<p>My oldest son will start college in the fall. Our family is blessed with the financial resources to pay for our children's educations. However, I am wondering whether it would be a good idea to borrow a certain amount ($5,000 per year, perhaps) for my son to pay back, to teach him that his college education is not a free ride and give him more of an investment in the process. Financially, I can justify this because I expect to earn more on my investments than I will pay in loan interest, but that's not my main motivation.</p>
<p>However, it is extremely likely that my son will go on for a graduate or professional degree, and perhaps it would be wiser to pay for his undergraduate degree and let him take out loans to pay for a portion of graduate school.</p>
<p>Interested in your thoughts.</p>
<p>Now isn't really the time to see "if". I think if your teaching was good for the last 18 years, there's no point.</p>
<p>One of my kids will have some student loans (about $12,000); one will graduate with no student loans. Both of them know the sacrifices that we make to send them to their University, and understand what we expect from them in terms of effort and "taking advantage of college opportunities provided." Both of them work (or will work) oncampus during the school year, and work during the summer. If I had my "ruthers", neither of my kids would graduate with any loans. Since my son chose to go with the expensive school as opposed to the totally-free-not-a-dime-needed school, he is okay with having loans. My kids both know that they will be totally on their own for grad school. My thoughts? If kids are going on to grad school, it is very helpful for them to be loan-free. If you want your son to be invested in his college funding, pay for his basic room, board and tuition, then have him be responsible for everything else. He can work during the summer and school year to pay for these expenses. The benefit from this is that he will learn to budget his money.</p>
<p>I agree with a student having an investment in their own college education. If they are financially invested, there is a great incentive to do well and not "waste" their investment. I think their investment can come in one or more of a few different forms: loans in their name, working to earn money to contribute to their tuition/RB/fees, or receiving (and keeping!) merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Having had to take out loans for college....I think that the invested student does as much as possible to lessen that amount by doing work study, part-time jobs, summer jobs and saving all they can. That is an incentive to not have to take out much.....they need to take advantage of their ability to work & contribute vs. taking out loans and doing nothing. Not sure how you teach that but....The small loans I had for undergrad and grad school took forever to pay off it seemed and were a burden.</p>
<p>I think if you borrow a loan you have some small fee to pay. I made it clear to my daughter that books and spending money are her responsibility. I think this way she has a vested interest in education.
I notice they(my kids) freely spend my money but if it's their money they are so frugal.:)</p>
<p>We're in a similar situation, and plan on having our daughter take out unsubsidized Stafford loans.</p>
<p>In addition to the points made already, I see other benefits. This will help her establish a credit history. I also hope that the need to make loan payments will convince her of the need to get a job after graduation -- I've known too many students who don't get a job right away.</p>
<p>My feeling is that if my daughter gets a low-paying job, goes to grad school and incurs more debt or for some other reason is unable to make her loan payments, we will help pay back the loans.</p>
<p>We've also told her that we will cover tuition, room and board, but she's responsible for books and spending money, which she is earning this summer by working. </p>
<p>One family we know took out student loans in senior year with the intent of using the money to help cover health insurance after graduation.</p>