<p>“I haven’t read the whole thread but some of the posters berated the OP when they thought he was the parent for being selfish and now that the OP admits she is the child, the subsequent posts berate her for asking.”</p>
<p>I don’t see anyone berating her for asking. I said offering and asking are different, and I think the subsequent answers more closely reflect where her father might be coming from…as opposed to “…describing the situation from my father’s perspective would not only be good for me understanding his take on things but would probably get more earnest responses from other parents.”…The change after disclosure was pretty interesting! Is that “…the observer’s paradox”? I am not familiar with that.</p>
<p>I also think honesty elicited some of the perspective CC parents seem best at; advising young people on how to think about college debt.</p>
<p>Note that typical parents don’t seem confident they can retire at 50!</p>
<p>Remember, insanity is performing the same action repeatedly & expecting different results. In this case, repeatedly asking dad to help with $70-75K in ed loans & suddenly expecting him to want to help with them seems to fall in that category. </p>
<p>What any of us anonymous strangers choose to do with our kids and situations (work vs. retire, help kids totally vs some vs not at all for UG and/or grad school) has little bearing on whether YOUR DAD will voluntarily decide he wants to help you with any of the ed loan debt you have and plan to have.</p>
<p>OP- is your mom getting alimony from your dad? And now that she’s living with you, can some of that $ go to helping you with your living expenses while she’s with you?</p>
<p>I realize it’s tricky asking a parent about their divorce agreement… and many divorced parents harbor very negative feelings toward the other parent of their child, but I don’t think there are many parents who wouldn’t feel a bit of pride and gratitude that their child had stepped up to take in the ex- spouse.</p>
<p>I think the reality in front of you as of today- barring a miracle- is to defer grad school for now. Put simply, you can’t afford it. You can’t afford it today, you can’t afford it tomorrow, and even after taking out the loans, you still can’t afford it. </p>
<p>I think if your dad were interested in helping you with grad school you’d have heard about it by now. So-- no, he’s not interested. Whether he retires, stays employed, or whatnot… he’s clearly not going to help you out financially. So put that option behind you.</p>
<p>Your choices going forward are to find a less expensive program, keep working until you’ve chopped down your undergrad debt so that the grad school loans are not as onerous, or to find a job where your employer will pay for grad school.</p>
<p>Or win the lottery but I can promise you that’s not happening.</p>
<p>I suspect your father is really not intending on retiring when he says he is. It is very probably an excuse, so he can say that he can’t help you with graduate school, as opposed to that he doesn’t want to. The reality is, an income of 100K is not very much money. After you take away taxes, medicare and ss deductions, you’re not left with that much. He has probably helped you all he could without his wife getting too angry at him. Will she really want to support him while he’s giving so much money to you?</p>
<p>That is a lot of $$ for graduate school, will it really help you that much? If you honestly think it will take 25 years to pay off 70K, you must be in a low income type job. And why go to the effort and cost of graduate school if it really won’t help you? Sure it might be enjoyable and a worthy adventure, but not if it puts you into debt bondage for so long.</p>
<p>Many very wealthy parents do not intend to fund graduate school for their kids. I would think there aren’t many that make 100K/yr that are intending to fund it, unless they have saved for that purpose or are extremely committed to that as their top priority. If he really is intending on retiring that early, he either has something else he wants to do, or seriously does not like his job. Either way, he doesn’t seem to want to work longer to fund what he may consider frivolous. Just deal with what options you have, and it sounds like him paying for it is not one of them.</p>
<p>Those 30 year olds are both engineers. The house they bought netting them a house payment of $700/month, they drive older cars, they aren’t clothes horses, they like to travel but don’t need to stay in fancy hotels, etc. and they are just very financially savvy. They “need” an income of about $40K/year max to sustain their lifestyle which is something most people here just can’t seem to fathom. It’s entirely possible, just not in places like NYC, Boston, etc.</p>
<p>I also know many people in their early 50’s that are retiring–again, lived fairly simple lives, didn’t need all the fancy stuff, have nice, solid pensions which helps, but also have ample savings in 401K’s, etc. to maintain current lifestyles.</p>
<p>I remember in economics that high salaries were an incentive to work hard. Now salaries have become so high for the “smartest” people that they are all retiring young, some ridiculously young. Just a non-sequitor. I’ve heard of people who have started a hedge fund and retired in their 40’s or created another kind of company and spun it off and retired very young.</p>
