NYT: Some parents letting children choose college--and pay for it

Parents Forum
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<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/education/10aid.html?hp&ex=1144641600&en=3495df7af17cd31a&ei=5094&partner=homepage%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/education/10aid.html?hp&ex=1144641600&en=3495df7af17cd31a&ei=5094&partner=homepage&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
"What I've really seen in the last 10 years is a generational shifting of the responsibility" to pay for college, said Ellen Frishberg, director of student financial services at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "Our parents helped us pay for school. These parents are not as willing to help their children pay for school."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The official quoted above is somewhat disingenuous in her remark, since she doesn't point out that</p>

<p>a) the cost of college has increased much faster than the overall inflation rate since our generation was in college</p>

<p>AND</p>

<p>b) most people's salaries have not climbed much faster above their parents' salaries than the inflation rate</p>

<p>AND</p>

<p>c) job security is much lower than it used to be for typical parents of college-age children</p>

<p>AND</p>

<p>d) many employers have abandoned the generous defined-benefit pension plans they once offered in favor of defined-contribution plans, which place much more responsibility on employees to provide for their own retirement income. Many employers that once promised generous pension plans went belly-up. Others have seen the writing on the wall and abandoned their generous plans. There are very few private employers that offer such plans any more.</p>

<p>AND</p>

<p>e) costs of health care have also gone up much faster than iinflation and employers and insurers are raising premiums and increasing deductibles and coinsurance</p>

<p>AND</p>

<p>f) when our parents were helping us with college, the idea of cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare benefits was not on the table. Now, it increasingly IS on the table. Such a notion would have been political suicide for a politician to talk about seriously in the past. With the impending wave of retirement of the boomers, it is something that will have to be addressed.</p>

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<p>AND...</p>

<p>Many of us did NOT have parents that paid for our college tuitions. Why WAS that ASSUMED??? I had student loans, my H had student loans. Our parents didn't pay one cent for our college educatons.</p>

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<p>My parents didn't pay a cent for my college education either.</p>

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<p>This official must have ran with an affluent crowd when he/she went to college.</p>

<p>My parents and many of the fathers of my friends did not have college educations themselves and therefore they did not have the kinds of jobs that could pay for several kids to go to college - often at the same time! (families were much larger back then and "spacing" was unheard of) </p>

<p>That portion of the piece makes today's parents sound "selfish" as if they were willing to be "takers" but now not willing to be "givers". BUT these are parents who are willing to pay in-state which if one includes r & b, fees, books can cost 15K or more a year. These parents aren't being "cheap" as the piece kind of implies.</p>

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<p>strange article, strange perspective, and strange TITLE!!</p>

<p>Some Parents Letting Children Choose College, and Pay for It</p>

<p>Three interpretations:</p>

<ol>
<li> Parents let children choose college, and parents let the children pay for the college themselves.</li>
<li> Parents let children choose college, and parents also pay for whatever college the children choose.</li>
<li> Parents let children choose the college they want to go to, and parents pay for letting children make a choice that they should not have been allowed to make!<br></li>
</ol>

<p>My parents paid all my expenses at state university, but they told me not to bother applying to Harvard because we couldn't afford it. Seemed very reasonable to me at the time. This is not a new concept or trend. good grief!</p>

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<p>I also disagree with the premise of the article. My parents paid for my college- for which I am grateful -- but I went to a state university and it seemed that at least half of the students I met were paying their own way. </p>

<p>Could the shift the financial aid director claims really reflect a demographic shift: that now kids from middle income and lower income families are seeking entrance into private colleges in greater numbers? Because back in my day it was fairly unusual for kids to go to private colleges -- it was pretty much assumed that most kids would go to their in state publics. Maybe with the current push for diversity and the aggressive marketing the colleges do, they are simply pulling in more apps from the kind of kids who never woud have thought to apply to a private college in the past.</p>

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<p>Crap journalism. Every student or parent who is trying to pay for college knows what has happened to college costs. Certainly college financial officers understand the problem. Trying to make this sound like poor planning of selfishness may catch our attention, but misses the point. Parent and students are making much bigger sacrifices than ever to make the tuition payments. Making a point by including some selective, and probably unintended, statements is just crap journalism.</p>

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<p>Anyone old enough to be a NYT reporter probably did have parents whose education was paid for by there own parents (does that make sense?) Reporter didn't take into account that today's students are half a generation removed from that of the reporter.</p>

<p>The essential part about the scary debt was right on. I don't see how it can continue and can't imagine today's kids paying their own personal educational debts PLUS the government's. It's usually at that point that someone steps in and tips over the Monopoly board (or starts printing their own currency).</p>

