<p>My daughter isn’t getting any money. I always felt that she needed to pay for part of her college education so that she’ll appreciate it more. I had to.</p>
<p>If you looked at what I got in 1975 and multiply everything by 7, I got:
Loans: today’s $: $8,750 (then:was $1,250, so ended up with $5,000 in loans)
Summer Work: today’s $: $7,000 (then: $1,000)
School Year Work: today’s $: $7,000 (then: $1,000, but I made $2,000 during the summer so I didn’t need to work)
Parent’s Contribution: today’s $: $7,000 (then: $1,000)
MIT Grant: today’s $: $21,000 (then: $3,000)
Total: today’s $: $50,750 (then: $7250)</p>
<p>When I graduated in 1979, I had $5,000 in student loans and made $16,000/yr. Within two years I was making $24,000/yr. Within 4 years I was making $48,000. I paid off my loans in 10 years and it never felt like a burden.</p>
<p>So I always assumed that my husband and I would pay the Parent and MIT Grant portion and my daughter would work and take out loans.</p>
<p>I don’t think $35,000 is too much to ask for when she may be making close to $90,000 when she graduates.</p>
<p>I was worried the most about how much she could make during the school year and summer, but the coach of one of the teams just wrote to her saying that you can make the $14,000 above between summer and school year jobs. He mentioned one student who made $30,00 during the summer doing computer work. Some of the students had UROP positons that paid quite well.</p>
<p>So now I’m not so concerned about her “carrying her own weight”.</p>