<p>If you want to go into something like teaching or social work you need a graduate degree and the job doesn’t pay well. Some people can’t do anything which pays more than that. That is a reality. The shame is that costs at state schools have gone up so much that you really can’t get a cheap graduate degree anymore. If you’re a teacher, you may have to keep going back for more degrees as the field gets more and more competitive. I have friends who got a master’s in elementary ed, then got certified in English and now need a degree in special ed or something.</p>
<p>amazon–you most certainly can get a “cheep” education, you just have to know where to look. There are many, many private schools out there that offer substantial merit aid that bring their COA down to $15,000 or less-without any financial aid factored in. People just have to stop being so “brand” conscious and figure out that you can get an excellent education at most colleges. There are also plenty of state schools that are reasonable, even for OOS students.</p>
<p>SteveMA, it is true that life is about choices. Most of us on this Board have chosen to have a child or children and spent considerable resources to be sure they get an education. For those of us who have helped our kids pay for undergraduate education & sometimes more, this may defer or delay our retirement. Many others have chosen professions which do not produce “boatloads” of money, have had employers who promised pensions only to find that the promises evaporated as the company went into bankruptcy.</p>
<p>It is difficult to really know what the future will bring. Generally if children are added to the family, costs WILL increase and cause deferred retirement, if any. Many of us live in areas where our loved ones are–even if it has a very high cost of living (ours is one of the highest in the US). Relocating to a cheaper place involves a lot of trade-offs as well.</p>
<p>Our state U is charging $4,732 UG or $5796 for graduate school per semester of in-state tuition. To economize, the student can live at home & commute, which many do here. One does have to search harder to economize, but there are still good programs that are available at lower cost. There are also still employers who will subsidize some further education as well.</p>
<p>In any case, it doesn’t seem like any of us have any way to help you get your dad to change his mind about deciding to fund your master’s degree, which is the real issue anyway.</p>
<p>Exactly, after years even of full pay instate tuition(can’t even imagine full pay private tuition) for 2 kids (now over 20,000), we hope we are done. We have never promised graduate school funding and so far neither kid is going in that direction . I anticipate we may help with things like rehearsal dinner expenses, a little money for a down payment on a house down the line but I view all of that as voluntary on our part. We have to be sure our retirement is secure.</p>
<p>amazon–that $15,000 included room/board books–COA. Now, you have to be a better than average student to earn the merit awards so there is a catch there. Starting COA is about $35,000, automatic merit aid for 30 ACT, 3.6 GPA gets you $20,000–that leaves $15,000–other merit awards are available on a competitive basis and lesser awards for lower test scores and GPA’s but enough to bring the cost down below state school costs. These are midwest LAC’s.</p>
<p>I would love to know what the OP plans to get that masters degree in. Many folks earn masters degrees attending college part time while working full time…most teachers, nurses…we know some folks earning MBA degrees while working full time. I’m curious what masters requires this OP to attend full time.</p>
<p>For 90% + of the population, coming up with even $15,000 a year is probably very stressful.
thumper, I got an MSW many years ago and went full time. But i was lucky to get a grant and stipend. It would be hard these days to justify going into major debt for something like an MSW, IMHO.</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I have not read all posts.</p>
<p>It seems that there was another thread on CC which discussed the fact that parental income and assets are used when calculating FA for grad school. I personally was surprised and appalled that these assets would be considered as ‘available’ to the young adult. Also IIRC…parental assets and income DID count until the student was somewhere around 26. If this is the case…it seems to make sense to retire. Then your income would not count ‘against’ your D and she might qualify for more grant/scholarship aid.</p>
<p>Another thread is talking about low income students having a leg up on tuition discounts…again…does this apply in this situation?</p>
<p>Again…I am going from memory here…and maybe on the far side of wacko…in which case I’m sure this info will be corrected very soon.</p>
<p>Stevema- I don’t understand your explanation of the 30 year old retirees. 700 a month is less than 10K a year. You say they need 40K. Where do they intend to earn the other 30K for the next 50 years without working? I find the story apocryphal, but even if true they have not saved an adequate secure existing nestegg through careful past planning and saving, technically they are still businesspeople counting on future cash flows. They are pretty unique- most people wouldn’t be satisfied with this type of risky existence. But they know they can always return to worl if need be.</p>