What did you do about ‘fairness’ if one child’s education costs a lot more than the other’s?

[Anonymous]

This might happen in our family. Older child is at a private college. Younger child applying to schools now prefers large state schools. The younger child has much more expensive taste in general and we spend much more on her now. I imagine that if she chooses a much less expensive school we will have more disposable income and can potentially give her more spending money or even a car. The older child doesn’t want any of that.

[Anonymous]

“Fair” is how much debt they end up with, not how much you had to spend to get them there. I’d consider paying off those loans for your DD if you are able.

[Anonymous]

each person has different needs

The louder kid, gets the most. The squeaky wheel.
Those of you who believe you are all-knowing re: what each "needs" are full of BS

[Anonymous]

Everyine is getting what they need.

Life isn't fair. The sooner they learn this, the better

[Anonymous]

I would assure kids it will all work out evenly in the end, everyone will get what they need, and that it isn’t a competition.

Will be interesting to see how it turns out with our kids. DD goes in state. Not sure where DS will end up. I doubt he will want private but he may want out of state.

[Anonymous]

Two of my friends kids asked for cash payment to balance it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s perfectly “fair” if your daughter had a state school option but decided that she’d rather go private knowing in advance that it would require that she take out loans.

14k in loans to go to an Ivy is peanuts when all-in an Ivy bachelor's costs upwards of over 350k. This does not come close to evening the score, it's still highly unfair to the sibling who had to go to state school. You can literally pay off 14k in loans with a Wall Street or tech signing bonus/moving expenses at age 22.

[Anonymous]

I said to my two kids when they applied to college that they each have 400K in a savings account for undergraduate education, and they will get whatever left in that account, so they have to decide what is important for them, spend almost 95K+/yr for an undergrad degree at an expensive university, or 30K/yr at a in-state public university. My oldest decided to attend Tuft, and he will use up almost 400K for his undergraduate degree there, while his younger brother decided to attend Ohio State University. When they graduate from college, the older brother will have almost nothing in his savings account while the younger brother has almost 300K to start his adult life. That, to me, is fair, because they are old enough to make their own choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s perfectly “fair” if your daughter had a state school option but decided that she’d rather go private knowing in advance that it would require that she take out loans.

14k in loans to go to an Ivy is peanuts when all-in an Ivy bachelor's costs upwards of over 350k. This does not come close to evening the score, it's still highly unfair to the sibling who had to go to state school. You can literally pay off 14k in loans with a Wall Street or tech signing bonus/moving expenses at age 22.

Not that many people from Ivy make that kind of money. It might seem a lot but it is not what you think.

[Anonymous]

Fair doesn't mean equal. My kids have known that since they were little.

My oldest (rising 12th grader) is autistic and has had much higher health care and education costs her whole life. She's also more likely to go to a "buyer" school, with significant discounting, while her younger brother is more likely to go to a more expensive "seller" school

Both kids get what they need. There's no grand accounting to make sure it's the same amount of money.

[Anonymous]

I would want to give the public child something, obviously not to even things out perfectly as that would cause us to go broke, but something significant like a car, a summer opportunity...My brother got everything and I got nothing, always. These things do not go unnoticed.

[Anonymous]

Fair does not mean equal.

[Anonymous]

Are they both getting a quality education at a school that is a good fit for their qualifications and ambitions? That is equal in my book. If one of my kids gets into UVA and the other one goes to a private or out of state school, I am not paying the UVA grad the difference in tuition cost. Kids pick different hobbies, different sports, different camps. I don’t try to match the amount I spend on them dollar for dollar. I don’t spend more time with my soccer player to make up for the fact that his games are shorter than his brother’s baseball games.

I ask myself - Are each of my kids getting the support and resources they need to be successful? Is the money or time we’re investing in one kid taking away attention, support, resources or opportunities from the other child? When we have to choose between competing priorities, are we balancing our choices between the kids so one is not benefiting more than the other?

The one exception I can imagine to the college funds conundrum is if one of my kids said “I think I will want to go to law/med/grad school. If I choose to attend this in-state school instead of a private school I was also accepted at, would you earmark some funds you would have spend for undergrad for grad school? If that was the case I think we would discuss some options and then be transparent with both kids on our plan and our reasoning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Fair” is how much debt they end up with, not how much you had to spend to get them there. I’d consider paying off those loans for your DD if you are able.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I said to my two kids when they applied to college that they each have 400K in a savings account for undergraduate education, and they will get whatever left in that account, so they have to decide what is important for them, spend almost 95K+/yr for an undergrad degree at an expensive university, or 30K/yr at a in-state public university. My oldest decided to attend Tuft, and he will use up almost 400K for his undergraduate degree there, while his younger brother decided to attend Ohio State University. When they graduate from college, the older brother will have almost nothing in his savings account while the younger brother has almost 300K to start his adult life. That, to me, is fair, because they are old enough to make their own choices.

It's not Tufts price, but Ohio state is 50ishk out of state?