what if student won't contribute their earnings to their education

Parent Cafe
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<p>sometimes I think that those who have the ability to provide their kids with more of the creature comforts, have much more difficulty getting their kids to become more responsible and independent,</p>

<p>It generally will not hurt them to wear clothes from goodwill, to eat ramen and to hunt for used textbooks.</p>

<p>My daughter knew that we were already having trouble paying the EFC, she contributed $2,000-$3,000 from her summer earnings towards tuition/room-board. Her work study job covered her personal expenses & books. We covered medical insurance, the rest of EFC and clothing items at xmas & birthdays.</p>

<p>When the kids were younger & I saw that a previously decided on strategy wasn’t working- I wasn’t hesitant to admit that & to sit them down and tell them the new parameters.</p>

<p>Thats what I would do in this case.
Colleges expect students to contribute $2,000 from summer earnings to EFC, that is not taking into account what they actually earn. IF they earn significantly more than that, then the expectation would be greater.
I would pay the portion of the EFC you are already paying.
I would not pay for the student to live away from home for the summer.
I would possibly give things to use in the dorm for xmas or birthday gifts.
If you really don’t get along, he can always take a job that requires long hours :wink:
My daughter works at a residential camp, so while we do get along ok, she is also gone most of summer.
If he is living away, you don’t get a chance to work things out.
Living at home, can give him an opportunity to build skills and maturity by learning to compromise.
Living on less money can give him skills for budgeting.
It is really doing him a disservice to bending to his wishes.
My mother raised my brother that way & he is just an a$$.
I cannot stand to talk to him or even be in the same room.
I am sure you don’t want your son to continue to be self absorbed .</p>

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<p>“et’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>When I went to college, I used my jobs during the summer and school year to cover my living expenses (including phone, but excluding meal plan, dorm accommodations) and books. That’s what I’ve expected of my kids, and they’ve always known that.</p>

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<p>sueinphilly,</p>

<p>Sometimes with our children, we need to hit the “restart” button. Basically, you sent your son to college w/o any set of expectations about money. You have two choices… keep going as you are now (and feeling out of control, upset, whining, treated like garbage by your son)… or have a phone call or sit-down with your son and set up new rules. Rules that you have control over. </p>

<p>It will mean that you MUST allow your son to fail… meaning… if you insist he make $3K a year and use that to cover books and food (or whatever)… and he instead blows it and tries to go through college without books, so be it. He needs to learn through object lessons. Sometimes we must let our adult children fail.</p>

<p>Frankly, if I had a child that “hated” me so much that they would not come home for the summer (I’m aghast that you pay $3 for him to live away… have him come home and struggle it out with you or earn enough to live on his own! What will you do when he “graduates” college… still pay for him to stay away??) that I would inform my son that starting next fall, he gets to go to PUBLIC college, locally. I would not pay 40K or thereabouts a year to be treated like garbage by my child. If he’s going to be horrid, why not pay in-state tuition for that kind of behavior. Ha. (Frankly, I probably would stop paying altogether, but I doubt you feel comfortable with that. I don’t expect worship and adoration from my adult children, but I do expect basic decency and polite behavior.)</p>

<p>You can only be walked all over if you allow it. What I hear between the lines is that your “fears” keep you towing the line. My personal philosphy is that sometimes adult children need to be cut off sooner rather than later. If education is important to your son he’ll either shape up FAST (as in - about 3 day turn around in time to behave VERY well over the remainder of the summer)… or he can do what many good folk have done in their lifetimes… work fulltime and attend school parttime at a state university. I bet it would be character building.</p>

<p>The kind of behavior your son is exhibiting is not, in my book, normal or tollerable. I wouldn’t put up with it from my own children. They know it. They don’t go there. Not because I’m mean, but because I am not a rug to wipe their feet on. My adult daughter (in college) talks to me every semester about her college goals and we are a team. We both have something to contribute to make it happen. If she doesn’t make the summer money, she knows her parents won’t provide it. She just doesn’t go there.</p>

<p>Annika</p>

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<p>Annika, SueinPhilly said that her son has $30K in scholarship or grant money from the college, so her EFC is $11K – a public instate college would probably cost as much or more. That’s probably part of the reason the son’s perception is that he has done his part – after all, he “earned” the $30K scholarship. He may be surrounded by a lot of kids from rich families whose parents are paying full cost, and simply not understand why his mom would be upset given the financial aid package he got at the outset. At his school (NYU), that kind of scholarship money is a rare deal – so that may be part of the reason he seems to be taking his mom’s help for granted.</p>

