<p>let's say your child makes more than the income allowance for fafsa. So you know your EFC is going include a portion of their earnings. Would you require that the student to actually put that money towards their education in some way shape or form? Let's say they amount they earned would cover the cost of their books, would you make them spend that money on those books.</p>
<p>Or would you let the student spend their money on 'fun' and just cover the increase in EFC with your own money.</p>
<p>Sue, my deal with my kids worked like this:</p>
<p>I pay the bill from the bursar & some (not all) travel costs. </p>
<p>They paid for everything else.</p>
<p>During the first year a meal plan was required, so that was included in the bursar bill.</p>
<p>In subsequent years we dropped the meal plan, so the food costs were then included in the “everything else”.</p>
<p>I never really paid attention to the impact excess earnings would have on EFC since my kids were already carrying a large part of the burden. Since they are already responsible for books & incidentals, it really is up to them to budget accordingly.</p>
<p>My son is selfish, greedy and ungrateful.</p>
<p>He has not had to pay for one necessity. I have supplied everything from q-tips to contact lense solution and ALL school costs. In fact, he doesn’t want a meal plan for this upcoming year and I offered to give him the equivalent in $$ for food and whatever. I even bought him a george forman grill for use in his new dorm (where he can cook).</p>
<p>I’m paying $3k for housing this summer so he could stay in NYC since he hates me and didn’t want to come home for the summer. he is working and paying for his food (I send him stuff like cereal, and many other items including pots and pans and other stuff he needed in his new dorm)</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure he’s going to go over the amount of income allowance for a student. I don’t think he has any intentions of using that money for anything but stuff he ‘wants’ and not stuff he needs (and that is with me sending him toothpaste or any other thing he needs).</p>
<p>What do I do if he refuses to put ANY of his money towards his education. Do I just not give him book money for this next school year. By my calculations he has spend about 4000 on ‘whatever’ since last August. Not a nickel of that was towards any school expense or toiletries or ANY other than “I want that or I want to do that” stuff.</p>
<p>So why are you doing it? If you insist on continuing to support this “selfish, greedy and ungrateful” child, in fear that he wouldn’t continue his education if you don’t, then at least pay tuition and books only. Or maybe even tuition books and rent and let the selfish kid pay everything else.</p>
<p>because I’m afraid he’ll spend the money on wants and not have the $$ for needs. I don’t want him to not have textbooks. </p>
<p>I sent him a scholarship I thought would be good for him to apply for, it related to his major. He had 6 weeks notice to do it. He didn’t bother and referred to it “as stupid homework assignments” and he wanted to have “fun while working”. </p>
<p>I could never fathom that someone would be such an ungrateful person.</p>
<p>His school tuition is over $37K and his room (w/o) food will be $10.5K. He has a $30K scholarship from the school and he will be taking the maximum in stafford loans. If you add in my EFC of $11.1K, he will still need 5-6K for food, books, etc. There is no way I expect him to have that much, but I think he could contribute about 1K. He wonders why I don’t pay for it all no questions asked.</p>
<p>I think our generation’s affluence has a consequence; our children’s generation often feels ‘entitled’. It comes across as selfish and greedy.</p>
<p>We do the college thing with the following premises:
If we can afford it, your undergraduate college education is our gift to you.
We do not expect you to work during the semester but we do expect you to work during the summer and longer breaks.
In order that you are invested in this education, you must take out the (unsubsidized) Stafford loan.
We pay the remaining tuition, fees, books, room/rent, meal plan/food allowance, travel to home, cell phone.
We do not pay for concert tickets, trips to see friends at other colleges, trips to the beach, new trendy clothes, haircuts, jewelry. When we visit we may splurge on a trip to WalMart/Target for toiletries or snacks.</p>
<p>We do have the following expectations:
You must be continually enrolled as a full time student making progress toward a degree. We expect that your grades continue to earn the ‘good student’ car insurance discount or you pay for the increase. You pay for all of your over charges on the cell bill.</p>
<p>If you discontinue your full time student status before you earn your degree, you owe us all we have invested to date.</p>
<p>This was discussed with each child before enrolling. They all still chose private colleges and the first two are done, employed, and repaying their loans.</p>
<p>If the school calculates your son to have a contribution, why not just tell him in advance that you can not continue to contribute everything? He is in COLLEGE, it is his time to learn to take responsibility for his life!! If he spends all his money on “whatever” and can’t pay his college costs, even $1k, then let him either take out a loan or suffer the consequences - he needs to learn at some point!! I’m saying this as a student who is working very hard to meet her nearly $5k student contribution for MIT (not based on past income, just a student contribution that every student with parents above a certain income have to meet). If you continue to pay EVERYTHING he will feel entitled; if you ask him to pay whatever the school calculates to be his contribution, he may still whine and feel entitled, but eventually, he will hopefully learn that it is his responsibility to take care of his education and finances.</p>
<p>Calmom and I have the same “agreement” with our kids - I make sure the school bill gets paid. My kids must pay for their books and all extras from their earnings.</p>
<p>sueinphilly - if your son has spent $4000 since August and I wonder where the money is going? I have girls and they don’t spend that much - well maybe they do but they buy books and their necessities.</p>
<p>Stop sending him stuff. Stop padding his bank account and/or paying his credit card bill. You are enabling him.
