To me, it’s the decision-making rather than the money spent.
Kids don’t get to choose whether they need glasses or braces or have a condition that requires a lot of medical spending.
They can choose where they go to college, however. I’m not comfortable punishing a child who is thrifty or rewarding one who spends money as if it’s not his own.
And to me, $10K isn’t a huge amount of money. $100K is different.
Fairness isn’t about money. It’s about value. Both kids are getting the value of a college degree. You’re a family, not business partners, so don’t worry about this.
My son went to our flagship state university, which was his first choice college.
His younger sister went to an expensive private university, which was her first choice college.
Obviously, we spent a heck of a lot more money on her than we did on him. Yet he doesn’t mind. He has explicitly said so. He says he got the education he wanted, and that’s what matters.
I don’t understand this at all. If it were me, I would expect some sort of effort to balance the books. I guess my son is a nicer person than I am.
" Now, one of my kids is an RA, and saved us $15K on room and board, which we then paid him. That feels fair to me, however, because nothing prevented the other kid from trying out to be an RA. "
And the younger could chose a signifcantly cheaper school thereby saving the parents a significant amount of money. I beleive it was $120K, which is a heck of a difference.
@PurpleTitan Why are you assuming the younger kid “could have” gotten a scholarship somewhere and “chose not to?”
OP, do what you want to do with the extra money. You do not owe money to kid one because he got a scholarship. If my kid got a full ride somewhere and then turned around and said to me “oh hey, since I got a scholarship you now owe me $120K you would have spent on my school” I’d think I really did something wrong in the way I raised him or her. Also, if kid one wants to go to grad school I’d help as much as I was able, as I would with kid 2.
I don’t want my kids making their college choices predicated on saving us money, though. I recognize I’m in a fortunate position to be able to say that and that doesn’t apply to everyone.
Marian - they each got their first choice college; why balance the books?
I have a boy and a girl - if I take them shopping for clothing, chances are I’m going to spend more on her than him, just because she will care more, she’ll need more shoes, makeup, handbag, etc. that he won’t - but I don’t feel a need to go buy him something extra to make up the difference. They’re both well clothed for their needs; that’s the goal, not equal dollar amounts spent on each.
H and I are trying to figure out where we stand on this. Right now we’re thinking like VSGPeanut:
But we’re not sure how we will put that into practice.
redpoodles:
" They spent $120K on kid two, which tells me tuition/room/etc was roughly 30K per year, which sounds like he went to the state flagship "
Actually OP stated $120K MORE for S2 than S1.
So with assumptions. Even with full tuition, there are still probably costs of around $15K, over 4 years would be $60K, $120K more equals $180K. So probably not a state flagship.
And I like balanced books, as much as possible. And if my daughters complain about their brother getting a laptop, then I remind them of all the extras they get, such as clothing, shoes, etc.
Although to be perfectly honest, my DS is such a easy going, good natured kid, and his sisters are not by any stretch of the imagination, that I am more likely to spend more money on him, but I still would not be comfortable with a huge disparity.
OP asked for opinions, that is mine, not to have finanical assistance be so unbalanced.
It’s a balancing act as to how one deals with this. I know parents who give a student one half the merit money received. Some might give the full amount. How they handle those who go to a lower sticker price I don’t know. In fact one dd went to public school until high school the other went to a pricey private from day one, and that balance was NOT made up.
There may come a point in time when some adjustment should be made, in who gets what in terms of need , in terms of some kids blowing the money, some borrowing it, etc, etc. My MIL’s mother lent her son money to buy a business and buy a house. She then adjusted her will which up to that point had been 50/50 to both son and daughter, so that she got a corresponding amount more.
So tallying it up is a personal decision. You give a child a big wedding, the other doesn’t get married. You buy one a car, the other lives in a city, doesn’t need one and then buys one himself. When and how and for what do you start keeping track? You make your decision as you go along and decide what you decide are pertinant expenses. In the case of my kids, college costs are not.
