“I wouldn’t be comfortable telling either of our kids - here’s a third of a million dollars and you decide how you’d like to use it.”
Any kid who’s had a summer job and seen how many hours they have to work for a few thousand dollars should have a clear appreciation that $150K or $300K is a vast, life changing amount. IMO giving them control makes it more likely they’ll choose a cheaper option for college.
Even ignoring the tuition and room costs, I’m amazed how many parents keep babying their kids with money all through college. Most of my kids’ friends have a small allowance (or earnings from a part time job) then their parents pay separately for extras like sorority dues, clothes, spring break trips, ski passes, cars, etc. We just gave the kids a single larger monthly allowance and they budget themselves (they’ve been buying their own clothes and paying for gas since they could drive). This year (first year of college) they set up Roth IRAs for summer earnings, transferred money to/from a high interest savings account, got a credit card, did their own tax returns, let me know when they needed 529 disbursements to their bank account to pay their college bill, etc. Their friends have no understanding or involvement in any of those things.
@Twoin18 the cheaper college isn’t always the best choice.
S19 has a summer job and is expected to use that money for anything over tuition, room and board, travel to and from school and books. I don’t expect him to let us know how he’s spending it. He’s in charge of that.
If your dad is offering $25,000 a year and it is conditional (after 1st year of college, only with 3.0+ college GPA), that could potentially put you and your kids in a bind if you are counting on that money to pay tuition bills (for a place like Michigan OOS). Relatives have also been known to promise and then not deliver. Not saying that is the case with your dad, but it does happen.
@twoin18. I understand what you are saying but don’t fully agree either. My kids 20/22 are just starting to do their own taxes etc, have their own credit cards, have Ira and retirement accounts (due to choosing at school so could afford to do this) etct. But they drastically need our help. I call them “adults in the making”. As my daughter says "I am not sure I want to be an adult yet ?.
Not all kids are mature as your kids seem to be. Both work during the school year and have an appreciation for money /value but if we dropped that kind of money into their accounts their response would be “Cool, thanks”. I don’t think lots of young adults “get it” at this age.
Also if in the cards still have him visit Alabama. So many of my patients kids are going there or went there for engineering and “once” there really love the campus and would “never” think their kid would be their.
One parent put it perfectly the other day to me. "3/4 merit and a decent school means I can put away for retirement and have a life also "?.
Ps… … When I said" our kids are really smart "I meant everyone’s kids on these forum, not just talking about my kids. I didn’t like how that read.
Right. Some families don’t have a strict plan with x amount of money for college/grad school as a budget. We did tell S19 that, since his school is pretty much the max of what undergrad costs, he’s on his own for grad school. He will graduate undergrad with no debt. He’s good with that. He’s not planning on grad school right now but, if that changes, it will be on him. We have faith that he will do well after undergrad and will figure out the grad school thing if he wants. Our D21 is maybe more likely to go to grad school (not law or medical school) and she will investigate what that might cost and take it into consideration when looking at undergrad. She knows we are only paying for S19’s undergrad with the high price tag. We are willing to do the same for her but, if she wants us to pay for grad school, then she will have to make a different undergrad choice than her brother. It’s not necessarily that we are trying to spend the same on both but trying to do what would be best for each of them with the limited info we have when they are just 18. S19 can do the jobs he’s thinking of with an undergrad degree. Launching D21 into a different career might take more school.
In @121IllinoisDad’s case, he can also tell his son that Michigan is a go if he wants to start his career with his undergrad degree. One thing he’s considering that we are not is giving his son the balance if he chooses a less expensive school. If D21 has a favorite school that will serve her well for undergrad and adding grad school still doesn’t match the total cost of S19’s undergrad, she doesn’t get the balance. She’ll be ready to go just like her brother was. Won’t matter to us that her post-high school education costs less. We did what we agreed to do - paid for the education she needed to start work. S19 kind of set the bar for the max but D21 doesn’t have to spend that.
@sevmom. Really good point
Also engineering is NOT easy. Lots of schools will graduate you with a 2.0-2.5. Lots of kids grades drop a full grade during their first 1-2 years. Maybe a talk with Dad about this. Look up each school for engineering and see what that is. Sorry to throw this out but school’s like Michigan, GT, Purdue, Illinois and really tough for engineering.
My good friends son in Computer Science at Illinois (previous high school all A student with 34 Act) barely was passing at University of Illinois. His father was worried and son said “don’t worry” ends up graduating (yeah) and first job right out of school with a start up. Fast forward 8 years and he had a team of 12 computer science people coding for him. Same company. He travels internationally.
Talk to dad about this.
I believe this has been discussed on this thread but I think location in my opinion needs to be thought about. Illinois has a bus on weekends taking you back to Woodfield. (Northwest Chicago mall). Alabama is 10-12 hours away… Knowing someone at the school is more likely at Illinois and that may matter. And Illinois is a better school.
CoA for OOS at Alabama is about $51,000 a year. In State costs for UIUC are about $36,000 a year. So, for it to be worthwhile for the OP’s son to attend Alabama, he’d need a scholarship that is substantially more than $15,000 a year, or $60,000 total
The OP’s son is eligible for two of these: the Presidential Scholarship, which is a total of $104,000, and UA scholar, for $80,000 total.
However, one would also need to add a couple thousand on travel costs to Alabama, so the $80,000 is likely only marginally cheaper, when calculating whether to go to Alabama.
