<p>Money magazine is preparing an article about changes in parents' perceptions of college "value." Surveys indicate at least half of recent college graduates are getting some financial support from their parents. If you're supporting a new grad and have some younger kids, how has your experience changed what you expect from your colleges and your students? Has any other experience changed your view of what college "value" is?
Thanks,
Kim Clark
Money</p>
<p>Really complicated, but after our oldest two --graduates of private colleges-- have been “underemployed” (one living with us for this year, other on his own for 4 years, both low income), I am much more eager for younger kids (5 of them) to take merit scholarships, attend lower cost public colleges, and study something practical that will get them decent-paying jobs. (3rd and 4th kids, current undergrads, are doing some/all of those things.) H and I still disagree on “the purpose of education.” I lean more toward “job training,” and H is more “liberal arts, follow your dreams, character formation. . .”</p>
<p>We never viewed college “value” as a trade school in which you may start apprenticing in junior/senior year and land a job with that company right out of college. The job market is tough and we know there will be a transition period between graduation and self-sufficiency. We are making sure the younger is taken care of but are realistic that the older shouldn’t be ignored.</p>
<p>College still has a great value. The difference is that it has transitioned to being a “necessary but not sufficient” contribution to success. In the past, it was “necessary and sufficient” (maybe for many fields, it wasn’t even necessary) but given the economy, the unemployment, the shift in the type of jobs in demand, it is no longer “sufficient”.</p>
<p>“Job training” is the purpose that most people see it as, due to economic necessity. Note that even a non-specific liberal arts bachelor’s degree is usually an upgrade in job prospects compared to a high school diploma, although the high cost of many colleges can make such a college a financially risky option if one does not have a “wealthy parent economic safety net” to fall back on if one is unemployed at graduation. Note that public colleges and universities have “job training” as an explicit goal (offering of pre-professional majors) and/or implicit goal (since a better educated population is assumed to produce a larger economy).</p>
<p>Going to college to “follow your dreams” without regard to job and career prospects is likely a luxury affordable to only a small number of students from very wealthy and/or well-connected families.</p>
<p>I do not think that very many students, even full-pay at elite private schools, matriculate with the expectation that they will be unemployed and ineligible for graduate school or professional school upon graduation. Even those elite school students with impractical or “winner take all” majors often count on getting into a professional school with a hefty ROI, if not a lucrative inverstment banking or consulting gig, and minimize academic risk accordingly.</p>
<p>As for parents or families adjusting expectations for subsequent children - </p>
<p>I have known public university grads to advise younger siblings to choose the full-pay elite school route after being disappointed by employers who seem to favor elite school graduates. </p>
<p>I have also known disappointed elite school grads advise younger siblings to go the public university/merit money route, where they might find it easier to take academic risks, pursue a STEM degree with better employment prospects in the short run, or stick out among the crowd. (For now, my recent grad would fall into the latter category.)</p>
<p>For anyone, I would advise avoiding or minimizing debt in this unpredictable economy.</p>
<p>“Value” of college is not measurable in a short term. It pays back for many years later. In our case, D1 was able to get a finance job because where she went to school. We stopped supporting her as soon as she graduated from college. Our younger daughter is 5 years younger than her sister, so I actually pay a lot less after D1 is out of school. Now, I only have D2 to support. She will most likely go to law school, so she’ll be on my payroll for a bit longer.</p>
<p>Fortunately our kids do not have any debt, and we can “back them up” (if they need a place to stay) for a short time. Others are not so fortunate to have no debt/family support. Our kids have been working and were never unemployed for more than a couple months. (One kid got a place to stay for a couple months right after graduation–until he found a job. He needed no support after that. The other kid has had free rent for a year–working multiple part-time jobs, taking classes, planning on grad school.) We can afford the help we’ve given them, but, imo, both could be doing better financially if they had chosen different majors. They had the luxury of being somewhat impractical because they knew they had us behind them, I suppose. I imagine some of our younger kids might also live with us temporarily after they graduate.</p>
<p>Ironically I’ve now graduated two and we are spending quite abit more in tuition, room and board for the third than we did for #1 and #2, but our thinking was that number three is majoring in engineering and it’s “worth” paying more to attend a very good engineering school and it will “pay off” for him. In that respect I supose we saw “value” in not asking him to attend one of the “less expense” engineering schools in a different state. We are technically supporting our two older college graduates by paying their federal loans and we told them we would although they are both working and supporting other expenses. I suppose if they had the burden of the federal loans on top of rent, insurance, transportation etc., they would not be able to be independent. To me it’s a tradeoff. By the way, IF #3 graduates engineering and if #3 is able to secure a job in the neighborhood of $40-$50,000 he will pay his own federal student loans unlike his brothers whose education cost less, so we do have a deal with him of sorts, also. </p>
<p>no way am I giving my kid money when he graduates college. if he can’t support himself he can move back home but he’ll be working not living in the basement playing freakin video games. </p>
<p>" no way am I giving my kid money when he graduates college. if he can’t support himself he can move back home but he’ll be working not living in the basement playing freakin video games."</p>
<p>I hope it all works that way for you. I know plenty of parents with kids living in the basement playing freakin video games and the parents scared as to what to do. Some of those kids have had breakdowns of sorts. Some of them are BOTH living at home and being supported by parents as they can’t find jobs. When they find any job, the question of transportation TO the job comes up, along with clothing and things needed FOR the job if they were not already purchased by kid (with what funds?) or parents during the job hunt processs. It’s easy to talk big until you get hit.</p>
<p>^^Well put. I’ve always told my sons they were free to live at home as long as they were single and working and/or going to school. But I’m prepared to be a little more flexible if needs must. </p>
<p>We have seen young families moving back into the parental home if jobs are lost, a grandmother can provide affordable child are, or a grandparent needs care or help with chores. I expect that this will become the new norm, as more and more of us are becoming contract workers.</p>
<p>I think the real question arises when a new grad comes to the unhappy conclusion that they will need to take classes and re-train or continue training at their own expense (rather than an employer’s) to take the gamble that they can become marketable. Do parents ask the new grad to take out loans, pay tuition in exchange for helping at home, ask a younger sibling to go to a less expensive option, pursue a seemingly more marketable major?</p>
<p>This can also apply to an older grad who has not been able to gain traction in the workforce or who has lost a job and is unable to network their way to a new one. (I know quite a few young engineers who worry about a decline in defense spending, for instance, in addition to ongoing worry about outsourcing.)</p>
<p>It’s a tough go. I’ve seen a lot of families in the situations you describe, nervousmom. Two friends of ours helped out their older kids who went back to school (both into nursing) some years after graduating which meant back home to live to cut down on expenses, loans but parents helped out too. When there are younger siblings in college too it makes it all the tougher. </p>
<p>My son’s SO is back home with her mom, going to a local school to get her master’s. She’ll owe money, thank goodness no ug loans, but this is a tough go for her as she is in school full time year round for two years to get this advanced degree.No money little freedom at age 30 after being on her own for some years, but that’s what it takes to get to the next level. Hopefully it pays off.</p>