<p>That being said, I agree with you completely that a parent needs to give the kid room to fail – or succeed, since part of Sue’s fears rest on her own assumptions that her kid is not capable of handling things like budgeting money on his own. I know that my own kids have made cost-savings text-book decisions that I have not thought was wise (such as sharing a book with another student or relying on being able to check out the material from the college library)… but they did what was needed for their courses.</p>

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<p>sue, you’ve already gotten good advice about dealing with your son. My advice is that maybe it’s time to look at your relationship. Why does he “hate” you? Why do you let him get to you while clearly resenting his neediness and being frustrated by your inability to cut him off. It’s clear you had difficulties with your parents, maybe some of that has spilled into this r relationship as well? Maybe a couselor would help here - help you at least talk to this boy in a way that protects your feelings but gets the message accross. Who knows, if you learn to talk to him, and vice versa, maybe things will ease between the two of you. It’s just a thought. Maybe I’m totally off base. But this situation seems to be about a whole lot more than money.</p>

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<p>Sue,
Seems to me your son IS contributing - he’s taking the maximum student loans (which really add up - $19,000?) and he’s paying for his own food this summer (which you would pay if he were living at home). Are you asking him to pay part of YOUR EFC for next year? If so, you’re changing the game. He MIGHT be willing to help you out if you ASK for his help, explaining that you really can’t afford to cover it all. BUT don’t expect him to offer or jump in willingly.</p>

<p>We have 2 in college and we cover tuition, R&B, and used books. Luckily FAid helps out. While they were in HS, we told them what we considered the maximum amount we could afford for college. We suggested they go to our state university (free ride for our son) or follow the merit money or try for FA at private schools. We expected them to contribute toward college costs so they would be committed to doing well.</p>

<p>We told them we also expected them to cover their own personal expenses (social stuff, clothing, toileties, travel, car?). Truthfully, I never thought to suggest they pay for their books. Darn. In my mind, it worked out that the student loan amount seemed like a reasonable amount for them to contribute. I suggested that they try to reduce their loans with summer earnings, but for various reasons (part time jobs/low paid jobs while taking classes), that didn’t always work out for my DD. My son won enough outside scholarships to replace his loans for year 1. Unfortunately, those scholarships weren’t renewable.</p>

<p>My son is earning ok $ but only works maybe 25-30 hrs/week. He has to commute to Manhattan every day which costs about $100/week. In the end, he won’t have saved all that much but the job experience (hospital/research) is important to him. We don’t give him lunch money so it’s funny watching how frugal he is with his own money. Of course, he’s free to pack a lunch from home but he’s young and can’t be bothered. Eventually he will get hungry. I consider it a learning experience. He needs a second job because he knows his school will also expect a summer contribution but he doesn’t know how much yet (he doesn’t get his FA pkg for another week or two).</p>

<p>As for those scholarships, we suggested the kids apply and we will allow them to use those funds to replace what THEY are required to contribute. My son griped about applying (mostly about writing the essay), but he did it in hopes he can reduce HIS contribution or HIS loan. My DD has received additional scholarships every year (that she had to apply to through her dept). We gave HER the money to use as she saw fit. I suggested she reduce her loans, but instead, she opted to use it for living expenses. She studied abroad and needed extra money to cover the higher European expenses since her summer earnings were never that high. She also works part time during the year to pay for clothes and “fun”. She turned down a sorority because it was really expensive.</p>

<p>I don’t see the incentive for your son to do the scholarships because HE’s not going to benefit from his efforts. Seems like you’re changing the rules after the game started. He knew what he was expected to pay. Now you’re EXPECTING him to want to do more/contribute more. He MIGHT be willing to help out if you explain that you need him to contribute more but it would be nice to ASK him.</p>

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<p>The EFC isn’t just for the PARENTS to pay; that’s why it’s called the Expected Family Contribution.</p>

<p>From the OP: “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.”</p>

<p>The way I read the first post, the OP thinks that the portion OVER the income allowance that the student earns should go toward the EFC. That’s not an unreasonable idea. The OP expects to pay the EFC she calculated for HER income, not for hers AND his.</p>

<p>(sueinphilly, please correct me if I’m wrong; thanks!)</p>

<p>I don’t know whether this is within the initial expectations she laid out for her son at the onset of his college career; it’s certainly reasonable to think that perhaps this topic hadn’t come up, and now that it has, her expectation is that he will contribute that overage to his college funding, rather than expect her to pay more, to cover a larger EFC than she initially expected. He apparently has different ideas. Doesn’t sound so much like changing the rules as simply not having earlier thought of this possibility.</p>

<p>(Note to self: give kid clear idea as to what part of the EFC he pays, and how much I pay, when we talk college finances.)</p>

