Reply to Paying for a second or third tier college

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You are going to need to treat the kids the same. One of them got private tuition, the other should get it as well. That doesn't mean you don't have a conversation with them about finances and why you prefer they choose public. But I think you have to be fair.

I like the idea of offering pub school + giving them 200k at the end of it. But you didn't offer that to kid #1, so I'd take that off the table. Be fair. [/quote]

+ 1 Just spend a minute imagining the conversation you are going to have to have with your younger child.  Can you explain your rationale without making them believe that you think their older sibling is smarter, better and more deserving than they are?   [/quote]

I think that it’s completely fair for parents to tell kids that the economy is worse, that the parents are older, and that the parents can now afford to pay only $x for college.

I think that, ideally, parents should actually talk to kids about that every three months from the time kids understand what money is.

Parents should give their kids a quarterly family financial status report.

“You know, Larla, this quarter, everything was great; we’re on target for making you full-pay at a private school,” or, “Larlo, this past quarter, everything went wrong. If you’ve ever considered running away to join the circus, this might be a time to explore that option.”

Parents should say, every quarter, “Right now, we’re on track to pay $x per year for college for you. That’s changed from $y last quarter because of changes in our job-related earnings and investment earnings.”

And I think it’s fine to tell kids that they need to have a minor or a second major that will give them a clear-cut path to earning a living once they’re out of college.

But I think it’s a mistake for parents to favor one college over the other or one primary major over another. Partly because the world is unpredictable and you don’t really know who can do what.

Example: I don’t personally know a single adult who makes a living in an engineering field other software engineering, and I only know four people involved in careers related to designing, coding or managing software.

I know a dozen bright, sane, hardworking but fairly ordinary people who have made great careers in TV and film, someone with a paid career in poetry, and three people with careers in graphic design.

I personally have a career in an impossible field, and most of the people I know who started up on the same track ended up with careers in that field or a closely related field.

So, you never really know what people can do till they try to do it. What you read about a field in the news may not have much to do with the career prospects of a great kid who can get through a school like Tufts or Boston University and who has a loving, supportive family.

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