Parental support for kids in grad school or professional school

<p>We gave our S a higher educations budget when he graduated from high school and he spent nearly all of it, with our blessing, for his undergrad. He just graduated and will be starting grad school out of state. He is now living in that state for the summer to work on establishing residency and gaining in state tuition in his subsequent years. He will be taking on substancial debt for this next level of education and has been looking for a basic job for the past couple of weeks, but has not had any success finding one yet. He has enough savings to get him through the summer but he is burning through his cash quickly. (That is not to say he is being irresponsible, just that the cost of living is high where he is living and will be going to school). It has been our thought that once he completed his undergrad and was out on his own it was up to him to pay his way. Now as I am hoping he finds a job I have this motherly sense that I want to help him out. So while I watch and ponder this I am wondering what kind of assistance other parents who are able to help, and are in a similar position, provide for their kids once they have graduated from college.</p>

<p>Is this a MS in engineering? My friends helped their son when his internship did not turn into a job, and nothing good came around. After his ms degree, he has been employed and happy.</p>

<p>I know if my son had gone to Cal for grad school, he would have been expected to apply as a resident in future years.</p>

<p>I am happy to contribute a few thousand a year, but I would question too much. Had my son wanted a nicer apartment, closer to campus, with fewer roommates, I offered to make up the difference. I would gladly pay for peace of mind, decent food, some social life, but not extreme luxuries. My estate lawyer suggested I send him a cash b/d gift,x10, which would ease the $ crunch. great advice.</p>

<p>Generally, PhD programs worth attending are funded (tuition waiver + living expense stipend).</p>

<p>Professional school (e.g. MD, JD) tends to come with a lot of debt.</p>

<p>D2 graduated in May and is starting professional grad school next week. We will pay most of the three years, mostly because she worked hard in HS and got a fantastic scholarship for undergrad. Her 4 years of undergrad tuition cost us less than one year at our state flagship would have, so we feel that we can help her out this way.</p>

<p>We are also paying for a good part of our D’s master’s program, and justifying it to ourselves by saying that her undergrad merit scholarships saved us at least that much. I frankly don’t know how we’d be dealing with this if we had been full pay for undergrad, but my parents paid for my law degree, so I’m inclined that way, providing we wouldn’t seriously compromise our retirement.</p>

<p>My oldest covered her own graduate program, we weren’t even really involved in the process of school search or funding. We would have been had she asked, but she didn’t ask.
We may help more with youngests grad school, but she will have to finish undergrad first.
:)</p>

<p>I don’t know what your financial situation is. Are you comfortable? Is your retirement funded? Have you gotten the other ones through school, yet?</p>

<p>I think this is a personal thing. In our house, we will pay for all education. Whatever that is. We don’t care.</p>

<p>But, as for basic jobs? Our kids have had them for a long time, now. My recent high school graduate has already turned her high school job into what would be a fully supporting position, which makes her a complete PITA, but in a good way. Oldest worked all the way through college because her internship turned into a part time position, which is now her first career job.</p>

<p>So, I actually think the caveat is this: we will pay for all education, but only if they are also working. A basic job is not hard to get. If our kids, who are very priveledged, weren’t also working? I wouldn’t pay for much. </p>

<p>But that’s just us. Everyone has their own philosophy.</p>

<p>Our daughter will be graduating next May from a costly OOS school (full pay). She chose it over a substantial scholarship at a very good private in CA. She said the other was simply a better fit. During the process we explained she could choose wherever she wanted. She knew had she have chosen the private with merit, we would have had the money to pay for whatever med school she wanted – private or public. Now should she choose an inexpensive IS public we’ll pay; should she opt for a pricey OOS private, we’ll contribute some, but the bulk of the financial burden will be on her shoulders.</p>

<p>I went to a quite cheap grad school and my parents helped some. I also lived at home during this time.</p>

<p>I always thought we would be one of those “we’ll pay for undergrad, but then you are on your own” type parents. But circumstances change. Both of our daughters attended undergraduate schools which provided generous scholarships.</p>

