<p>This may be a pointless question but I must ask it. I was asked it recently by a friend. </p>
<p>Would you pay for your childs full tuition and risk some of that money for you retirement and other expenses or would you pay half of the tutition, and make your child pay the other half to teach the child the value of money? Nowaday's many kids, including me, don't really understand how loans and all these other things work. I know my parents would never do the second option. I just wanted to get some opinions of what you would do for your child.</p>
<p>I don't think the title of this question is very fair. A student can go to his state school, try to get merit aid at a safety school, or take out student loans and work during the summer. It's not a matter of how much the parent will do for his/her child when it's very possible for the kid to handle part of the financial responsibility himself. My parents are paying for my full tuition besides a merit scholarship, but they can also afford it without much trouble. If my parents could not afford it, I would go with one of the options I mentioned above.</p>
<p>We will be paying for our kids' educations in entirety....over a lotta years :D. This is something we want to do, whether we can afford to or not. It simply is my value system. My kids will not be paying toward their education. But I do hope they will pay it forward, as has been the case in our families.</p>
<p>The thing is that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for an 18 year old to get a loan in his/her own name. Banks usually require a financially responsible person to cosign, so they know the debt will be paid off by someone. You could try and save money for tuition with a high school job, but it would require putting in a lot of hours at that job, which would reduce the amount of time a high school kid could put toward classwork and ECs that would get them into good schools. </p>
<p>The way I see it, the student either goes to a school their parents can afford without spending all their savings, or the parents can get or cosign a loan with the student that will be paid off over many years. I personally had to go with the first option because my HS grades were too average to get any kind of significant merit-based aid, and we didn't qualify for need-based aid. My mom just finished paying for my sister's Wake tuition in the spring, so I know if I had gone to an expensive school it would have meant that she would have had to spend a lot of her retirement money and take out loans, which I know she would have hated doing. So, I chose a less expensive state school tht my mom can pay for and still have money for retirement, and I'm perfectly happy with the education and the social life I have there.</p>
<p>This may be cold, but I'm not facing retirement eating cat food in an Airstream trailer so that my kids can each have $200,000 college educations. We're going to help out, but it's their lives, they can help fund it.</p>
<p>I share the out of pocket expense equally with my D. It's not a huge amount of money (it is a lot for our family, remember, everything is relative), but it seems "right" that she have a vested interest in her own future.</p>
<p>My parents think a college education is very important. They think it's something that they've worked very hard to give me, and they will give it to me - completely out of their pockets.</p>
<p>Now, the issue is they have very strong ideas about what constitutes an acceptable education, and that is NOT an Ivy or other expensive private. Basically, they feel that Ivies and 40 grand a year privates are all name and no game. At least, no game in a sense that I can get just as good a job out of my state uni's education.</p>
<p>So, they will pay for my tuition and books at my state school. Board is on my bill, as is the difference between tuitition at my state uni and anywhere else I might want to go.</p>
<p>It's fair and logical, but damn, does it sure shatter my dreams about gorgeous tree-lined campuses and the idyllic-ness of a Hahvad education. Oh well. I guess they figured now that I'm an adult, it's time to stop day-dreaming and start acting like I'm of legal age.</p>
<p>We have told our kids that there is enough money saved for to pay for them to go to an in-state public univ. If they choose to go somewhere else they will have to make up the difference in student loans or schoalrships. If they get scholarships to state u, the the amount of money saved will be theirs upon graduation.</p>
<p>I learned a great deal about myself and the world by having to contribute toward my own education, something that I did by working and taking out loans.</p>
<p>My sons grew up knowing that having to pay part of the costs of their education was one of the gifts that my husband and I were giving them.</p>
<p>I would not use my retirement to pay for my kids' education. My plan is to give my sons the gift that my parents gave me: Having parents who in retirement were financially independent of their offspring, thus allowing my sons to live their adult lives as they choose without worrying about supporting their parents.</p>