Since he has Stafford Loans explain to him that every penny that he is “spending” - he is really “borrowing”. If he has a Stafford loan for $4500 and he is spending $4500 on frivolous items - concert tickets, eating out, spring break etc - then he is really borrowing that money.
When he graduates he will be paying back all that money that he threw away.</p>
<p>
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<p>That may very well be, but it seems that some of us feed into that. Sue-- you are a very well-meaning mother, and are to be commended for that, but why should your son all of a sudden become financially responsible? With all due respect, and I TOTALLY understand your intentions, you led him to this, by enabling his attitude for a long time. How can he learn to fend for himself, if he has never had to even buy Q-Tips? I am in a similar situation with my daughter. So, here is what we are doing. She is working this summer and earning less than the school’s recommendation. However, we are requiring her to pay 1/3 of her salary (and it’s pretty small, let’s admit it) to school. It’s a percentage, not an amount, really. We are also giving her a summer allowance at the beginning of each month. If and when that’s gone, it’s gone, and she will have to supplement it with her own money. We are slowly weaning her from total dependence on us. Maybe together you can come up with a way for him to take pride in his ability to pay his own way. It can’t really be fun for him to always come whining to you for every penny. If you make it a question of self-reliance and becoming an adult, maybe it will seem like an independent thing rather than a punitive thing. You sound far too bitter (understandable!!) to continue in this manner. You don’t want to resent you child. Also, you don’t want him to be unable to fend for himself as he grows older. Good luck. As I said, I am completely on your side, and I understand!</p>
<p>Sue, I have never had a single argument with my kids over money. When my daughter graduated from high school, I sat her down and told her what my expectations were, and that was it. I was a little surprised that there was no argument – but I had the sense that even though she was a little scared, she also felt good about having more responsibility. So my kids are not “greedy and selfish” – it’s not a matter of their personality, its a matter of the mutual expectations set all along. </p>
<p>Letting my kids take responsibility for their expenses doesn’t mean that I can’t help them out if I want. Most of the time I let my kids take care of their own needs, but I buy extra gifts – such as sending a care package filled with extra food. It makes me feel good to send the gift, and they are very appreciative because it is something extra and unexpected. </p>
<p>The key is simply to set clear expectations and boundaries. Your son has no incentive to budget his money because you’ve been paying everything. Why are you paying for his housing over the summer? My daughter wanted to live on her own last year - the summer after freshman year – and I told her that was fine, but she had to pay her own way. She figured it out - she worked extra hours over her spring break to earn the money she would need to pay up front for her apartment, and she worked hard over the summer.</p>
<p>I’d also note that my daughter is attending school in NYC and it is very, very easy for her to earn extra money. She does bartending and hates it, but its good money. She can easily earn several hundred dollars in a night or over a weekend, if she picks up a good job via the agency.</p>
<p>I am not affluent by any means. My son knows all about money (how much I make, how I spend (and don’t spend it)</p>
<p>He thinks I’m wasting his time asking him to apply for an outside scholarship. </p>
<p>I disagree. </p>
<p>Yes, I am paying for his room. Frankly, I didn’t want him here for 4 months. We do not get along at all for apparent reasons.</p>
<p>Think is, when I hated my parents, I left home at 17 and never got another nickel from them.</p>
<p>I agree with mominva and calmom. Our discussion with S, before he entered this college, is very much similar to mominva. For our S, since our combined income is way over the limit of the EFC, we have to pay most of the tuition. School gives S some scholarships (15K), and we pay for the rest of the tuition. Luckily, S has studied very hard and still maintained scholarship for the second year. This year (2008-2009), he also has the chance to maintain his scholarships again. School has not broken down his FAs status yet for 2008-2009, since he is taking some summer classes. I was told from S, tuition will increase a lot more this year, since his major related to Flights lessons (fuel cost increases big time). S did work-study (1.5K) every year in his college, and he used this money for his miscellaneous expenses (books, extra eat-out and snacks, etc.) This is part of our deal, too. S has never asked us any extra money to spend, since he knew the tuition is already too expensive. You need to have a serious talk with the kids for your expectation, otherwise, kids make the assumption that parents will pay for everything.</p>
<p>Same here. We pay for tuition, room, board, and trips home. Kids pay for everything else including new clothes, books, and all entertainment.</p>
<p>Sue – it seems to me that there is no reason whatsoever for your son to apply for scholarships because you are giving him all the money he needs. It also seems that rather than reconsider your approach, you are simply presenting us with arguments & excuses in response to our comments. If this is how you “discuss” things with your son, its no wonder that you argue all the time. If you say things to him like you are posting here (calling him ungrateful and greedy, saying he “hates” you and that you don’t want him around) … then of course you argue – that kind of language will provoke an argument every time. </p>
