“It’s that time of year when parents and high school seniors are struggling with college choices. For many, the decision isn’t easy and can lead to family feuds.” …
I do agree that if a parent is paying for a good amount of the cost (through loans or out of pocket) they have a say on it. Why would you let yourself and your kid be hurt by huge loans? While here at CC we love to talk about “fit” (and it is important, don’t get me wrong), sometimes high school students forget that they might have to pay way too much money after those 4 nice years and that the rest of their lives may be negatively affected.
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While here at CC we love to talk about “fit” (and it is important, don’t get me wrong), sometimes high school students forget that they might have to pay way too much money after those 4 nice years and that the rest of their lives may be negatively affected.
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Right! An adult life burdened with loans won’t “fit” anyone.
How about if the parents do what most would recommend out here, and decide BEFORE their kid applies what they will and won’t fund, and give the kid the financial parameters to work within? Problem solved. Yet another thread with an article on a “non-issue”… or an issue that didn’t have to happen. We really have too many threads like this…
I agree, intparent. When my daughter was applying, I nixed some of her choices because they simply weren’t affordable. Was she hurt? Not really. We don’t drive BMWs either.
i read that article in the WP and I completely agree with the author. High school students (and often their parents) often romanticize college and throw the rational cost/benefit analysis out the window when in fact it applies just as much to college as to any other major investment.
I see people regularly get in over their heads buying luxury cars, redoing perfectly nice kitchens for granite and “the bells and whistles”, and taking fantastic vacations several times a year. If people can’t figure out what they can afford for things like this- any wonder they have a meltdown when it comes time to calculating what they can afford for college?
I did give my kids a budget, but after we started looking I discovered it was too low for one, and just fine for the other. If it is the first child in a family looking, many people just don’t know what is available, what the average cost will be. Parents have been fed the ‘there are thousands of scholarships available’ and ‘there are full ride scholarships going unused every year.’ These kids have been told since K that they are geniuses, that smart kids get lots of money, that Harvard and Yale are free. I absolutely understand how families get to this point in the process and realize they can’t afford some schools, that the FA packages didn’t come out as they expected them to, and that the kids have favorite schools that they still want to go to even if it makes no financial sense.
Even after following CC for a while, much of the wisdom on here is different from what I’ve experienced. One of my daughters is sort of surviving on the small one year scholarships. Her talent scholarship was for one year, but luckily has been renewed. Her gpa is high enough to keep her small merit scholarship. A little here, a little there, and she’s making it. Last year the school awarded her a small alumni grant, and I’m really hoping it shows up again in her package for this year but there are no guarantees. My other daughter has bigger scholarships (at a private school so more expensive tuition) but the little scholarships are what bring the whole thing into ‘affordable’ for us. My kids have listened to me preach ‘no loans!’ for years, but they still didn’t and don’t get all the money pieces of their education. I did, however, have veto power on their colleges because in the end, I’m paying more than they are which is what I got from the article - the parent still has to make the responsible financial decision.
In the linked article the two parents also disagreed with each other. You have to come to a joint decision. I got the feeling from the article the wife’s opinion wasn’t much valued and that the dad viewed the money as his.
I agreed to be responsible for the cost of an in-state public college. I wasn’t being cheap, I had no idea how I could possibly do more (we wouldn’t have received much need based aid and kids weren’t interested in the private colleges where they could have gotten merit aid). One out of state public gave enough aid that my kid could have gone with what I was willing to pay plus maximum federal loans. I didn’t feel like any of us had a choice that included more expensive schools. All kids went to in-state public schools and do appreciate not having loans.
The author is giving advice that I have read on CC over and over in the few short months that I have been coming to this site. Reality bites and it bites hard sometimes. Getting real about the financial realities before the college search makes sense. Unfortunately there is a lot of misunderstanding out there. I can see it when I chat with some of my daughter’s classmates parents, and there is no way to tell many of them.
I think honestly the root of it is the general culture aversion towards talking about money with kids. You have a lot of kids who have no idea what anything costs, who have no clue how much money their lifestyle cost. They find out that their parent makes $100,000 a year and to them that means that the parent should reasonably be able to afford any college that costs less than $60K a year (after all, Mom, after paying tuition you’ll have a whole $40K left over to do whatever you want!)
