From another thread discussing surprising college expenses… When should we start talking about a launch plan? How much should parents be expected to contribute to the launch? DD is in the college class of 2020 and I have no idea if she go directly to grad school as she planned or not.
This is so individual it’s hard to say.
We considered it part of our responsibility to launch our kids with work-appropriate wardrobes so we did - loading up on JCrew for D (she needed nice business casual) and Brooks Brothers for S (he needed some more formal businesswear options). We also bought good winter dress coats for both.
We had long said we’d get them each a car for graduation; however, this turned out to be relevant only for S, who needed it for his commute, and not for D, who lives in a city and uses public transportation.
We were happy to front money for security deposits and the like as needed but expected to be paid back.
Right now, S is back home as he had a fellowship that lasted a year but didn’t convert into a job as he had hoped. He is pursuing multiple paths – full-time employment, applying to grad school, applying for a Fulbright. He is hard-working, earnest and takes “looking for a job” very seriously, so as far as we are concerned, the rent is free (he just has to mow the lawn and help take out the trash). If, otoh, he were lying on the couch playing video games, we would feel differently.
We still do pay for their cell phones because it makes no sense to decouple them from our family plan.
If my S wound up getting a job offer or a grad school acceptance someplace out of state? Yeah, I’d probably fly out with him and help him look for an apartment, move in, etc. Because I have the free time to be able to do so and I like to be helpful like that.
We have a deal with our kids: whatever is left over from their college fund is theirs to keep at graduation. This gave them an incentive to find merit scholarships, economize on books and other supplies, and to graduate in four years! DS college class of 2018 has a pretty decent work wardrobe now since he has spent summers in a corporate setting and I just bought him a new suit before he left for school. I do expect to perhaps buy a few more things though. I also expect to buy him kitchen stuff, bedding, and other stuff for a starter apartment (he will end up living in some form of on-campus housing all four years so he doesn’t have any of that stuff).
He will have enough money left over from his college fund to pay for security deposits, a car, or even a down payment for a condo/house if he wants to jump straight into home ownership. And he will be debt free, so I figure we would have done our part to launch him into the adult world.
Launch plan? Are you talking about when they graduate from college? Frankly, the only plan we had, and one that was discussed often from about senior year of high school was that they were on their own after college. We told them it was completely up to them to do what they wanted, but we weren’t planning on giving them any money other than $1000 at graduation with a card and a frame for their diploma. For the most part each kid had a pretty full wardrobe with interview and office appropriate clothes so we didn’t need to do anything about that, but I would have done that. When they graduated we told them if they got in a jam to call us and we would see what we could do in terms of advice or assistance, but they needed to call us and ask. The cell phone we paid for until they wanted a new phone since each line is super cheap on “my” plan. Personally my H and I would rather help them down the road if they want to buy property or a house than “support” them after college when a full time job even at minimum wage or a couple part time jobs they could live on. So far we’re 2 for 2 on this launch plan. They stayed on our medical insurance until they secured a job with benefits and with their own insurance which worked out well…probably my favorite thing about Obamacare is allowing young adults to stay on for a few years after college.
If one of mine had taken a job in an unfamiliar place, i probably would have loved to fly out and help them find an apartment but I didn’t need to do that with #1 or #2.
Oldest took the direct loan her senior year so she could afford deposits, work clothes, etc. Her graduation gift from us was cash, which she put towards furniture. The city she moved to has a COL close to the national average. She graduated in May and didn’t start her job until August, so she moved back home for a couple of months.
Next kid? I don’t know. She just started her third year. She doesn’t know what kind of job she wants to look for. She would like to work in “the Midwest.” I mean, how do you plan for that? You can’t. So for now, with a 2020, I just wouldn’t even worry about it.
@momofthreeboys Would you co-sign a lease? Would you allow a student with a job that starts in midsummer to live with you until the job starts?
I ask because these two issues were topics of disagreement in my own family, and I would like to hear your perspective.
That describes my S, who graduated in June but had an Aug 1 start date in a city several hours away. i simply cannot imagine NOT letting a kid stay with me til a job starts in midsummer. The purpose of having him waste money on unneeded apartment rental is what, again?
