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<p>Absolutely true, calmom! Our experience also…</p>
<p>I tell my kids that they won’t appreciate the difficulty parents have of putting their kids through college until they are parents and try putting their own kids through college.</p>
<p>We also need a breather and really never planned for grad school, thinking that they are on their own at that point. D graduates with a job in hand which will cover grad school-everyone is happy. S does not have interest in grad school right now, happy with his job.</p>
<p>H & I plan to pay for grad/law school for Ds, but I’m already feeling some financial fatigue from working so hard to pay for undergrad (our share is abour $65K a year). H & I both lived at home during undergrad (parents paid the $500 annual tuition) and we paid our way through grad school and law school (4th tier). We would have loved to have gone away to better schools and had the full college experience. We are now kind of living vicariously through Ds top 20 Uni and LAC experiences. We just can’t bring ourselves to leave Ds to fend for themselves - it was so hard when I had to do it. I wonder, though, if they would be better off with the struggle - I think that struggle is what got H & I where we are today.</p>
<p>I can’t possibly afford to pay my children’s grad school. It’s just not in the cards. I will do what I can to get them through undergrad without debt but there are no guarantees of a live-on-campus undergrad education either. I think my reality is that of most people in this country. It’s not like we have $200K per child sitting in the bank and have no idea what to do with the ‘excess.’ Instead, every year, I sit down, look at the financial aid award and figure out how to come up with my share and what to do to minimize the kids’ shares. </p>
<p>Like Calmom’s kids, my kids have also enjoyed opportunities that were never offered to me (like living abroad). That said, if they want to live at home and attend grad school locally, they are free to do that-- but I’m afraid that’s about all I can contribute.</p>
<p>I don’t really get the idea of paying for the degree, not the cost. To me, that seems to dissaude frugality when choosing an undergrad college. I understand if fonanc</p>
<p>S and D could have attended a good undergrad school for free tuition (H works there). Neither one went there. We allowed them to find the college that was right for them and S did very well at his. Graduated with 3 undergrad degrees in 4 years. D will be in her 2nd year and appears to love it where she is and is doing well. We are paying for their undergrad (both at private schools). For grad school S is responsible for his living expenses. He works two jobs over the summer and will earn almost enough for the living expenses for the year. Other than that he will need to use some of his savings and money that he gets for gifts. D currently is planning on going to grad school. We’ll figure that out when she is ready but we’ll probably do soething similar.</p>
<p>Not a parent, but…</p>
<p>My parents are paying for most of my undergrad. I will definitely be taking on some debt for UG, so grad school, unless an employer pays for it, isn’t an option. Funny thing, though, my parents are EXPECTING me to go to grad school and take out all these loans…like hell I will. Parents shouldn’t expect their kids to go to college or grad school unless they are willing to SIGNIFICANTLY help out these kids financially.</p>
<p>Will pay for grad school if it is helpful in their career fields and they work hard in their undergraduate studies. Have been paying for private schools since the 1st and 4th grades for two kids, so we’re pretty much used to being cash poor for education. I figure if we can afford it without too much misery, it’s better than them getting into debt. Though I really will enjoy the extra cash when there is no more school to pay for!</p>
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<p>Sorry–the drawbacks of leaning to post on a phone! Anyway, what I was saying was, I understand if there are huge financial changes (job loss, medical expenses, etc., etc) that change the ability to pay. But just saying on principle that you will pay $200k, $100,k, $60k, etc., but if your kids choses a college that costs, say $35k total, and saying then they can’t “forward” that to grad school expenses on principle, reads to me like begging your kids to just choose the most expensive school (within whatever parameters you set) that they got into. Except for any altruistic considerations of family finances (which are, honestly, difficult for most HS seniors to truly grasp, I would think), there’s no incentive to even think about finances because the money will be “burned” in four years, regardless. That doesn’t seem like a good lesson to teach to me.</p>
<p>Hello! I am actually actually glad I found this discussion. I recently graduated with my undergraduate degree and applied to 5 differernt schools for grad school (accepted to all 5). My parents told me when I first started in college as a freshman that they would get me through 4 years and from there the rest was up to me. I graduated with a 3.7 cumulative GPA and ended up getting a large scholarship to NYU. I will be starting in September. I took out a great deal of loans to afford my grad education but the way I see it, I dont have any loans from my undergraduate so I am very lucky compared to other students. I will end up about $25,000 in debt but the ability to get a better job makes it worth it. I think if a student decides to go to grad school they should foot the bill and be responsible for their expensive education.</p>
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<p>Have you considered some sort of transition so that your Ds’ pick up partial responsibility along the way.</p>