This means that it’s hard to suddenly have these money conversations now because up until this point the money-based decisions were rationalized under the “because I said so,” principle which seems arbitrary and also creates the impression that the only reason the parents don’t spend as much money as the child wants is because they don’t want to (rather than because it would be irresponsible or impractical). I think if we made more of an effort (as a society) to educate kids about cost of living it might make conversations about spending and debt less disorienting for all parties.
I didn’t read the article, but I had some friends visiting this past weekend and I got a peek into a completely unfamiliar (to our family) family dynamic. It was their freshman dd’s spring break. The mom was angry b/c the dd had just decided she was going to double major. At first I couldn’t understand the undercurrent and why there was so much tension. Turns out it is b/c the double major is going to take 2 extra semesters (the daughter had had enough credits going in that she could graduate in 3 yrs.) The mom does not want to pay for an extra yr. The dd said, totally nonchalantly, “Not my problem. My brother took 5 yrs to graduate. I have every right to expect you to pay for as long as it takes for me to finish.”
This is not how our children and my husband and I interact. Our kids don’t think they have a right to anything. But, as far as that goes, my husband and I don’t believe that about ourselves either. We function in a completely different way and try to constantly weigh the pros and cons of every decision (financial or otherwise) and how it impacts the entire family. Our kids have always been part of that process. The kids don’t compare what they have received to each other b/c it hasn’t ever been about fairness. It has always been about what has been possible for us to provide each one at any given time. Our financial resources have never been about divvying up equally. (of course, they also have a disabled adult brother who has consumed far more of our financial resources than any of them. So they know that they are not all equal in terms of providing for themselves, either.) If a school had been chosen based on a 3 yr budget, that conversation would have taken place a long time prior to 2nd semester.
In terms of making final decisions for schools with our own children, we don’t “tell” them. It is a family discussion. Pros and cons are weighed. Maybe we have been purely lucky, but so far the decision has always been one everyone has felt was the right choice all the way around. (It is also not a decision left until their sr yr. We are already discussing pros and cons of the various schools our sophomore daughter is considering.)
“we don’t “tell” them. It is a family discussion”
But when a school is too expensive, isn’t part of that discussion parents telling their children – it isn’t affordable? I mean, at some point the parent has to TELL their kids, yes this is doable, no this is not. Kids can’t make a rational decision without this kind of well-defined boundary. (Assuming, of course, there are boundaries. If there aren’t, and the family really can afford any school without parents/kids going into debt – well, good for that family! Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of those.)
Look, most of us can afford to take a loan for a BMW. And for fancy-pants-private-university-3,000-miles-away-from-home. But the larger question is – should we? Is that a smart way to spend our money? Is the resulting debt worth it to us – to our kids (who have no idea what a burden debt can be?) Can we get similar car/education for an amount closer to what we can afford without spending thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars on interest alone?
I would just like to note that the title of the article doesn’t really match what Singletary says in the article itself. She promotes a family decision, with the parents being firm about finances.
@katliamom
We would never have to tell our kids no b/c the school is too expensive. Seriously, they would already know it and would discount it on their own.
My 16 yr old daughter is sitting beside me and I asked her how to explain that they wouldn’t ask. She shook her head and she said just can’t imagine expecting it. We are sending her to camp this summer and she feels guilty that she gets to go and her little sisters don’t get to go on vacation b/c of it. It’s a family decision. But, they have grown up this way. They know one decision completely impacts another.
You have very mature, sensible kids @mom2aphysicsgeek. Kudos!
My kids are used to compromising too, but that doesn’t mean they always like it. One accepted that her sister got to go to France on a school trip and she didn’t, but the non-traveler got to play a very expensive club sport that summer so it was not as if she was asked to empty her piggy bank for the good of the family with nothing in return. The traveling kid attends an OOS public which in the end costs more than the private school the second child attends. Second child is a little bitter that I don’t pay more for her, or at least give her the difference.
@katliamom, I get your point that the question boils down to whether or not it is a smart way to spend our money. I disagree with you about “Look, most of us can afford to take a loan for a BMW”
I guess I run in different circles than many of you, because most families I interact with are like me, and we absolutely cannot afford a BMV.
I am always espousing fit, fit, fit. But fit is defined however a family defines it. If financial considerations and parental restrictions are part of the fit (e.g. location of the school, cost), then that factors into “fit”. Your kid can find the best place in the world but if it does not 'fit" your budget, it ain’t happening. It is best to let your kid in on your finances early so it can order their entire college search process.