<p>First of all, l don’t know how you can legally impose debt on someone else.</p>
<p>Second of all, most people don’t grasp the gravity of future debt, so I’m skeptical of its utility as a motivator. Seems to me that w a low GPA, she will be in the worst possible position for getting a job to pay off the debt.</p>
<p>Are u going to impose the same conditions on the other 2 daughters, or just the stepdaughter? Isn’t this going to drive a wedge btwn u & your wife?</p>
<p>I think having skin in the game is an excellent idea but I would do it a little differently. If she qualifies for subsidized loans have her take out the loan at the beginning of each year with the understanding that with “satisfactory progress” towards her degree (chose as few or many as you like: minimum GPA, certain # gen eds fulfilled, degree in 4 years, etc) you will pay off those loans. The key is that you define an attainable goal that she can choose to meet. The degree she obtains will be relevant to paying those loans off so she’ll have to consider the employment possibilities when she defines her “minimum effort”. It might sound like tough love to some but college students are adults and should be required to make adult choices. Of course, this is most effective if it is family policy. Maybe a family meeting is in order. </p>
<p>If you were trying to devise a strategy to make an adult feel belittled, marginalized, inadequate, stressed and angry, this is a really good one, OP. </p>
<p>Skin in the game – our students pay/paid for books, incidentals, …everything but tuition and board. One of them had a longer timeline and when we started to worry about finances and they had enough from working, we shifted more of the tuition to them. As part of a family strategy for success as a group. They did not work much during the semester; classes take a lot of time. They can work their whole life, year round. </p>
<p>It is not your life to run. It just isn’t. Parents and stepparents can rationalize it all they want (finances! job hunting! social skills! college experience! personal goal setting!) but what we really mean is : I don’t like your choices. They are stupid/lazy/reckless and I will make better ones, let me drive. Certainly it is true that they DO make dumb choices. btdt. Leaving no room for error or exploration or change is just as dumb. </p>
<p>If UNH is happy with her grades, just back away. If she got in, stays in, and is happy, why would you want to mess with that? Parents of adults only get to help when help is asked for. Very hard to do, but imho the only route to lasting success as a family. Have more faith in her than this, and less panic about a future that is not on the doorstep</p>
<p>p.s. My FIL required my DH to have student loans for many of these same “reasons”. We lived in poverty while paying them off, while FIL bought rental properties, cars, and travelled with MIL. They would not visit us because they were scared of our neighborhood. We paid the loans off early, but DH has never shaken the feeling that his own father thought he wasn’t a good investment, and their relationship took decades to rebound</p>
<p>To be frank, I found the original post a little horrifying. I guess that’s why some posters are referencing fairy tales. There are many different philosophies of parenting expressed on this board and they can all be valid. I think we all try not to judge. But the methods suggested in the original post could be not only ineffective, but destructive, in my personal opinioin.</p>
<p>Some colleges don’t want students to work freshman year: they even give extra financial aid to help students avoid work while starting school (including Ivy League). Jumping into activities freshman year is also discouraged. Students need to get their bearing, get a feel for the workload, how to manage time, and generally a lot of psychic energy goes into adjusting to being there in the first place.</p>
<p>I think external motivators are inappropriate at this point in your stepdaughter’s development. They may still work in the short term but in the long term, motivation needs to come from inside the student, especially at this age. Your scheme is an attempt to control, rather than motivate. Tell her you trust her to do her best and hope she finds some area of interest and leave it at that. You don’t even need to know her grades unless they somehow jeopardize her attendance or scholarships.</p>
<p>Try to relax. She went through high school on her own terms, which may be more relaxed than yours. But she did well enough to get into UNH, which is a good school. She will figure out a major and get adequate grades, perhaps better than adequate if a fire gets lit. But no fires will get lit if you insist on owning her like this.</p>
<p>Our relationships with our kids are more important than getting a 3.7 instead of a 3.4. </p>
<p>It’s a tough world out there. I read that 82% of college grads live at home after graduation. Many have debt, and there is now almost a glut of BA’s on the market. But it is still true that a freshman should be investing most of her energy on adjusting to campus and exploring areas of study. Leave her to it, and she will find a major, find activities, and no doubt evolve toward employment of some sort through internships and so on.</p>
