We have a teen and a tween. Before long we are going to be faced with the great college conundrum.
| He Said | She Said |
| So college is coming for our kids, maybe.
So many parents automatically assume that little Johnny and Sally will be going to college. We implant the expectation early, we push our kids to do well in school and encourage community service to round out their collegiate applications. In their junior and senior years of high school kids will be filling out applications and visiting schools trying to figure out where they want to go and what they want to study. Paying for it, often, falls upon the parents, maybe. Should parents be responsible for their children’s higher education? I think not! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I will no longer provide any aid or support to my children after they turn 18! I am saying though that they should begin earning their own way. It has been my experience that others, and I, have a greater level of satisfaction and appreciation for that which we earned than that which we received. As the youngest of five I saw three siblings have a chance to attend college with expenses paid; all three blew it! Partying was more important than their studies. I had a friend that received a new Trans-Am in high school. It was totaled within a year. Before the insurance company could process the claim, the father replaced the car with a another brand new one. For the good of the kids I believe they should earn their education, at least most of it. There is also the additional consideration of our financial future. Like many Americans I did not come from a family that held all things financial as private. It was not cool to discuss or ask about finances. As a result I grew up ignorant of the most basic best practices of financial management. Though we finally have some direction with respect to our financial well-being, we still have a long way to go. It is very difficult to justify jeopardizing our retirement for a kid’s education that they may never use. |
Can you imagine how fun it is to have the college talk in our house? Yeah, it’s not fun. Obviously, given how hard-core Jack’s position is, it can only follow that I’m going to disagree. In this case, since he’s so “out there” it gives me so much with which to disagree. Welcome to my world people!
I went to college – but I didn’t finish. I’m ashamed to say that I quit with 90 credits under my belt – needing 122 to graduate. So I only had a year left when I gave up. Why you may wonder? Because I let real life get in the way of finishing school – not something I recommend to anyone. My life expenses required that I work more hours to pay for them, which meant taking less classes until I just quit because I couldn’t then pay for the classes and life. Big regret of mine – can’t even begin to express the disappointment I feel about not getting my degree. My parents paid for the first couple of years of college for me – I paid books and incidentals. When I moved off campus, my parents paid tuition while I covered everything else. It’s a harsh dose of reality to realize that rent, car and life is expensive. Our 8th grade son is, of course, a great kid. Did you really expect me to say anything different? He’s brilliantly smart and does very little to work for it. I keep saying he’s going to have a hard adjustment in college because he does so little to earn his great grades. Being a realistic mom, I can also be honest enough to admit that, given the chance, he is the laziest kid on this planet. I say that with the utmost love, but it’s true. I think we have our work cut out for us when it comes to getting this one to carry his load for college. Jack and I have really tried to instill in our kids the importance of saving money early and appreciating the concept of not accumulating debt. Ok, ok – so Jack was the real catalyst on this – I admit. I rode his coattails for a long while until I finally got my butt in gear and joined the save money train. The kids save 20% of everything they get (allowance and gift money), and I periodically clear out their piggy banks and dump their money into their mutual funds. I never once claimed that I expected us to pick up the entire tab for their education. However, I’m not a believer in handing college to them and saying, “Ok, enjoy yourself, bye!”. I truly believe they need to contribute something to their education to most appreciate the privilege of attending college. I won’t even go into the subject of providing them the opportunity to be competitive when they enter the job world.. I expect both of them to get jobs and save their pennies for school. I expect them to spend extensive time searching for every possible scholarship they can find. However, I don’t like Jack’s approach of making them feel like they are totally on their own to pay for school. I don’t want to threaten or sacrifice our retirement – but I want to be supportive in both a financial and emotional manner. Supportive in that I want to assist, help and facilitate their college experience. I don’t want to give them a free ride – I want a far more balanced approach than Jack suggests. Please tell me there are people who agree with me! Please leave your comments and tell Jack to lighten up! I guess you can tell me to jump off a bridge, but I won’t like those comments as much! |
Readers: Did you pay for your own education, and did it make a difference in how much effort you made or how you felt about earning your degree?
 Loading ... |
Coming from a family with a lot of financial ups and downs and with parents who were passively supportive, it was up to me to do all the work of getting into and paying for college. From navigating brochures to driving myself to the required ACT tests several hours away, from picking up the FAFSA applications from the school to finally going through my mother’s filing “system” to find the needed tax documents and filling out all the FAFSA stuff, from fielding all the bills to repaying all the loans – it was all me.
Do I think I benefited from doing all that grown-up work? YES! Did having to pay for it make me choose colleges based on cost – to understand the idea of a quality education – yes.
My husband, on the other hand, had his schooling paid for – so long as he went to the school his father chose and got the degree his father chose. Did that go over well? No, he partied and flunked out. He didn’t grow up enough to understand the importance of school for more than a decade and by then his father had mellowed out enough to not insist it all be his way and he paid for my 30-something year old husbands college. He still didn’t really take it seriously, didn’t appreciate it, or use his time wisely.
So my approach is probably similar to yours – be involved but not do the work, ask questions to make sure they are making the best choices, and to not foot the bill.
Cranky Sarah´s last blog ..I’d like to blame the tears on allergies
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us! I am sure in the end we will contribute more than I want and less than Jill wants. Cranky, and Jack (2) Jill (1)