<p>The way you worded your post seems kind of sad, to me – as if you view your daughters as helpless, or are afraid of having them experience any sort of difficulty because things were so tough when you were young. It doesn’t sound like you have considered the possibility of allowing your very capable daughters to “fend for themselves” with a parental safety net – or a gradual reduction in parental financial support over the years. </p>
<p>Even though I’m not financially able to provide post-undergrad support to my kids, I hope they know that they can always come to me in an emergency. I haven’t cut them out of my lives – and I certainly do give gifts from time to time. In my financial bracket, a generous gift is a $150 birthday check – but in yours, perhaps it would be much more. </p>
<p>I’m not questioning your decision – its just that your post suggests that you are not altogether comfortable with the choices you made. One starting point for conversation is simply to ask each of your daughters what they think would be fair and appropriate for their grad school plans – you might be surprised to find that they are willing to take on much more responsibility than you had anticipated.</p>
<p>I would have considered saving some college money for DS’s grad school if he had gone to a cheaper one, but I do think that the school he’s going to is so fantastic, and has changed him so much, that it is worth investing in right now, whatever happens in the future.</p>
<p>Ditto. Our son, physics major, chose an instate (NY) school with a good scholarship package so the “college fund” can extend to grad school if necessary. So far, we haven’t paid for undergrad and won’t be funding grad school either. (He did decide to do the honors program to beef up his grad school applications.)</p>
<p>My mom promised me 4 years of undergrad at a UC (I’m Californian), but graduate school would be my responsibility. Which was totally reasonable to me as I could have graduated in 3 years, but did part of a minor and study abroad for a 4th year and she paid for it. Graduated debt-free.</p>
<p>I was lucky enough to be interested in microbiology and the graduate programs I was accepted to covered not only tuition but also pay a decent living stipend. I get paid to go to school now.</p>
<p>To the OP: graduate school admissions are so crazy right now, that if your D’s grades are slipping to a point where you don’t want to pay for her grad school, that means that she may not be competitive enough to get into a PhD program without doing an MA first. And those are usually not funded at all.</p>
<p>There are so many varieties of grad school with different norms. I’d say, though, that if your D is interested in a Ph.D. (as opposed to law, medicine, social work etc.) and does not have a competitive enough undergraduate record to get graduate fellowships or teaching assistantships, you should not help pay for grad school because you are wasting your money. There is definitely a status/pecking order in Ph.D. programs and students who do not have “funding” in one way or another are at the bottom. They are not given good research opportunities or mentoring, because the institution does not believe in them (otherwise they would have gotten grants, fellowships, or teaching assistantships when they applied). They are cash cows for the institution. Don’t bother going for an MA first–go right to a funded Ph.D. program or nothing.</p>
<p>We set up UGMA at birth and funded it as if it was a retirement fund.
At start of undergrad search he knew how much he had to work with. We supplemented UGMA by Stafford and PLUS loan programs because of 9/11 devastated the UGMA. At graduation he assumed all loans and was his option how he wanted to pay off the loans. </p>
<p>Grad school was on his choice. His condition for grad school (engineering) was to get a grad scholarship or enter the work force (2006). He got a full scholarship for MS. </p>
<p>In his current position, a MS degree is not absolutely necessary, although getting the job required a MS degree. He didn’t really gain that much in MS school other than making friends, networks, and having fun.</p>
<p>A lot of variables go into the equation. We have three kids. Both my wife and I paid for our graduate schools. Our first just graduated from college in May and starts grad school in the fall. Sadly we won’t be able to help her out. We live in a city where the public schools are not accredited, so we had to pay for her to go to private schools for 12 years. Her younger sister is a senior at a private high school and will go to college in a year. Her older brother is in a private grade school and will require a private high school. Our oldest went to a private college at $45k a year. The next will probably get into an Ivy League school. If some of our investments pay off we may be able to pay for grad school for the 2nd or 3rd, but the first is just out of luck.</p>
<p>We will help out with expences while in grad school but the tuition is not possible. We are approaching the age when we need to put as much away for retiremnt as possible.</p>
<p>We will pay because of D’s unique situation. We did not pay UG - covered by Merit $$. We are both blessed with jobs, there are no other dependents, no mortgage, no loans. If any of these variables change, the plan might change also.</p>
<p>calmom - Thanks for your post. I think you are right. The idea of gradually weaning Ds off our financial support is one that I should be more enthusiastic in embracing. They are very capable young women and actually have very ambitious and independent natures. It would be a shame to deprive them of the strength and satisfaction that can be gained from “fending for oneself” merely because of my own fear that they will suffer some hardship along the way. As for the “sadness” in my post, I actually appreciate you pointing that out. I definitely don’t want my own past to shape my Ds’ future. I think that I will use these posts as a starting point for a conversation with Ds before they go back to school.</p>