S/O What is our obligation as parents regarding college $$$?

[Anonymous]

We are slightly below you in terms of HHI at ~350k. I feel that my obligation to my children is to pay for undergraduate tuition at the school of their choosing, plus basic room and board (i.e. residence and meal plan in first year, equivalent cost if they want to live with roommates after first year, cell phone, textbooks, flights home for holidays). I expect them to maintain overall decent to good grades, to work during the summer and budget that money for shopping, hobbies, travel, etc during the year, i.e. no fun/spending money from us. Other costs we'll take on a case-by-case basis and would expect DCs to contribute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With your income you are being stingy. You could absolutely afford private. Or the delta of private minus some merit. We are full pay for undergrad and happy to do it as we do indeed see it as our obligation.

It was not my intention, but this post has become about how people judge my own personal sense of obligation. I was hoping to get others to tell me their thoughts and offered my own to "get it going."

To that end, do I understand that you intend to pay full cost of *any* undergrad? How about grad school? Does it make any difference what your income is and has been?

1) grad school, kid can get loans no matter how much you make. 2) of course it makes a difference what your income is. It's a parent's high income that makes aid unavailable.

PP, income matters for grad school if the student is claimed on a tax return as a dependent. If not, then no. Applies to parents or spouses. Federal loans are not available above a certain asset/income level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are slightly below you in terms of HHI at ~350k. I feel that my obligation to my children is to pay for undergraduate tuition at the school of their choosing, plus basic room and board (i.e. residence and meal plan in first year, equivalent cost if they want to live with roommates after first year, cell phone, textbooks, flights home for holidays). I expect them to maintain overall decent to good grades, to work during the summer and budget that money for shopping, hobbies, travel, etc during the year, i.e. no fun/spending money from us. Other costs we'll take on a case-by-case basis and would expect DCs to contribute.

OP here. Thank you so much for this answer! This is exactly the type of response I was hoping to get.

[Anonymous]

Firstly I think we feel the obligation not to do less for our daughter than was done for us— both of our parents fully paid four years of undergraduate and private grad school (DH went private all the way, I went public for undergraduate).

Second I’m probably younger than you, and I can tell you my peers who have student loans are five or ten years behind us in virtually everything. Just buying starter homes as the markets are pricing them out of good areas. Just getting married in some cases. We’re only one of a handful of families with kids of our peer group. I do not want my daughter waiting for her life to start when she’s 23 and should be working in some idealistic NGO job or looking at med school without worrying how to pay for it. It just doesn’t reflect what I want for her, and I’m happy to join team small-house-old-car to avoid it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you aren’t going to spend your money on your kids educations, what will you spend your money on that could possibly be more important?

Retirement for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Firstly I think we feel the obligation not to do less for our daughter than was done for us— both of our parents fully paid four years of undergraduate and private grad school (DH went private all the way, I went public for undergraduate).

Second I’m probably younger than you, and I can tell you my peers who have student loans are five or ten years behind us in virtually everything. Just buying starter homes as the markets are pricing them out of good areas. Just getting married in some cases. We’re only one of a handful of families with kids of our peer group. I do not want my daughter waiting for her life to start when she’s 23 and should be working in some idealistic NGO job or looking at med school without worrying how to pay for it. It just doesn’t reflect what I want for her, and I’m happy to join team small-house-old-car to avoid it.

OP here. I really like the bolded as at least a baseline for a sense of obligation. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At 450K, you will be expected to be full pay no matter where your child attends. You don’t determine your obligation. A combination of the federal government and college financial aid offices do. You can pay with cash, savings, or private loans, but you will be expected to pay. No emotions accepted.

Um, I absolutely get to determine how to spend my money. Sorry if the word "obligation" threw you off. We all place value on different things and to different degrees. Some parents do not feel obligated to pay for a secondary education...and they don't. Some parents feel like their greatest obligation as a parent is to provide the "best" education their child can get up to and including graduate school. And presumably many degrees in between (community college, in state, not room and board, not a liberal arts school, etc. etc.) I'm asking what this board thinks about that.

I think its sad at your income and your lifestyle, that this is even a question. We have 1/3 your income and will pay for a state school and graduate school, more if we can. If we had your income we'd fully pay for any school and the only catch is they need a major that will leave to a job, not a fun major. At a minimum we will pay tuition, room and board. I hope we can do a private if that's where they want to go but I see mine happy at our state school. Best is subjective as best isn't necessarily a private school. I went to both for college and much happier at the public school. But, at that income level why would you pay for a 4 year school and 2-3 years of graduate school. Is your million+ dollar house, fancy cars and vacations more important than making sure your kids get a good start to life?

So I'll cut through the attacks on me here, and focus on something you wrote that I think is interesting. I think there are valid differences of opinion on what count as "a good start in life." I absolutely think education is important. But "what success looks like" for my kids from my perspective is not tied to earning potential (beyond a certain floor, of course) or social stature. I believe that a stable home, an upbringing with lots of enriching experiences and a good dose of learning independence and responsibility, and four years of paid education at a really good state school is a good start in life.