<p>Regarding the scholarship, maybe from this point forward, she can tell him that he needs to apply for every available scholarship, and for those he doesn’t, she is going to deduct the amount of the scholarship from her contribution to his college funding; that will be additional money he needs to come up with, either through working now and contributing his income, or additional loans. That gives him an incentive to at least apply for the scholarship. If he doesn’t get the scholarship, okay, but he should at least apply for it. The scholarship funds, if won, could be used to reduce his funding load, her funding load, or split to reduce both funding loads.</p>

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<p>Great advice from calreader.</p>

<p>Sue–I would start by not sending the child toothpaste & Q-tips. Let him learn how quickly you can drop $20 at the drugstore.</p>

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<p>I don’t think this Mom is trying to get her son to pay for his college tuition/room/board. She just wants him to contribute towards his personal expenses and books. This is not unreasonable and should be the standard for all able bodied college students. I think he’s under the impression that Mom’s money is for the both of them, but any money he earns is his alone. He needs to grow up. His Mom needs to lay down the rules and insist that he use some of “his” money to contribute towards books, personal expenses, and his own “entertainment/social” expenses. If he refuses, too bad. Let him stay alone in his dorm room on the weekends (which Mom paid for) while his friends are out having a good time (he doesn’t want to use HIS money for HIS social life). Let him try to get through the semester without paying for books (he doesn’t want to use HIS money). He’s a spoiled brat and she gives in to him because of one reason or another. It’s definitely time to stop enabling him. He has a job and it’s time he learn the responsibility of using his money wisely.</p>

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<p>sue-</p>

<p>It appears to me that you desperately - and rightly, imo - want some things to change in this sphere. And that your son likely does not want things to change. Why would he?</p>

<p>You don’t seem to take action to change things to a situation more to your liking. I can only guess why, but part of my guess is that you fear it will simply create more strife. The other part is that you feel your son will act irresponsibly if part of college financing is to come out of his pocketbook.</p>

<p>You fear he won’t buy books. Another poster made an eminently sensible suggestion - you pay tuition, other bursar invoice items and books (even all or part of meal plan equivalent, if you like). He pays for everything else.</p>

<p>You obviously love and care about your son’s welfare and day-to-day experience and don’t want him to do without. It comes through, even in such little things as sending him q-tips and toothpaste.</p>

<p>You can present your new plan as, just as others have said, part of a natural progression in his movement into adulthood. </p>

<p>Tell him that as he moves into his second (third/whichever) year of college, you want him to have more experience handling his own finances. Ergo, you will pay bursar bill and books. He will do everything else.</p>

<p>If he goes without q-tips because they are not a “fun” “want” item, no problem. If he goes without toothpaste, his “fun” friends will probably let him know, explicitly or subtly, that this is a poor idea. He is unlikely to go without eating.</p>

<p>Present it in a positive way - in a letter or email if you don’t think you can succeed any other way. But, imo, it’s never too late to try to improve communications.</p>

<p>If you two are getting together from time to time, ask him out for dinner. Present this as conversation at that time, with that conversation being a recognition of his moving onward and upward in life, being ready to take on more and more responsibility. Find the one or two things that you DO respect in your son, that he HAS done well and mention those as why you are certain that he is ready for this kind of transition.</p>

<p>calmom (as so often is true) has said it in a nutshell… if you want things to change, you have to be the one to start. And you can. You truly can.</p>

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<p>One thing that worked as my older children moved off campus and into apartments is that we gave them money in monthly installments. This enabled them to experience planning and budget control.</p>

<p>We paid the tuition/fee bill and paid for books. The cell phone charges were part of our family plan but they paid for any downloads. We calculated and agreed to a monthly amount based on rent and the full meal plan cost. (These numbers were different for each because of the COL in different area of the country).
The money was auto deposited on a set day each month (about a week before rent was due, when the money hit, they sent in the rent check) and they were expected to make it last.
The first year of this, at his request, we also helped one child out by holding on to his summer savings and doling it out proportionally throughout the year. I know our impulsive spender ate a lot of mac and cheese toward the end of many months.</p>

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<p>thanks for all the advice and feedback. Yes, Owlice, I’m really mainly interested in him paying the part of the EFC that will be as a result of ‘his’ earnings. Yes, he is working and buying most of his own food and ALL the fun stuff.</p>

<p>I have told him that I expect him to put 1/2 of income over 4K towards some school expense (he hasn’t crossed that threshhold yet). The easiest thing is to make him pay for books (easily 500+ per semester). </p>

<p>I know how much he’s earning because his paystubs come here, I don’t think he has saved any of it so far. He’s been working at the school gym and is going to get paid in July for all his work since may, we are hoping it will be with work study $$ he didn’t use during the school year. And he is also working retail. </p>