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<p>Here's an excerpt of the NY Times story. I agree with those who have posted that it's overhyped. </p>

<p>There's nothing new in this story. Parents typically have provided students with whatever college education the parents were willing to pay for. The parents are being generous to do that. </p>

<p>What's different now is that many teens feel that they are entitled to an expensive private school education, an education that costs much more than it cost when many of us were young even when one takes inflation into consideration. I think that when many of us were young, we felt lucky to have parents willing to pay for all or part our college even if it was at State U. There was a higher proportion of teens who didn't get to go to college at all.</p>

<p>Another difference that's not noted in the story is that many parents now have prepaid in-state tuition so probably more students at their income levels can go to college without taking out loans than occurred back in our day. The parents who paid in advance did plan for their kids' college educdation. If the kids want something different, seems right to me that the kids should bear the burden of paying the extra money for what is, after all, their education.</p>

<p>"Some Parents Letting Children Choose College, and Pay for It</p>

<p>By JONATHAN D. GLATER
Published: April 10, 2006</p>

<p>Alexandra Baldari and her parents have talked a good deal over the past year about how to pay for her college education, and the upshot is this: If she enrolls at the University of Miami in the fall, she will bear much of the cost, which could total $40,000 or more a year, on her own.</p>

<p>Thomas W. Dillon's parents would have paid his college tuition at home in Rhode Island, but he decided to attend the University of Connecticut.
"The problem here," said Ms. Baldari, who lives in Parkland, Fla. "is I'm 18 and looking to go to college, and my parents are looking to retire."</p>

<p>Ms. Baldari's parents earn about $100,000 a year, but her mother, Anne Angelopoulos, said little is left after paying for housing, three cars, gas, food and utilities, as well as saving to contribute to Ms. Baldari's 11-year-old brother's education. Ms. Baldari's parents prepaid for her to attend a public university in Florida, but she does not want to go to a public institution. The Florida Prepaid College Program allows parents to lock in the cost of college in the future by paying at today's prices."</p>

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<p>The debt required by full freight for regular middle class people is impossible, outrageous. It is the mortgage on the house one saves for a decade to buy --along with the car. The debt is perhaps justified by medical or law school, b-school. It could be that people never burdened by debt do not truly understand its meaning.</p>

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<p>Exactly..... How many of us never dreamed of asking (or expecting) our parents to pay for some "dream" school. </p>

<p>AND what is it with these kids/parents that think that the kid has a "right" to go to his "dream school" (otherwise he'll be so upset at whatever school he ends up at).</p>

<p>I have all kinds of "dreams" -- dream car, dream vacation, dream job, dream whatever... I don't think I have a "right" to get those dreams and I'm not "depressed" when I have to settle for less!</p>

<p>As my title suggests, kids who think that they are entitled to attend the school of their choice are probably kids who had parents that went to every toy store in December to ensure that every item on Johnny's Xmas list would be under the tree on Christmas morn (otherwise, these parents believed, poor johnny wouldn't be able to have a "good christmas") Feel free to substitute Hannukuh or any other December holiday -- I'm an equal opportunity accuser of spoiling :)</p>

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<p>Somewhat ironically, my daughter and I had just had this discussion (read, major fight) over this topic yesterday, before the article appeared. She has a choice between Cornell (in-state tuition) and a bunch of other excellent private universities that are charging upwards of $45,000-$50,000, with zero financial aid. I've tried numerous times to get her to think about this to no avail. She cried and carried on, claiming she didn't understand the finances of the situation. Well, I don't want to make the choice for her (obviously we prefer $30,000/year Cornell), but I am fully aware of how long it takes to pay off a $60,000 debt, so we're trying to get her to see it our way. Finally, after much teeth gnashing, she got it. "So it's a choice between going to a school I don't want to go to and being in debt for years?" she asked.</p>

<p>Yup. Quite a choice, isn't it?</p>

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<p>Easy way for her to choose--you pay the first $30k and she borrows the rest if it's all that important to her. Called putting your money where your mouth is.</p>

<p>PS My parents paid Zero for my three degrees.(BS, MBA MS)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
PS My parents paid Zero for my three degrees.(BS, MBA MS)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Same here - zero financial support for three degrees.</p>

<p>My senior S prefers an out-of-state public univ. to the in-state one he's been accepted. There's the little matter of about a $12,000/yr. differential in tuition I'm afraid he's not yet factoring into his preferences.</p>

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<p>We did not have much $$$ so I don't want to imply I blame my parents or was shortchanged. I applied for several scholarships, summer jobs, work-study, loans and put enough together to get by. Back then it was a much lower number--even for OOS kids.</p>