Of course, UIUC has its own scholarships for kids with those stats, so the OP would have to compare once his S20 was getting offers.
I agree with what @gardenstategal and @homerdog said a few pages back, @121IllinoisDad. I know you weren’t asking for advice about this part of it, and for all I know your son loves big schools and hates small ones, but I would at least consider what people have said if he has any interest at all in smaller schools.
Engineering is really hard. I personally would discourage my kids from going to a huge school for anything, but especially Engineering. And especially a kid who might get distracted by the social life at college. I’d be fine with a small party school where they could get help from their professors , but I’d be really careful about sending a very social kid to a huge state school to study Engineering. One bad class with a terrible teacher and the kid can get discouraged. And that can snowball. The professors usually don’t care and his drinking buddies(Economics and Psychology majors with way less work to do ) will be there to tell him not to worry and come out partying.
Does this sound autobiographical? It is I made it through and did well enough at the end, but it was touch and go in the middle. I definitely wouldn’t do it that way again. The kids I knew who went to the smaller, but just as well regarded Engineering school an hour away, had just as much fun but learned a lot more because the teachers actually taught the material and cared.
Just something to think about. There are way more casualties at the big Engineering schools, at least in my experience.
We’ve found there to be an abundance of academic supports at Purdue. Aside from the usual study groups, office hours, and tutoring, there are dedicated help rooms for all of the first year courses. Kids have to be motivated to get help but it’s like that anywhere.
Same as Purdue. At Michigan and have to at least assume at Illinois. If you need help beside professor time there are weekly TA sessions. You can go to science /math tutor labs, plenty of help groups to join. Many kids. Make their own study groups. If your kid needs help and doesn’t find it they are not looking in the correct place. This is one thing that really impressed us at Michigan. It’s there for the taking. Going back to the poster above stated and what I wrote earlier. Engineering is tough for lots of great kids. Also like every school has a engineering 101 course to take to go over each speciality.
Of course there are more casualties of big school engineering. Its simple math as there are more kids looking at engineering at the big schools. There are also more successful engineering kids at big schools.
Concept of big party schools is interesting to me. In my experience, get a group of 18-22 year olds together without being under the eye of mom and dad and parties will result. Take the worst party school and there are kids who do not party and never will. One thing that is true of big schools is you have a lot of diversity in terms of kids there (again its just numbers). And that small school with no parties? There will be kids who party too much and have issues. Kid involved will be biggest factor.
And all profs at small schools care and no profs at big schools care? Interesting.
There are simply easy ways to make any school small or large feel smaller. The typical suggestions are join groups /clubs /activities. My son started his own group and it’s very active with around 20-30 kids weekly out of the 50,000 that go there. He also works and met a few kids there. Plays Flagg football and more kids there. I haven’t even stated just meeting people in your dorm at lunch or classroom etc
It does take some effort but this is college now and time to push yourself a bit.
@121IllinoisDad If your son is interested in Industrial Engineering and Business, check out Lehigh’s Integrated Business Engineering Honors Program(IBE). https://ibe.lehigh.edu
Each incoming class of IBE comprised of 50 students, and many major in IE and Finance and many enter management consulting after graduation. It’s a mid-size private, 5000 students with a large Greek system.
My S19 applied to all the schools your son is considering and a few others (UIUC, Michigan, Texas-Austin, U of Minn- Twin Cities, Purdue, Northwestern, USC, Case Western, Miami Ohio, Northeastern, Iowa State, Lehigh). He applied to most school as a EE or EECE major. He got into all and many offered merit aid ranging from $3k to full tuition. He did not received any merit aid from Michigan, Texas, and Northwestern.
The final contenders were Northwestern, USC, UIUC and Lehigh, he ultimately chose Lehigh bc of IBE and the full tuition merit aid. The minimum GPA is 3.25 to stay in IBE and and to keep the merit aid. He just finished his sophomore year and his GPA is much higher than 3.25 even though he has taken 18 credits each semester. Since it’s a dual degree program, a full ABET engineering major and a business major, there are a large number of requirements to fulfill. I think he said he’ll have about 180 credits when he’s done. His majors are EE and Finance.
@cag60093. This is basically a 5 year combined program correct? It looks great
This can be accomplished at many schools in different forms but looks like a very nice program.
@121IllinoisDad If you and your son have not visited UIUC, I highly recommend it too. It’s engineering campus is really impressive and the school of engineering has incredible funding resources, more than any other schools within in UIUC. Also, I believe Grainger made a donation of $350 million just this year, so funding issue will never be a problem. Each engineering major has it’s own building with its own library. All are brand spanking new and very high tech. The engineering campus is very close to the main campus.
So many on CC, think smaller private schools are better bc classes are smaller and more direct contact with teaching staff, etc. The many students we know who are in engineering (and business) at UIUC who do not find those things as non-issues. They are doing very well in school and those who graduated have found excellent jobs immediately out of school. I definitely hoped that our S19 would choose UIUC at the end, but he had good reasons why he chose Lehigh. Fortunately, our D21 will head to UIUC this fall.
@knowstuff Lehigh’s IBE program is 4 years. It’s not really dual degree, graduates receive a BS in Integrated Business and Engineering. https://ibe.lehigh.edu/about
) will be there to tell him not to worry and come out partying.