<p>Since you don’t really want to hear the advice of the other parents who post on this board, I’d suggest that you get some counseling. I think you are unwilling to let go of the control that the money gives you, and I think that you haven’t given your kid the learning opportunities he needs to budget or take responsibility on his own. Even if you want to help him out financially, you could give him a fixed allowance – you could figure out what you think books should cost and send him that amount and no more each semester. Similarly, if he wanted to stay in NY for the summer and you preferred that he not come home, but you wanted him to take more responsibility, you could have offered to give him a set amount of money each month to use toward his rent. </p>
<p>But it sounds like you pretty much take over and then get angry when he is not offering to pick up some of the slack. </p>
<p>If you want things to change, then you have to be the one to start making changes.</p>
<p>We use the same approach as Calmom and Thumper. No stress, no problems.</p>
<p>“If you want things to change, then you have to be the one to start making changes.”</p>
<p>Sage advice IMHO.</p>
<p>I think the issue is not really the money, but rather the lack of respect on the son’s part, and the feeling of being used and unloved. I could almost guarantee if Sue’s son came home once in a while with nothing but time to spend with mom, said an “I love you” now and then, the money issue would not be so heavy. I don’t have an answer; I do have empathy. Good luck, and I do think your son will come around some day…perhaps when he has kids of his own, but it will happen.</p>
<p>How about saying to him, “I am now decreasing the amount of money you get by the amount of the scholarship you didn’t apply for. Thanks for reminding me that I would like to have ‘some fun’ while working, too!” We pay for almost everything for my d, but she won’t ask for “fun” money when she has money of her own. And she is quite frugal so we don’t have too much of a problem. But I did tell her that she had to apply for every scholarship, since I refuse to leave money on the table. If she didn’t get the scholarship, there would be no penalty - after all, that’s not her fault. But if she didn’t even bother to apply - well, that is her fault and the penalty would be that she pays the amount of the scholarship from her own funds. She applied.</p>
<p>He already hates you, and you are not too fond of him, so what have you really got to lose? Maybe in a few years he’ll hate you less if you actually allow (perhaps force) him to grow up.</p>
<p>
This is great advice. I have a neice who was too lazy to fill out an application for a scholarship from her dad’s employer. He deducted the scholarship amount she might have won from his support money (divorced parents.) Her mom completely agreed with the dad’s move, so neice had to come up with the $$ on her own. A great lesson.</p>
<p>Our kids know that it’s their responsibility to pay for books and spending money (spending includes personal care items, school supplies, pizza/food/drink, entertainment, etc.). They work their butts off all summer (and also during winter break) to earn the money they think they’ll need to cover these costs. We don’t put this on them to be mean parents. We do it because they need to understand how hard it is to make a buck. When they work hard to earn their own money, they’re less apt to waste it on junk and more apt to understand and appreciate the value of staying within one’s financial budget. If they’ve done their best at trying to earn enough money but still come up a little short, of course we will help them through. </p>
<p>Does your son work at all? It’s time to put down some new rules now. Let him know that you will not be paying for his spending money at college in the fall. Then inform him that the following year, he will not only be responsible for earning his spending money, but also his book and travel money.</p>
<p>Here’s what I would try to do in your situation.</p>
<p>First, think of this as a gradual process of changing how you both deal with your son’s college money. It doesn’t seem fair to change the rules all of a sudden, because your son won’t have time to adjust and plan. So maybe set it up as a year-long process of changing the rules and expectations.</p>
<p>First try to articulate for yourself just what is and isn’t working in the current set-up. This will make it easier for you to be clear with your son when you talk to him about it. Remember to include everything that’s part of this picture, since things left unsaid will hang there and make the part you do talk about feel incomplete and less true.</p>
<p>When you talk about money, try to put yourself and your son on the same side, and the inconvenient world on the other side. Set aside resentments so you can sympathize with him as you look at this world together. This is a move I read in a book (can’t remember what it was), and I think it’s amazingly effective. In the inconvenient world, you and he both have to work more than you wish, and college is so expensive that there is less money for fun than both of you would like. Even when the facts are ones you create - like deciding which expenses you will meet and which expenses are his responsibility - you can still place them out there in the world, not owned by either of you. This move is easier to do than to describe; I don’t know if I’m getting it across. The key thing about it is that you need to imagine how this time of life feels for him, so you can genuinely empathize with him without changing your plan. Of course it would be nice for him to spend all his money on having fun in a great city - who wouldn’t want to do that? You would too if you were he. It is truly a pain to have to work or stay home when friends are going out. You can (and should) totally get it and honestly sympathize, but still face together the fact that this is the way it the world is right now. This move turns you into allies rather than adversaries, and I think you’ll find it a big relief to be in that position.</p>