<p>Let it happen. It is up to her, not you.</p>
<p>That’s quite the punitive approach you’ve devised and it may backfire. You don’t want her to settle on a “fluff” major but by tying the threat of loans (and amount) to her grades and activity level, of course she’s going to pick the fluffiest major to meet those requirements. </p>
<p>Maybe she needs to “fail” a bit before figuring things out. Is this her first semester? Then see how next semester goes. </p>
<p>I like “cheeringsections” idea. I think its really important for students to have “skin the in game” regardless of whether they parents can afford to pay for everything. I also think its important that new students get a chance to feel out whether they can keep their grades up and work at the same time. BUT, there is nothing stopping a student from working the three months of no classes. I’m a bit bewildered when I read posts about kids that don’t have any savings for college, have they not worked every summer? My kids were expected to work as soon as they could get permits at age 14. Both had their allowance shut off on their 14th birthdays. So, yes, my solution would be for the daughter to be earning enough during the summer months to finance her fun during the school months and to also take out some loans (doesn’t have to be the total max - how about $2000/year) on the assumption that parents will pick up that tab if she follows through. Again, I would not impose a 4.0, but instead, with each semester that she passes parents should pick up that loan amount. If you do it semester by semester she has the ability to fall and pick herself back up again.</p>
<p>I don’t believe in telling kid he has to maintain a certain GPA - but I am an outlier on CC on this. I don’t even ask my S what his grades are and I certainly wouldn’t make him have any EC’s in college. Wanting to do well in college and participating in other activities has to be something he wants to do for himself. </p>
<p>My S works summers and breaks, plus has an on campus job (not work study) to pay for his books, gas, entertainment, etc. He does it because he wants to have enough spending money to do the things he wants. </p>
<p>Or a “hard” major senior year when you realize that being a C minus student in chemistry might not have been your best idea.</p>
<p>I agree with @thumper1 from post #5 - GPA floor with the potential to be pulled home if grades aren’t good. I also agree with posters about work being more important than activities in being hired. I’ve seen studies that say work study students actually have higher GPAs than other students. </p>
<p>The scale is pretty odd. 4.0 is almost unreachable for most kids, at any school. Activities are not forced upon people. </p>
<p>But the comment " First of all, l don’t know how you can legally impose debt on someone else." I do not know exactly what that means. In our case, my son was offered Federal loans and we have decided as a family that it would be better for him to take them than not take them. We aren’t forcing him to take loans, we are forcing him to take loans if he wants to attend a college which is really expensive.</p>
<p>If you didn’t originally file FA documents, UNH requires only FAFSA:
<a href=“Financial Aid | University of New Hampshire”>Financial Aid | University of New Hampshire;
<p>I don’t see anything about not being able to file the FAFSA for sophomore year if a student didn’t file freshman year, for UNH.</p>
<p>I didn’t do work study first semester, and many people do not. The only ones I did know who did work study first semester were very poor and could not attend without it.</p>
<p>I’m worried that you are doing what many parents do, that is, equating intelligence with being able to succeed immediately in an endeavor. One of my doctors has a son who was very bright in HS, got into several Ivies. He instead went to our state school, because he said “he wanted to have fun in college and not be challenged too much”. She let him go, and find his own way. This year he graduated from an Ivy, after going to the state school and realizing it was not right for him, he transferred to the Ivy. He is 25, but he did find his way and is doing great.</p>
<p>Some kids are not ready for college at 18, and some need time to adjust. If she did not work in HS and now is expected to work, that can be an adjustment.</p>
<p>(and I agree with the comments about the parents’ association at UNH - UNH has a parents’ association? But hey, there it is: <a href=“Parents & Families | University of New Hampshire”>Parents & Families | University of New Hampshire; I feel like they are setting a pretty high bar for how involved a freshman should be!)</p>
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<p>C-minus (1.7 GPA) would make it hard to avoid probation or dismissal at many schools… and a C-minus engineering student would have a harder time finding a job than a B or A engineering student.</p>
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<p>Actually, parents still have absolute veto power over the student’s college choices if their money or financial aid form cooperation is needed. Of course, not all possible exercises of such power are considered desirable by all posters here.</p>