I don’t understand the thinking that parents need to make everything equal for their kids.
It’s not equal, it’s fair and balanced. If that is not your personal philosophy, go with what works for you.
Where and when do you start counting the expenses? That’s what my question is? And what expenses do you count? That is a personal thing and people will do it differently.
I understand parents’ desire to be fair between siblings, and my parents were the same way. But I think college is a little different, simply because it is sooooo expensive, and because there is such a wide variety of circumstances.
It was something of a windfall for your whole family that S1 was able to get a full tuition scholarship. You certainly weren’t expecting it when you started saving–no one could anticipate that. Why not use a part of that windfall to defray S2’s expenses?
IMO the ultimate goal should be to have each child in the best possible school that is right for them, not that they receive identical amounts of support. Perhaps S2 can assume some responsibility for the higher cost, by accepting responsibility for a loan in some amount. But I’m not sure that he should be dinged for the full $120K. One possible route to consider might be for each child to receive grandfather’s bequest; but S2 receives a somewhat larger share of the total college savings money because his college costs more.
We paid a great deal to send S1 to private university. He borrowed and did work study and was a Resident Assistant in senior year to save us the cost of room and board.
S2 is attending public and receiving merit money thus will cost one fourth of what was spent on S1. He does not have to borrow nor does work study. His job is to maintain GPA to keep merit.
Different but fair as they both will attend excellent "away " schools and get their degrees.
To us, funding college is separate from our estate, which we see as an even split between them some day.
I completely agree and agree with those that say “fair” is not the same as “equal”. Children are not born equal. One earned a scholarship. Did the other have the same gifts to earn a scholarship, but chose to “slack off”? What if one was born needing costly medical bills, should we be taking away from that child?
Both D’s chose NYU as their first choice college. Older D got an $11K a year talent merit scholarship. Younger D is full pay. Younger D wants to go to grad school–it will cost another $50 or $60K (art education). As long as we have the money, we intend to pay. Older D has option of pursuing grad school, but has opted out so far. Probably if she goes, it would be for an expensive MBA program which will cost more than younger D"s grad school. Will it even out? Maybe/ maybe not. I am not worried about the exact totals and neither girl has ever brought it up. I doubt they will since we have treated both as equally as we could growing up.
It reminds me of when they were very young. Occasionally I would be out shopping and find some perfect something for one of them–a shirt I knew one of them would love, a toy, whatever. At first I would try my hardest to buy something for both of them, just to make it even. But sometimes, I would not be able to find the second item. I would either spend extra money for something one of them didn’t need or wouldn’t really love, or other times, I would just put back the special item and buy neither of them anything.
Eventually I reconsidered and decided to explain to them that not everything could always be equal in life. And that I would rather buy that special item even if it meant the other not getting anything. I promised them that ultimately it would even out, although neither of them should be keeping track. Both girls agreed and things must have ended even enough because I have never heard either of them complain.
So I’m applying that same tactic to higher education.
@redpoodles, again, because there are colleges out there which just don’t require anything close to outstanding stats/characteristics to be cheap. Plus which, there’s almost certainly an in-state public that would cost a lot less than full-pay at a private.
And I agree, it’s not about equality. It’s about fairness. And would it be fair to not reward a kid who’s choice saved the family $200K over a kid who spent $200K if their educations are roughly the same? I don’t think so.
I would not count expenses that the kids have no control over.
I would count expenses that they can choose or forgo, however.
@PurpleTitan You’re forgetting that the parents planned on this and saved for it way ahead of time: way ahead of when the kids were even born! Plus, they did not coach the second kid to go to a cheap school, as far as we know. By your logic, if kid two decided not to go to college at all, and maybe just lay around the house, the parents should just give him a bunch of money because he “saved them all that tuition”. NO.
@redpoodles, the parents can decide what they want to do. I was giving my opinion on what I would do. And by my logic, they would still have to earn what they want. I’ll have a set amount for education and their development, but their life is their’s. They’ll know I’ll die eventually and they’ll have to support themselves.