Wherever I live will always be a haven/home for my kids if needed. That’s why we are family and not just a bunch of roommates.
It seems really mean-spirited to me to “forbid” your kid living with you temporarily while a job starts. It costs practically nothing to have your kid back in the house - a bit more in food, big deal, I’m not going to begrudge my kid food.
What comes to mind, quite honestly, is - heaven forbid a situation where you have a grown daughter escaping an abusive relationship (could be son, I suppose, but let’s stick w daughter) and not being welcomed back at home because “it’s not your home anymore.”
My kids are 33 and 26 and at various times they’ve stayed with us after college graduation. In those instances, they were waiting for grad school to start or between jobs or looking for jobs. Neither one had college loans.
I have helped both kids move numerous times. I’m good at organizing and both asked for help. I was able to do it, so it wasn’t a problem. In fact, my youngest is starting graduate school and is an hour away. I’ve given her furniture that we’re not using and drive it down to her.
I think this is something that varies depending on the situation. I graduated and my parents “sold” me their oldest car for $1, and I lived at home with my parents for 9 months while I was working full time in my field and engaged to my DH. I paid a modicum of “rent” and helped out around the house. But why not save the $$$ when my parents lived just a few miles from where I was working? We (DH and I) helped pay for our wedding, and the $ saved let us put a down payment on a house that we moved into within our first year of marriage.
We’ve always told our kids they will always be welcome in our home. As adults, if they need a place to stay, they are welcome as long as they are respectful of our house as our home and abide by our living standards. We’d expect they’d be working and/or job hunting and contributing to the running of the household. And I can see what we do for each of them after graduation varying a bit. DS dug himself into a GPA hole his freshman year and is slowly slogging his way out of it. Doing so has involved some summer classes we didn’t count on. Assuming he continues the positive trend, he’ll graduate on time, debt-free. That in and of itself is a gift to him. Do I plan to buy him a car? No. Might I sell him our oldest car for $1? Maybe, but maybe not if DD still needs access to it (she’s 3 years behind him). Will we help with cosigning loans or leases or whatever? Yes, if he’s got himself in a position that financial stability is a reasonable expectation. Will we be taking out loans to help him with grad school if he doesn’t get it paid for otherwise? No – grad school is on him to provide, either via loans, or assistantships, etc… DD is a HS senior this year and is hoping to figure out a way to do undergrad as close to “free” as possible, since she wants to go to vet school afterwards. So, if she pulls that off really does keep costs to a minimum for undergrad, we’ll be spending what we would have on undergrad to help her with vet school. If along the way she decides she doesn’t want to do vet school and just goes for employment after undergrad, then I look at that $ that we would have otherwise spent on her education as $ for us to use to help her as she moves forward, at our discretion, depending on the situation. Car? Maybe. More likely help with buying a used car and then later help with downpayment on a house.
I believe it’s to uphold the ideal that a young person is on his/her own from the moment he graduates from college. The place that used to be the young person’s home is not home anymore and never will be again.
I don’t happen to agree with this idea, but I know people who do.
@marian, no I won’t co-sign leases. This came up during college with one of my kids…the other two did not need a co-signer. I told my son (who wanted an apartment that desired parental co-signing) to find another place. Yes, if one of mine had a job that started in June or July we would certainly invite them to come home, relax and enjoy themselves. I think the point was for our kids to understand that they needed to be self-sufficient, but we’re not so hard-assed that if they had a short-term gap between school and a new job or some other gap between plans they wouldn’t be welcome to hang out with us. They just weren’t welcome to come home while they figured out what they wanted to do in life with no plan and for some indeterminate period of time. Neither of them did that so the message must have been clear. S2 had a 2 week gap between his first and second job after college and loaded up a pod and came home with a suitcase for some TLC and we thoroughly enjoyed spending time with him.