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<p>Kwibbles -- I have a question. Did you discuss these issues with your daughter BEFORE she applied to colleges? </p>

<p>I'm not trying to criticize in any way .. it's just that I have a hard time understanding why either parents neglect to discuss these issues thoroughly ahead of time, or why kids who have had the discussion with the parents don't get it. </p>

<p>I told my daughter that she had to apply to the UC system, and that I would promise to pay the amount that it cost, WITH financial aid, and WITH her taking loans, to attend whichever UC she wanted. I told her I could not promise more, but I guessed that the UC's would probably want us to pay around $15K. </p>

<p>Now, that wasnt exactly true: the truth is that I always was willing to pay slightly more for a high-quality private college, but I didn't want to get into a discussion over those details until my daughter knew where she had been accepted and what sort of financial aid each school was offering. </p>

<p>But my daughter has known all along that finances would dictate the final choice, and we sure as heck aren't having any arguments around here. I used an excel worksheet to print off a nice bar graph of all her awards, and gave that to her to take with her when she met with the financial aid people at NYU (her first choice college). She knows that she won't be attending NYU because of the money issue -- and she also saw it as her responsibility to try to negotiate something better with them. </p>

<p>Anyway, I know that this is a very stressful and trying time for parents & their kids -- but I do think that the time to discuss finances is well before the student applies. And with reference to the NYT articles -- I think that any parent who is willing to pay the costs for attendance at the in-state public IS doing their part as a parent and should not be faulted. </p>

<p>If other parens are willing and able to give more, that's great -- but just because some other parent is willing to buy their high schooler designer clothes and a new car doesn't mean that I am obligated to do the same. The same is true with college.</p>

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<p>Calmom:</p>

<p>I agree that the "discussion" of what a family is willing to pay should be done LONG before the aps go out. </p>

<p>I would even go as far as saying that parents need to "let kids know" long before the kid is really thinking about college. </p>

<p>I knew, long before I went to college, that my parents weren't going to pay for anything. Knowing that, I knew what the limitations were going to be..... state schools - the UC system. Dreaming about private schools would have been a waste of time. </p>

<p>Now some may say, "my kid has wanted to go to Harvard since he was 3". Well, if my 3 year old ever said that, I'd smile and say, well, you better start saving your pennies cuz mommy and daddy can't afford harvard." When a little one hears that over and over, he doesn't grow up and expect anything more. Instead, he slowly realizes that he needs to be "open" to other options.</p>

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<p>Calmom,
Oh yes, we discussed this with our daughter before she applied to any of her schools. We had an agreement with her that she would be applying for scholarships -- either through FastWeb or through her high school. It was clearly understood, even before her senior year in high school, that she would either go with the school that offered the best financial aid package (as newbies to the application process, little did we know that all we would be offered was the unsubsidized Stafford loan), or the school that we could best afford. (In retrospect, I realize that is a little vague, and probably, in our daughter's mind, a subjective condition at best.) </p>

<p>After months of unkept promises, and long after applications went out, our daughter only applied for school scholarships, and those won't be announced until June -- too late to factor into our decision. In addition, they are minimal amounts.</p>

<p>What drives me nuts is that she had ample opportunities to try for scholarships and awards. She's very bright and very talented, but as with so many bright and talented stars, she is unmotivated by such mundane considerations as money. If we did anything wrong, it started a long, long time ago -- way before high school was a blip on the horizon -- when we did not preach frugality or saving. But then again, we have never had to deal with anything quite as overwhelming as college tuition. Even our house was more affordable!</p>

<p>Things will be very different the second time around -- daughter #2 comes up to bat in 2 years!</p>

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<p>So.... she thinks that going to Cornell is somekind of "last choice" college??? "choice between going to a school that I don't want to and...."</p>

<p>Yikes, does she know what an opportunity she has to be able to choose an ivy because it is cheaper than some other schools???</p>

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<p>You know it is especially ridiculous when kids want to spend the extra --oh, $200K-- out of a matter of what is essentially ...taste. Mine has a choice of $200K in debt from NYU or $10K in debt from a top LAC over the course of four years, and part of him felt at first perhaps NYU would be worth it (even though the LAC is actually a higher-rated school.) When things are essentially equivalent, especially then, we have to ask what we are really paying for. I mean ...Cornell...gee your kid will be slumming it there. C'mon. At a certain point these kids need to be able to understand what they are buying with their money --and before they have to sell the family farm to pay the bills. I have given into a lot, but I told him if he wants NYU the debt will have to be on him, not me, when he has other choices that are equivalent or better and almost free.</p>