<p>"It's fair and logical, but damn, does it sure shatter my dreams about gorgeous tree-lined campuses and the idyllic-ness of a Hahvad education. "</p>
<p>It only shatters your dream because you're not willing to work hard enough to attain your dream. Working summers and during the school year, taking out loans, busting butt to get merit aid, doing Americorps or other programs that help pay for college -- all would help you afford your dream -- if your dream were important enough to you.</p>
<p>As one of my former students said, "Some people have dreams. I have plans."</p>
<p>My parents paid my college bills, leaving me in the wonderful position of starting adult life with no debts. It was probably the best thing they ever did for me (and my sister, for whom they did the same thing). And I made sure, later on, that they knew how much I appreciated it.</p>
<p>My husband and I are in the position to do the same thing for our kids. I'm very glad we can do it. Fortunately, our retirement is not at stake. If it were, we might have made a different decision.</p>
<p>We have always told the kids as they were growing up that they would be paying half of their college expenses, just as my parents did for me and my 4 siblings. We took out our loans at the bank of Mom and Dad. They paid what we couldn't afford at the time, but they kept track of what we owed them and we paid it back when we could, even if it was years after we graduated. It was also interest free. Whatever it cost them we paid that amount back. They did not add interest if it took us a while to pay them back.</p>
<p>I did make an additional condition to the above agreement for my children. If they could get a full ride, we would buy them a car. I had to modify this slightly for my first child going to school. She got a full tuition scholarship for and out of state school. This will amount to over $100,000 when all is said and done. So this is what we did: we bought a new car and put it in my husband's name. My daughter drives it (we needed the 3rd car anyway). After she graduates and if she keeps the scholarship for all 4 years, then we will sign the car over to her. She still has to pay half of her other college expenses (room and board, etc) I figure paying $20,000 for a new car vs OOS tuition is a steal.</p>
<p>My wife and I will be lucky enough to help our kids select a school without having to limit their choices because of finances. To do this we will not be eating cat food in retirement but it will push out the date at which we could retire (essentially limit how early we can switch to a great, low money, job versus our current good jobs that pay good bucks).</p>
<p>Even with our commitment we believe it is important for our kids to have some skin in the game ... minimumaly they are on the hook to work summers and for all their discretionary income; for each kid we'll decide what we believe is appropriate beyond that.</p>
<p>We will pay for our child's education, and she will contribute to it as well. However, we don't have a set amount that she will contribute. She knows that she will be working part-time during the year, and during summers, and that those funds will go towards books & expenses. </p>
<p>We'll make up what she can't. Much of it will be in the form of loans that she knows she will help pay back. We have told her that she can go wherever she gets in and wants to go, and costs will be met. That's our value system. (But of course she also knows that if there's no or little aid, there will also be no money for extras like vacations, clothes, etc.)</p>
<p>We are almost in the last year of paying for both our kids' college careers. Getting wonderful educations, and starting out debt-free, are our gifts to our children. Whether or not those educations pay off career wise is utterly immaterial to us.</p>
<p>As far as retirement risk, it depends what you mean by that. I hear people say all the time to put retirement first, but what kind of retirement is the question. just like there are 40K college experiences and local state school college experiences, the same is true for retirement. We are not looking for the equivalent of the 40Kcollege retirement. We will live very modestly, just like we do now. So paying for college doesn't hurt us retirement-wise, since it will take so little for us to retire in what we consider comfort.</p>
<p>The only snag, as I said on another thread, is health care, which can dwarf even the fanciest retirement plans. Which is one of a million reasons to go to national single payer (like the rest of the industrialized world.)</p>
<p>Early junior year we set the ground rules-DS would be responsible for tuition/academic fees/books/spending money. We would pick up the tab for everything-room/board/cell phone/car and med insurance. BTW he did have a college fund of about $76,000. And we did chip in an additional $3500/yr when he moved off campus soph year to maintain our share of the total cost, feeling that his r/b savings should benefit him, not us. BTW, our efc was $82,000 dollars so its not as if we couldn't have picked up the entire college cost for any college with breathing room to spare.</p>
