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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, this is really tough.

I'm going to buck what many others on this board might say. I don't believe in obligation. I've seen it become toxic and drown all members of a family.

It's up to you whether you feel like helping your younger sibling with school fees and whether/how much of that is affordable to you. When you were a child, you did not make your parents' financial decisions for them. As a minor you probably did not select the schools you attended, and you might have done equally well/been equally happy at other schools. You were not in control of your parents' income, their interest rates, or the number of children they raised. I also believe that gifts should be exactly that, gifts. Anything given with the expectation of a future return is a business deal or a contract. When your parents gave you the gift of an education, you were too young to enter into a contract to agree to pay for a sibling's education or their retirement.

To the extent that you do want to freely help your family members, it's reasonable to say that you are worried for their retirement as well as your own future financial stability and ability to help your children as they once helped you. As such, you would like to make investments of principle now so as to be better able to meet everyone's needs in the future. [/quote]
That kind of sounds like "I got mine, F-you". You are free to feel that way, but don't try to spin it as concern for anyone's well-being except your own.  [/quote]

Nah.  I agree with the first PP.

You aren't "getting yours" if you did not ask for it. OP didn't choose the schools, the education, the money spent. Her parents made that choice.

I'm not saying you shouldn't help out. I, personally, would feel terrible to not give something. But, I would not do it at the expense of my own savings, family. I just wouldn't. I would sit down and find out what you need and what you can reasonably give them.  And then I'd do that. And nothing more.[/quote]

And, no, she does NOT have to pick a career based solely on the money needed to support her parents. That is the DUMBEST thing I've ever read. 
[/quote]

No she doesn’t. But seems like she’s used to the choices or lifestyles that most of her other wealthy classmates that went to her schools did. The trick for first generation immigrants that go to these elite colleges is that these schools teach you the social “niceties” for you to blend in with the right people that you may not have had exposure to prior. Then you actually get a job that raise your socioeconomic status, or maybe in OP’s case marry a rich man. This isn’t only about OP supporting her family and their dreams, but OP being in for a rude shock when she starts her own family later. Sure there is a limit to how much you can help your family but she is already shooting herself in the foot from the start.[/quote]

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