No it is absurd for a parent to try to select the career of his/her offspring–which is what you are talking about when you are writing about engineering fields. I can see a parent being unwilling to pay for college if a offspring were choosing a humanities major that is unlikely to lead to any job. I’d not do it but could understand it on some level. But really…a parent who is trying to control whether their offspring majors in something that would lead to one type of engineering rather than another-that seems outrageous. What parent micro-manages what field their offspring enters or what career path they take?