Reply to How much $$ does a college student need each month

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you are already paying tuition, room and board, it is time for Dear Son to get a job.[/quote]
Exactly.

I think my adult son/daughter would be embarrassed to accept $100+ week from Mommy. He hasn't gotten an allowance since middle school. [/quote]

How sad for your child that they know they cannot count on you for support.  My parents paid for everything.   We worked summers and they put the money away and gave us a debit card and credit card.  They paid for everything.  I have no idea what I spent but it wasn't much and they never complained.  Same parents also taught me to set up a Roth and other retirement accounts with my first job..... as a parent I would be embarrassed not to financially support my child if they were in school, especially minors and I was able.[/quote]

As a parent, I would be embarrassed that my college kid, for whom I am fronting tuition, room, and board, kept showing up with their hand out rather than getting a damn job.  (Not having a job in school in order to "focus on schoolwork" isn't doing kids any favors, BTW.  Even work study or doing office admin or retail/food service shows some demonstrated work skills on a resume.)

Also, there is a huge difference between helping a child set up a Roth or other long-term savings mechanism and sending them spending money in college.  One is a life skill; the other is an adult allowance.  Don't conflate them.[/quote]

I would be embarrassed to use the kind of imagery that paints your own children as something akin to a dog or beggar. "Showing up with their hand out," really?[b] It's your own kid, and it's not like they're 30 years old and shamelessly asking for money. [/b]That said, I support the idea of working in college to earn spending money for yourself. I worked every year in college (office assistant, TA, lab assistant) and I'd encourage my kids to do the same.[/quote]

They will if you don't set some damned boundaries. But good luck with that in the five short years you have to get them to pay for their own expenses between grad school and 30. They will come to you for everything and you will end up giving them six-figures for their wedding or their first home, because 'mom, you always did before, stop being stingy!'[/quote]

Yep.  At some point, they need to start footing their own bill.  I don't think that it's a matter of shipping them off to college and cutting them off suddenly, but we laid the groundwork in high school that they needed to start paying for Starbucks, entertainment activities, etc. and gradually worked up to giving an annual clothing allowance for them to spend as they saw fit.  We TOLD them what we could and could not cover in college.  If someone's calling me up and asking for $100 for concert tickets or something equally fun but frivolous (after I've shelled out thousands of dollars already for tuition/room/board/fees/books/laptop, that's asking for a handout.  We are comfortable but not wealthy and have to balance launching our kids as successfully as we can without endangering our retirement or the quality of life that we have worked our butts off for for years.  They are welcome to come and live at home after they graduate (with the expectation that they will help around the house), and we would obviously help if there were a medical emergency or any other sort of issue that arose in that vein.  We're not giving an adult an allowance, and I'm not at all embarrassed by it.[/quote]

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