<p>This is one child who has not learned by how he lives, ie the example I set for him. I would say his attitude about $$ is 99% of our issues.</p>

<p>Who buys $60 jeans that he never wore, He spent so much $$ on clothes he never wore. I have a thousand dollars of stuff in his closet and he has lots of clothes at school. </p>

<p>Yes, I do have a few shirts in my closet I haven’t work yet. But I got them for <5 on the closeout rack. I’m just waiting till I need something new to wear before using them. </p>

<p>I set a good example and he blows it off. No I will not support him after college. He can join the military if he doesn’t get a job right after college (because he also knows I’m not paying for any graduate schools) and I will never cosign a loan for him, EVER.</p>

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<p>sueinphilly, since you’ve been sending him things/paying for stuff, you can enforce the “him paying the part of the EFC that will be as a result of ‘his’ earnings” pretty easily, I think. You probably need to reiterate your expectations, presented to him as a reminder, that you will be paying $X for the EFC and no more. If there is more to be paid, it is up to him. At this point, I’d not be buying (nor sending) him clothes or toiletries or cereal, nor paying for anything that is not absolutely school-related. And it is from that money – absolutely school-related – from which I’d deduct the part of the EFC that results from his earnings. If that means he has to borrow other people’s books for a semester because he didn’t budget well (or at all) for the expense of books, well, it does. </p>

<p>“him paying the part of the EFC that will be as a result of ‘his’ earnings”</p>

<p>The ‘his’ in that should not be in quotes – they are, in fact, his earnings. And what do people do with their earnings? Pay for what they need and want! Adults pay for their needs first, then their wants. He’ll learn! Most do, and if he doesn’t, well, he has to pay the consequences, just as other adults do. If he buys $60 jeans that he never wears, well, that’s okay if that is how he chooses to spend his money. You spend your money as you see fit (not on toothpaste and contact lens solution and cereal for him, right? Right!) and he gets to, too.</p>

<p>You don’t want to make this punitive, but rather, the casual, gradual adoption of adulthood. (Otherwise, he may be tempted to cut back on the number of hours he’s working.) You want to praise him for earning so much; it pleases you to see him blossoming into a responsible man. You want to remind him, before the summer slips away, that you will be paying $X – the EFC based on just your earnings – for school. What with the increase in the cost of energy, both for the home and the car, and in food… well, you wish you could do more, and you are proud of him for getting a scholarship and taking care of himself, and you are glad to help him pay for his education and are doing what you can.</p>

<p>I don’t know whether the emphasis on money has been “you are helping him,” or whether with his scholarships and earnings, he “is helping you.” If it’s been the latter, I’d be moving away from that really fast! The language you use is important.</p>

<p>When he pays for some of his education, he is not helping you; his education is for his benefit, and he is helping himself.</p>

<p>For a reference, once my S turned 13, I told him that I expected him to supply his own spending money for sleepaway camp. He gets an allowance from his dad and from me all year, and from this, he pays for junk food, CDs he wants, books (not for school), etc. The camp recommends a certain amount (a range) for campers to have for spending money; this is just a little bit more than his allowance for that time period is. He has to save from previous allowances to have that minimum amount, and since he likes to have more than the minimum, he has to save more.</p>

<p>And he does. He’s 14. He became frugal when he stopped getting whatever merchandise he “needed” (wanted!) from his parents and started getting an allowance to pay for it instead. He had to make choices – 5 packs of Yu-gi-Oh cards and no candy, or 3 packs and candy? (He was maybe 7? 8?) He learned!</p>

<p>Your son will, too!</p>

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<p>Have a tag sale. Seriously, if the stuff is any good, you’ll be able to clean out his closet AND probably pay for some of those books at the same time.</p>

<p>We also do the “monthly” money plan with our kids at college. Whatever we determine is “our share” of their expenses gets deposited by the first of the month into their accounts. No one has asked for any additional money yet, so if they run short, I don’t know about it. I do know that neither of them has much of a credit card bill as that bill comes here (they pay it online, but a hard copy comes here for some reason).</p>

<p>The more THEY earn, the LESS we give them. They know that is our policy. When DS couldn’t work due to school conflicts last term, we upped his monthly stipend from us. However, that gets reduced when he is working again…and he knows it.</p>

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<p>To the OP- it has probably occurred to you that it is not a coincidence that you had a bad relationship with your parents and that now you have a bad relationship with your son. If your own parents didn’t model good behavior towards an “almost adult” child, it is no surprise that you didn’t learn how to gradually lessen the control, loosen up the apron strings, etc. as your son moves from total dependency on you as an infant towards no dependency but mutual respect as you deal with each other as adults.</p>