Every family is going to be different.Some families probably do enjoy having the kids home indefinitely. We just aren’t like that. Both me and my husband were self-supporting post undergrad college and did not return to the family nest after graduation. It was a good feeling to be THAT independent and we thought it was a good life lesson for our kids. We’d never leave them sleeping on a park bench, but we never had to because they understood what they needed to do just as both our sets of parents made sure we understood. You don’t blindside your kids, but you don’t leave it until the last minute either.
Thank you, @momofthreeboys. It’s interesting to hear about different families’ perspectives on these issues.
I can’t imagine not allowing my kids to live with us post-graduation, provided they had a reasonable plan and were making a good effort toward becoming independent.
My daughter is set to graduate next spring. She is applying for a Fulbright, but if she doesn’t get it, we’ll still help her to successfully launch, whether that means having her live with us until she can afford her own place, paying for moving, etc. I don’t think college graduation is a switch that flips a kid from dependent to wholly independent in a flash.
A launch plan?
Our kids knew we would pay only for undergrad school…and only four years of that. I guess that was the extent of our launch plan.
College graduation isn’t a switch to flip, it’s simply a marker point - like being old enough to stay home without a babysitter, or being old enough to get a driver’s license, or old enough not to have a curfew or old enough to make your own doctor and dentist appointments… life is always a progression of increasing independence until you are seriously old and then you become increasingly dependent again. I guess my launch plan was launched when they were born LOL.
“I believe it’s to uphold the ideal that a young person is on his/her own from the moment he graduates from college. The place that used to be the young person’s home is not home anymore and never will be again.”
How unwelcoming. “This is not your home any more and never will be again.” Yep, that’s what makes me think of the woman escaping an abusive relationship who goes out on the street in an unsafe situation because her parents have made it clear their home isn’t her home anymore, even if she’s escaping the guy who beats her every night. I wonder how many homeless people have family members who thought this way.
My D graduated in May 2015 and started her job in June shortly after. Because she could live with us and take the train downtown to her job, she was able to take her time and search for a good apartment / roommate. She ultimately moved into her first apt over Labor Day 2015. So she spent 3 months with us getting settled in the new job and searching for her apartment; so what? Jumping at the very first Craigslist ad would have been a better strategy? That’s stupid.
She subsequently has just moved into her own condo. It so happened that her lease expiration and the closing date on the new condo worked out in concert so she moved from one to the other, but if she’d had to move back in for a month or so while awaiting the closing? She wouldn’t have even needed to ask if she could stay with us. It would be automatic.
This arbitrary rule seems really silly. I get that there may be situations where you have to “tough love” a kid who is sitting on the couch playing video games but if you have a good kid, who is either working or actively pursuing employment (like Massmomm describes with her daughter), I don’t see the point of wasting money just to waste money. The economy is bad enough these days and it’s difficult enough to find a job; making a kid just starting out pay unnecessary utilities, rent, etc. just to prove a point makes no sense to me.
I don’t know anyone who subscribes to the philosophy of “college grad = immediately out, zero grace period even if a job isn’t starting for a month,” and I suspect few people do. It’s one of the easiest and low-cost ways to help your kids out. It’s like refusing to do a favor for someone you love when it is easy as pie for you to do the favor and it really helps a person out big-time. Honestly, it feels like something a bully would do.
Our home will always be a place where our kids are welcome. Both have lived here between college and school, or between jobs.
Both contributed to the household in terms of help…and both paid a small amount to live here (which we gave them back when they moved out).
Heck…back in the dark ages, I lived with my family from Graduation in March until I moved to where my new job was in August. As PG noted…it was such a nice gift from them (my dad did the small rent thing as well…and gave me the money when I moved out…and made me promise NOT to tell my younger sisters).
I read this as lunch plan. My first thought was, your kid graduates from college, he can make his own lunch!
The kids know we have X amount of dollars for each of them for undergrad/grad. After that they are on their own. They’ll have to live with us on the boat (our “launch” plan is to “launch” a liveaboard boat that is big enough for four, but not comfortably) which is where we’ll be when they go to college :).
Sorry kids, no wifi today, we’re in international waters! You can catch a fish for dinner if you need entertainment…