<p>I think Steve has some valid concerns and just needs some help in devising an effective strategy. I found nothing out of the ordinary about his question. When you are a full pay family writing checks approaching $50,000 per year for tuition, I think it is reasonable to hope that the student is taking it seriously and will graduate with marketable skills. And if you have a student eligible for merit or financial aid and are paying less, I still feel it is a reasonable expectation. I don’t get all the implications about the step-daughter thing - sounds to me like Steve is assuming 100% responsibility for her college tuition. Many children, step or otherwise, do not have that luxury. </p>
<p>I see no problem with setting a minimum GPA so long as it is reasonable for that particular student. The first year she may need a little slack as she settles into a new environment. For a full pay family an unmotivated student doing the bare minimum can be tough to take. We have paid for private education since our children were in elementary school, but once middle school hit, we let them know they were expected to apply themselves in order to retain that privilege. We will be full pay for college and will have the same expectation. I will not force them to apply themselves but will not pay for an expensive, private education if they choose not to. I think that is reasonable.</p>
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<p>@rhandco: OP wasn’t talking about federal student loans unless the $20k he’s envisioning saddling his daughter with is the accumulation of the yearly loan students can get from the gov’t. I was assuming OP meant $20k/year because otherwise, as soon as the daughter makes less than an A, she’s really free to do what she wants and he loses the control he wants to have over her. He seems to believe graduations of debt will make a difference to an 18-year-old. I think once the girl owes, it won’t matter to her whether it’s $5k or $15k; both seem like amounts many teens would pay to get control of their lives. </p>
<p>If this is a FAFSA only OOS school, does that mean the bio dad’s financials aren’t considered? </p>
<p>I think long term ability to support oneself is more important than short term. So unpaid internships (generally after sophomore or junior year- ot freshman year- or during the year) sometimes mean more parental contributions to cost of living. My kids sometimes didn’t work during high school summers in favor of programs that developed their talents or interests.</p>
<p>I also never looked at grades, even in high school. But like I said, many parental philosophies can work if consistent, I do think overreliance on external motivators can backfire in that once they are removed, the kid hasn’t had a chance to build more genuine internal motivation.</p>
<p>What lies behind the original post is what is troubling: a lack of trust, inability to value the individual kid for who she is, and also premature pressure about future employment versus experiencing college in the present.</p>
<p>A 2.0 GPA engineering graduate will likely find it more difficult to get the first job than a 3.0 or higher GPA engineering graduate.</p>
<p>“A 2.0 GPA engineering graduate will likely find it more difficult to get the first job than a 3.0 or higher GPA engineering graduate.”</p>
<p>That seems so obvious it needn’t be said.</p>
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<p>Maybe they don’t believe it before it actually happens, but we know more than a handful of students who lost scholarships because they did not maintain the required GPA. And YES, their parents refused to continue to pay for these high priced schools,and yes, these kids came back to our home state and went to college locally.</p>
<p>As I said above, it’s not that I would pull my child from her school if her grades fell and she lost her scholarship, the school wouldn’t let her attend anymore without someone paying tuition and I couldn’t do it. It’s not likely to happen, but she knows if it does she can’t go to school there anymore.</p>
<p>Many of us have kids going to colleges we can’t afford without the merit scholarship, and many of those merit scholarships have gpa requirements. That’s just how it is.</p>
<p>Actually, it can be a bit risky to allow a student to continue at a school where they clearly are not succeeding. Once that gpa falls very low (assuming it’s not so low that they get kicked out), it is hard to transfer to another college and the kid can be stuck there, left to finish at that college with a lackluster gpa and limited options. Also, once they have a certain amount of credits, it is harder to come home and start over at the community college. If the kid is clearly in over his/her head, better to nip it in the bud and bring them home to start over locally. The hard part is gauging whether it’s just a problem with adjusting that will straighten out over time if you let them stay, or if the situation is hopeless and “coming home” is the best option.</p>
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<p>The OP never said his daughter was struggling. He apparently wants her to work, join more activities, and be able to influence the major she chooses. I don’t really see anything in his post that indicates that she’s having any difficulties at all other than perhaps not doing what OP wants. </p>