<p>BUT, my wife and I did not do this for financial reasons. We felt that it was a way for him to be invested in his college education, be required to be a creative "problem" solver, be forced to make challenging choices and most importantly help him along the way to being a responsible adult. If he had concluded that the only college he would be happy attending was far beyond his ability to pay, we certainly would have provided the necessary support to allow him to graduate without any massive loans. </p>
<p>In fact he did have to make a difficult choice come college acceptance time between Oberlin who offered him a small scholarship and RPI who offered a package of 3 scholarships totalling $25k/yr. These were his top two choices. His response was something like, "I guess RPI wants me more" and has never looked back.</p>
<p>He is now a junior at Rensselaer, has thoroughly enjoyed his 2-1/2 years there and is doing great academically. And the icing on the cake is that he will graduate with about $50,000 remaining in his college fund!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, we signed over his UGM investment account over to him during this semester break.</p>
<p>We too wanted our kids to have some "skin the the game" for their college costs. So even though we did not qualify for any need-based aid, we did have D take out some Stafford loans in her name. We simply wanted her to have some personal financial stake in the endeavor. We also gave her no spending money -- any decisions to go out for dinner instead of eating dorm food, etc. were on her. She used her summer job savings for personal expenses. </p>
<p>She also saved us one semester of college costs by using her AP credits to take a leave of absence for the fall semester of her junior year. Rather than doing a paid academic abroad program, she worked that summer and fall in another country (China) getting invaluable experience that was a real plus when she went job hunting after college. We felt that by working and living on her own in a very different country she got at least as much out of her six months as she would have in a formal school-based program. </p>
<p>We paid for tuition, room & board, books, fees, etc. for the other semesters, but of course her Stafford loans were deducted from the bill we paid. She is now employed in her field and paying a very modest amount (I think about $50, certainly no more than $100) each month to pay off her loans. No regrets on anyone's part. </p>
<p>We would not have risked retirement funds for private college. We maintain that as a separate hands-off financial category, and we hope to be independent oldsters. </p>
<p>This worked for us. The bills for D's private college were still high, but we had planned for this and expect to do the same for our son. If finances were more of an issue, we would be looking very carefully at state school options. IMO NO kid, no matter what the family finances, should take a private college education for granted. </p>
<p>We are just starting this process with kid #2, now in 11th grade, and are about to have the financial talk with him. So far we have communicated that he should be saving his part-time job earnings for his college pizza expenses. If son decides on a state school or a private that offers him significant merit money, we may allow him to go loan-free (an option that our D had but declined).</p>
<p>We have paid full amount of our 3 children's education (so far, all are not done yet!). We look at it as our obligation as parents to educate them as far as our finances will allow. As someone previously said, we will not be starving in retirement, but it will certainly delay retirement and cuts into other things we might spend money on. I hope that when they have children, they will do the same for them. I look at school as their full time job at this point. Now they do work in the summers or on break to earn spending money, but college and basic living costs are covered by us.</p>
<p>DD will graduate school-loan free, but with a personal loan of $1000 to "The Greater Bank of Mom and Dad". We have paid tuition, R&B so far (total cost reduced by scholarships and financial aid grants)- she pays all other expenses through summer work, and about 10 hours per week of campus work. Unfortunately, having mono and leaving mid-summer for her study abroad meant that she wasn't able to work this last summer - hence the $1000 parental loan. She is at a private school -but which costs us the equivalent of our state U. We aren't saving anything for retirement now - but do have defined benefit plans with the state and city, and those deductions are automatically taken out of our paychecks. We are also building equity in our house - another form of retirement savings. The true test will be next year when DS starts college, and we figure out how to pay for two at once!!!!! :)</p>