NP and I agree with this.

[Anonymous]

We always told our children we will pay the equivalent of in state tuition (or maybe a little bit more) for undergrad. And that anything past that, would be up to them to finance. However, we are planning/hoping to help them with their loans (they all took the max Stafford loans- about 30k) and graduate school after we don't have any more children in college.

We do not live in a excessively large house, drive fancy cars, take exotic vacations etc. Our HHI is more than many, but my husband and I were first generation college students, and he had an enormous loan debt to overcome after several advance degrees. So we try to balance paying off the mortgage on our modest home, saving for retirement, and funding college. We were playing catch up for a long time there with his student loans. So we feel like this is a good compromise for us. And from the start we were always honest with them about how much we were going to fund.

[Anonymous]

Here’s how I make that choice. Every month I have about $5,000 left in disposable income. $1,000 goes into each of the following accounts: kids 529s and vacation fund. The remaining $2,000 goes toward my savings/investments.

Saving $1,000 a month in their 529s will land the kids at $50k/year for college (I started late and based on present value).

I feel comfortable with this decision. I’m balancing my longer term needs with my desire to bring my kids on great, cultural vacations, and ensuring they will get full instate paid for with something left over for grad school or most of private paid for.

That’s the best I can do.

If I made 450, I’d fully fund undergrad and grad.

[Anonymous]

At 450k, can't you just pay out of pocket tuition bills as they come??! That's what my parents did. No need to save, just write the check out of your regular cash flow.

DH feels like you and doesn't like saving for college. He thinks having student loans made him struggle and be hungry, which made him get straight A's and a worthwhile major. What DH forgets is that I helped him pay off his nearly 100k in student loans and I was able to help because my parents didn't saddle me with loans. I got a fluffy liberal arts major, but I hustled and make the same income as DH does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We always told our children we will pay the equivalent of in state tuition (or maybe a little bit more) for undergrad. And that anything past that, would be up to them to finance. However, we are planning/hoping to help them with their loans (they all took the max Stafford loans- about 30k) and graduate school after we don't have any more children in college.

We do not live in a excessively large house, drive fancy cars, take exotic vacations etc. Our HHI is more than many, but my husband and I were first generation college students, and he had an enormous loan debt to overcome after several advance degrees. So we try to balance paying off the mortgage on our modest home, saving for retirement, and funding college. We were playing catch up for a long time there with his student loans. So we feel like this is a good compromise for us. And from the start we were always honest with them about how much we were going to fund.

I am this PP and I just want to say that like other posters, we also had our children all get jobs in high school and summers in college to learn about personal finances, and contribute to their spending money for college. We always told them they needed to save about 2k a summer for the school year- 1 k per semester. That didn't always work out, but just that responsibility of having a job, and saving was very valuable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At 450k, can't you just pay out of pocket tuition bills as they come??! That's what my parents did. No need to save, just write the check out of your regular cash flow.

DH feels like you and doesn't like saving for college. He thinks having student loans made him struggle and be hungry, which made him get straight A's and a worthwhile major. What DH forgets is that I helped him pay off his nearly 100k in student loans and I was able to help because my parents didn't saddle me with loans. I got a fluffy liberal arts major, but I hustled and make the same income as DH does.

OP here. The bolded is a good point I neglected to make. Thank you. To me, I used the word "obligated" intentionally. I feel obligated to fully fund four years at an in state school. So we are saving to make sure we meet that obligation. When it comes time for it, assuming I have it in my cashflow, I certainly would put a high value on paying for more- whether directly toward the bill or putting it away toward something to offset any debt my kid incurs (down payment, graduation trip, etc...)

[Anonymous]

I find it interesting how many people are so sure that private colleges are better than public. Some are, but many are not. I’m not really interested in paying $50k plus for a middle of the road private college vs an equally ranked public university. My spouse and I both went to a huge flagship and it definitely hasn’t hurt our job prospects or income level. As such, I don’t think we need to pay for whatever schools our kids want no matter the price, even though we could afford it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people are so sure that private colleges are better than public. Some are, but many are not. I’m not really interested in paying $50k plus for a middle of the road private college vs an equally ranked public university. My spouse and I both went to a huge flagship and it definitely hasn’t hurt our job prospects or income level. As such, I don’t think we need to pay for whatever schools our kids want no matter the price, even though we could afford it.

To be fair no one has said that. I think the parent has every right to insist the kid go to the cheaper school if it’s similarly ranked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting how many people are so sure that private colleges are better than public. Some are, but many are not. I’m not really interested in paying $50k plus for a middle of the road private college vs an equally ranked public university. My spouse and I both went to a huge flagship and it definitely hasn’t hurt our job prospects or income level. As such, I don’t think we need to pay for whatever schools our kids want no matter the price, even though we could afford it.

I agree!!! Ivy league is WAY different than a regular private college. The flagship state colleges that DH and I went to were well regarded and highly ranked. I'd pick UVA over a no name private school any day.