<p>Assuming your son has no motor disability that would prevent him from walking to a drug store and buying toiletries, or from carrying home a box of cereal from a grocery store, there is no reason on earth why you would supply him with these items. Assuming that he can add and subtract, there is also no reason why you would have to give him a budget or demand that her spend a certain amount of his earnings on the things you’d like him to pay for. Adults often differ on what is considered a luxury and what is a necessity- my assistant buys designer clothes and then complains like crazy about how expensive it is to dry clean them. I don’t get to tell her that I make about 4 times what she makes, but buy wash and wear, and spend about $25 a year on dry cleaning for my winter coat. She and I have different priorities- but I don’t get to tell her how to spend her money, or imply that she’s a bad person because we spend our money in different ways.</p>

<p>So assume that he’s a colleague at work and not your kid. The conversation around tuition and the EFC and all that jazz goes like this:</p>

<p>“so the bill from the bursar’s office came today. Just like last year, I will be paying X thousand dollars on or around August 25. Since the total amount is X thousand plus whatever, I will send you the bill (email, fax, mail, your choice) so that you can figure out how you will pay the balance before September 1 when the full amount is due.” If he balks you get to say, “gee, I feel lucky. So many people are losing their jobs and their houses-- the economy is tough right now, and I’m happy that I can come up with the same amount as last year.” If he asks how he is going to pay the difference between the full amount and the EFC, you can suggest that he visit one of the college’s fin aid counselors who would be happy to work with him to figure out how much of his summer earnings got calculated into the increase in EFC and how the college expects other students to pay out of summer earnings. </p>

<p>And then drop it. You are both playing each other for all it’s worth in some sad drama of control, but you will find that as soon as you treat him respectfully and like an adult, he will find a way to treat you respectfully and like an adult. His friends will be quick to be helpful- one of them will take a pile of his expensive and unworn clothes and sell them on ebay, one of them will offer to share some of their books for next semester so each only pays half, one of them will take him to Salvation Army or Goodwill to show him how they all buy clothes for very little money, etc. He doesn’t need you to give him a list of ways to economize- he needs you to explain without getting angry what you plan to do towards his tuition and then back off while he figures out the rest.</p>

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<p>Sounds like your son thinks your name is “doormatinphilly”.</p>

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<p>I second the tag sale advice. If he doesn’t make the effort to even come home for his clothes, they are not important and are just taking up space. When my son did not clean out his closet, I did. Sold the items at a tag sale and kept the money for expenses.</p>

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<p>sueinphilly-my parents are paying for my tuition/meal plan/etc, however I also have a bank account with $1100 in it. That money is expected to be spent on school expenses and school expenses only (ie I will be buying my own books and paying for food/travel local to the school etc.). Every graduation check I got went straight into that account.</p>

<p>Lay down some serious rules with your S, and stick to your guns. He’ll respect you more for it.</p>

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<p>I really like how my son’s school spells out who is responsible for what (although I’m sure some families split the costs differently). The financial aid letter last year spelled out what our EFC was and then separately listed what our son’s EFC was. It stated specific amounts for student contribution from summer earnings, student loan amount and work study amounts. As my son’s income increases, I assume it will be reflected in what “he” is expected to pay just as if our income increases, it will be reflected in what “we” are expected to pay.</p>

<p>My daughter’s school simply lists the total COA and then subtracts out what merit scholarships, grants, loans and work study is offered - and then lists the large amount that is due. Due to gapping, this amount due is way above our EFC (and it’s a FAFSA only school so no home equity or other issues). Students might not realize they are expected to pay some of this amount unless it is explained to them. This summer my daughter is earning a good salary as an intern. She plans to use the money in place of taking out a student loan for this upcoming year. Since she’ll be a senior, she won’t see another FA pkg but if she did, it wouldn’t show how the EFC increased due to “her” extra earnings and it would be hard for her to see that the EFC increased due to the student’s higher income. Perhaps Sue’s son isn’t aware of how the system works. My kids are still unsure and need to be “reminded” each year.</p>

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<p>Since your son is on financial aid here is a word of warning about scholarships.</p>

<p>You are required to disclose to the university if you have received outside scholarships. If your family is receiving loans the amount of the outside scholarship will be deducted from the loan first and the financial aid second.</p>

<p>So, if your S applies for scholarships it will only reduce the amount of monies that are received from the school.</p>

<p>It was a big shock to our family when this happened to us. We had no idea the outside scholarships our D earned just reduced the amount of funds the school gave us!</p>