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[quote=Anonymous]Just wanted to get some objective opinions about this. I'm sorry it's so long, but I'm not sure what details people will care about.

I've been a stepmom for about a decade now. My husband and his ex-wife have never gotten along well. All three of us are solid income earners, but, in the past few years my income has increased significantly while my husband has cut back. All of our money is "ours," so he does consult me on financial decisions.

My stepson was admitted to several universities, including a very expensive private school. This school was, by the rankings, the best college he got into. He was extremely excited, and, my husband and I made the decision that we would fully financially support his attendance. His  mother let us know that she disagreed and thought he should go to a state school, at about 1/10 the cost, but, was would go along with it if we could fund 95% of the expenses... in other words, she is contributing half of what she would if he went to the cheaper school. She framed this as all she could truly afford, and we have no reason to doubt her. I was, and am totally on board with this expense. It's a stretch, but we can manage it. My parents got me through college debt free, and that was a wonderful gift.

All in all, though, I can't fault her position. Our state school is a solid, nationally recognized University, and pretty competitive in its own right. Plus, it's kind of my "fault" he's not eligible for a better financial aid package since my income is part of the picture. So absolutely zero issues with how we decided to go ahead.

We did sit down with step-son and explained the difference in cost between the two schools. We said we would be paying tuition, room, board, and a small budget for "necessary expenses." We worked through this, partially to be very clear, and partially as a good financial exercise for him. I think were pretty generous with our definition of necessary (including a modest cell phone and data stipend, a public transportation monthly bill, a small snack budget for the dorm room) It's not a huge budget, but it's still more money than we have ever given him before. We did this in May so he would have plenty of time to save money over the summer for college spending money. He's been diligently working full time and saving. And, like I said, it was clearly broken down as being for specific, necessary expenses.

And that's the background.

We just found out, from my husband's ex-wife, that she is giving him a pretty generous amount of spending money for college. Easily more than what we had budgeted. I'm normally pretty chill about financial things, but, this really upset me. We are making sacrifices to pay the portion of school we promised on the understanding that she was doing the best she could, and, honestly, that he was contributing in his own way by covering his own spending money. Obviously (to me) if money is fungible, any money she gives directly to him, is coming out of our pocket as part of our tuition contribution. I'm also conflicted about the fact that step-son didn't talk to us about this. We were very clear that the money we were giving him was to cover necessary funds - not an allowance or a gift. If he's getting this money, and more, from another source, I feel like he is kind of "double-dipping." He feels that financial arrangements between him and his parents are completely separate things.

Thoughts? Just roll with it? Tell step-son that we will not be giving him the money we promised since he is getting it from another source - so it's no longer a "need"[/quote]

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