying that D would have to pay all on her own.</p>
<p>Yes! If they have the means, I quite frankly believe it’s selfish for them not to. Parents should scrimp and save to ensure that they can help pay for their children’s education. On the flip side, I believe that parents should make their children get jobs at 16 so that they too can save and help pay for college. </p>
<p>I also don’t believe a parent should just give their students the whole cost of education- even if they can afford it. I firmly believe that students should take out Stafford loans (and perhaps Perkins if offered) and work during school. Parents should NOT give their children personal spending money during college (for clothes, parties, movies, etc). They are adults now and are more than capable of earning that on their own. </p>
<p>In my own life, my parents contribute pretty much zilch to my education. I work 2-3 jobs at a time and pay for all my own stuff. Luckily, I have aid and scholarships that cover a LOT of my stuff.</p>
<p>I don’t think students should expect their parents to pay for all of college. I get so tired of seeing people post things like “My mom can only give me $20K for college, what am I going to do?!?!”. If a parent wants to pay for most, or all, of college costs then that’s their right as a parent to contribute, and if they can’t/don’t want to then that’s their right too. I think a lot of kids don’t realize all the financial responsibilities their parents have, and I don’t think parents should have to feel ashamed for not being able to help out.</p>
<p>That said I think it’s ironic that so many people say the college experience is all about learning to be responsible and independent adults, yet so many students just live off their parent’s money for four years. A lot of students are still letting their parents make all their decisions for them, and usually the argument is “well I’m paying for this degree so you’re going to listen”. I’d much rather be in charge of paying for everything than have my parents be like that.</p>
<p>the supplier of the family should be responsible. honestly, how do you make the student responsible? they should focus on their studies and do really well. that way, they can earn a better living as adults, and then they’ll pay for their kids’ tuition and so on and so forth.</p>
<p>really, there is usually nothing a student can do if parents don’t pay. so it’s basically, parents pay or no college.</p>
<p>unless the parents try their best and can’t afford it. that’s another matter.</p>
<p>Backstory to my answer. When I told my mother I wanted to go to college my mother asked me who I thought I was and who was going to pay for it? This was her attidue the entire time I went to college. She beat me up physically when my dad signed the papers to allow me to recieve my government backed student loan for 9% because she could not understand she was not responsible for the loan. I went to community college then transfer to our flagship university and worked fulltime or nearly fulltime my entire college time. I completed my degree in 3 calendar years. There was a price to pay as I didn’t finish first in my class or with any honors for that matter. My dh worked his way through college too. He didn’t get his advance degree until he was 39.</p>
<p>Our oldest just started college and we are paying for it. We make sure she understands the luxury of having us take care of her expenses. That it is with strings attached and not to perform poorly. Part of me wishes she had to pay more of it but she did save most of her money she made this summer and put it in the bank for expenses. She didn’t earn very much because they didn’t give her many hours at her work. She also put all her money from her graduation in the bank too. This makes me feel like she would do what she needed to go to college even if she had to pay for all it herself. </p>
<p>My answer is that parents should pay when they can but only what they can. She had to go to a school that costs us no more than the same price as our flagship universtiy. That was the most we were willing to spend.</p>
<p>I completely agree with Emaheevul.</p>
<p>
Honestly this doesn’t make any financial sense to me. If a parent can more than afford tuition (and here at wustl, I know a ton of kids who have parents well enough off that their tuition was pre-paid), the kid ain’t getting any form of subsidized stafford. And there’s no way they’re even remotely getting a perkins.
(For the record, if a parent pre-pays tuition here, they save some ~14k).</p>
<p>They’ll be paying a crap ton on interest and I don’t see the point if it isn’t necessary.
However, I will completely agree about the spending money part.</p>
<p>Also of note, there are several kids who have parents legally required to pay their tuition. But divorce settlements are a completely different topic.</p>
<p>Edit: come to think of it, my only issue with your argument romani is the resulting interest. This could be avoided if the kid was required to contribute in some fashion (ie taking out a loan from their /parents/ rather than a bank) and told they had to get a job.</p>
<p>You think a kid can pay $50,000 a year coming out of high school?