<p>D1 did an Americorps program that paid for her master’s. After a few years of work, she is returning to school for a professional degree. We’ll float her a loan that will probably turn into a gift upon graduation from the program.</p>

<p>D2 is talking about continuing on for a master’s in engineering after she finishes her undergraduate degree.</p>

<p>I think we changed our mind about paying for education beyond undergrad because we saw the effort our daughters put into school and work. And we found that while we are far from wealthy, we have enough. </p>

<p>I see no reason in not paying for education just so students learn to be independent. They have a whole lifetime to be independent. And it is hard to not want to help children who you see striving both to do well for themselves and, with all the idealism of youth, working to make a better world.</p>

<p>I don’t know anyone who is helping with grad school, but I really don’t know any parents in a position to help either. </p>

<p>I followed the money for grad school because it was my only option. Like most of my friends, no funding = no grad school right away.</p>

<p>It’s really gotta be a family decision :)</p>

<p>bookworm please translate cash b/d gift x10.
ucbalumunus: You got it. He is going for a JD. He made the decision to go to a good but lesser than T!4 school based on location and $$$ but still will have substantial debt even with scholarship and instate tuition. </p>

<p>We are not really able to pay for his education but outside of a modest graduation gift we aren’t helping him and he is living off of savings from his undergrad work. By the way we also didn’t have a say in his choice of school. We had just agreed that when he was done with undergrad the decisions were his. He would not have had it any other way.</p>

<p>The concern that I have now is that he is having some difficulty getting that basic job that he was counting on over the summer. He has applications out and had a couple of interviews but no job yet. On the one hand these are life lessons and he isn’t in any real trouble. On the other hand I can see his worry and I want to save him. </p>

<p>He is a great kid, worked hard and did well in undergrad. This seems to be the first time that I can remember him going for something and not being successful so i am hesitant to swoop in and save him but he has worked hard and made some difficult choices and we are able to help him some with basic expenses.</p>

<p>My son is graduating from college shortly. He is looking forward to his first career. He qualified for Bright Futures Scholarship. If he wanted to do Grad School I would gladly help him. He feels it is time to be finished with education. We put money aside in a 529 plan for college. Unfortunately my ex. Had both accounts set up for them in his name and refused to withdraw any money properly. My other son is interested in the Marines. I hope I can withdraw the profit without a penalty.</p>

<p>OP - Would it make sense for you son to defer start of grad school until he establishes residency? Maybe he could get a paid internship in the meantime.</p>

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<p>Did you have him read the Law School forum on how difficult it is to get a job after law school? It will be even worse when he has substantial debt to repay.</p>

<p>We gave our kids a budget that was a little more than the cost of a public school. What they didn’t spend (about 5K a year for both) they can use for grad school/down payment house/buying a car for work…It is not a gift but essentially a loan from the parent bank that we would forgive. Now that S is graduated, we have to figure out some way to pay that! Fortunately, he doesn’t want to go straight to professional school!</p>

<p>spectrum, if child is 23, than b/d gift is $2300.</p>

<p>It is easy to be generous if the child is a hard worker, careful with money, etc. I am not paying for law or medical school, as grad school is funded. Had law or medicine been his goals, he would probably have gone to a different UG, saving the $.</p>

<p>If you can afford it, you could send your son a small amount to help with expenses. What about a reloadable gift card for a local grocery store? My oldest son graduated debt free and plans on working a year or so before heading to grad school. His brother will be in college at that time, so we probably won’t be able to give much to my older son’s cause. So, the reloadable gift card is a good option.</p>

<p>We paid for undergrad; graduate school is on them. Dd had no undergrad loans, DS had 7800, which he is paying off. At their age, we were married with children and working and going to grad school.</p>

<p>We paid for undergrad at a cheap school and some graduate school and then he found work so he, his employer, or taxpayers will pay for him to finish grad school while he is working. Our daughter has a community college degree so we still owe her tons of money for education or other stuff if she doesn’t spend the education money.</p>