Reply to Husband wants kids to pay for college tuition

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[quote=Anonymous]I don’t think it has to be all or nothing. I personally had to pay for college myself, but my family was low income so I qualified for a lot of financial aid. My parents’ contribution was making sure I only applied to schools that would meet 100% of demonstrated need.

I worked throughout the school year and paid for the majority of my expected family contribution. I graduated with 15k in debt that mostly came from studying abroad (when I couldn’t work and pay my expected family contribution and when I took out loans beyond living basic expenses so I could travel and take advantage of the opportunity).

I learned a lot about managing money while in school in a supported environment where the stakes were relatively low. I made mistakes, but I was able to learn from them without risking my housing or going hungry. Friends who had everything paid for struggled more with money management after college and more than one of my college friends reached out to me for advice.

I think if you don’t want to pay for college, as the parent you should give your child clear guardrails so they don’t take on more debt than is reasonable. Help them to proactively seek out scholarships, strategically apply to schools that offer merit based aid to students with their profile, pick schools that are less expensive - including schools abroad, encourage community college first, let them live at home while going to college locally. These are all things that you have to talk about early because if you don’t, your child has likely been holding onto the idea of a traditional college experience in their head, and it may be harder to steer them away from that idea. Or they may have missed the boat entirely on some of these options.

Conversely, you can also save/pay for the majority of college and expect them to contribute a smaller portion of their costs. I generally believe all kids should work for their fun spending in college, though that’s largely informed by the number of kids I met at my Ivy league school who spent huge amounts of their parents money on drugs, alcohol, clothes and purses.

If you say nothing, let them apply to any and every school they want and let them take out loans for the full cost, that’s when I think you’ve failed your kids. [/quote]

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