I think it was sad that a lot of my classmates who were accepted into the top top tier schools ultimately went into our very shoddy state school only because their parents wouldn’t pay for tuition and those schools only offered them half FA or something. The state school was free of course.</p>
<p>And I also agree with Emaheevul.</p>
<p>Wasn’t thinking about it at the time of my first response, but Emaheevul’s right. Students are judged on their parents inceom, not their own. So as long as a parent can contribute something (Wether its 500 dollars or 5000) they should. If the parents honestly can’t contribute anything because they don’t have the money there’s nothing wrong with that and that’s when the student simply has to rely on himself to get the job done.</p>
<p>Personally, i’d get a pre-paid plan for my kids so my children simply woudln’t have to worry about it. I’d want them to work hard of course and earn scholarships and that money would just go in their pocket for spending on whatever they wanted.</p>
<p>If I had the money and my kids didn’t earn scholarships i’d have no problem paying for their tuition for 4 years of school. However, there would be a few responsibilities that came with it. Jobs, internships, good grades, etc.</p>
<p>I agree with emaheevul as well. Few, if any, people fresh out of high school make as much as their parents. If the parents aren’t willing to contribute, then the student should be judged on their own merit. </p>
<p>My parents have been saving for me to go to college since I was born. Unfortunately most of that was tied up in the stock market, and as a consequence, almost a third of it’s gone. It means I have to do the cc thing and transfer, then have more student loans, but I’m fine with that. I’m just grateful that they were willing to invest so much in my education. Besides, I still have roughly a years tuition, etc at my dream school.</p>
<p>On the flip side, I understand why financial aid ISN’T based on the child’s money because then parents who could afford college and would otherwise pay may just refuse so that the government will pay up instead. I don’t think there really is a good solution to that issue.</p>
<p>I’m pretty annoyed at my parents from a moral standpoint, though, for doing things the way they did. I’d never admit that to anyone besides you people, it just wouldn’t be appropriate, but I can’t help but privately hold the belief that it was irresponsible of my parents to go on lavish vacations every year, among other things, in lieu of paying for my medical bills or clothes growing up or my education. With 20 years to save they only bothered to put away $300. </p>
<p>Jokes on them I guess because unless they intend to put me out on the street I am going to be stuck in their house FOREVER because my loan payments are too high for me to be able to move out any time soon. So I guess they’re paying now!</p>
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<p>Scholarships, jobs, student loans, going to a school you can afford, do the ridiculous general education requirements at a cheap school before transferring to a ridiculously expensive one. There’s a lot you can do to make college work without a parent’s help. I knew very few people in college whose parents were paying for everything and we all managed to make it.</p>
<p>October47, I’m not saying that parents should pay for everything. I was just curious to see the responses. I have worked full time in my program and have gone to school full time. I know how mighty hard it is to work 40-50 hours a week and go to school full time. I’ve been there and done that…and my grades have greatly suffered from it. </p>
<p>I’m just saying I wish my parents had saved a little bit for me. They didn’t save any sort of college fund for me and cashed the bond my grandma had saved for me to pay for their own car. I had to buy my car by myself and I’ve been paying for school on my own. Scholarships and aid can only get you so far.</p>
<p>As a parent, it is my opinion that a parent should do everything he or she can, within reason, to help his or her kid.</p>
<p>That being said, there are limits. For example, let’s say a kid gets into the flagship state university, and it is really cheap, and the parents are not rich. In such case, you can’t expect your parents in such case to pay $50,000 tuition to go to a mediocre private school.</p>
<p>Also, out of respect for your parents, it would be good if you worked during the summers to at least help them out of bit. </p>
<p>But in general, it is my attitude, as long as I see that my kid is studying hard, he is doing his part, and deserves my support.</p>