Reply to Parental Involvement in College Decision Process

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The level of involvement needs to be high if parents are paying for college. Sadly, I can't easily afford any of the 50K per year or more colleges, so, yes, our involvement was crucial from the financial point of view. Our kids don't qualify for financial aid, but the process is what it is, and even if they think we can afford it, we know we absolutely can't. Does that make me a bad parent?  Should I saddle myself with 200K debt, and double it after my second goes to college? I don't think so. Do I want my kid to get a bachelors degree and be saddled with 200K in debt? Also no. I see nothing wrong with our involvement, in this case. If we had that money, then my kids could choose, sadly that is not the reality for most families. So, from that point of view, OP, you sound judgy and high and mighty on your rich pedestal.[/quote]

Wow, not sure how I came across as high and mighty or rich! As I said in my op my parents were dirt poor, so I was lucky in a way to be in a position to qualify for almost 100% aid (and even luckier to attend a school that decided to eliminate the loan component of aid the year I began).  While my husband and I are much better off by comparison, we're by no means wealthy (HHI of ~200,000/year in metro DC). We have prioritized college savings and hope to be able to fully fund our chilrens' undergrad, which is still a few years out, but there's definitely a good chance we'll still come up short.

I guess from my perspective their college funds are a gift that we plan to give them with few strings attached (other than that it must be used for an accredited college/university). i absolutely plan to be very involved in helping them to navigate the process and give advice/work through the options with them (or try to talk them out of a poor decision) , but in my mind [b]at the end of the day it is their choice and I'm not going to put restrictions on where they can or can't go, other than the limit we can contribute. It just doesn't seem fair to me to dictate or restrict my children's options when mine were not, just because we make enough to prevent them from qualifying for aid. [/b][/quote]

I went back and read what you wrote and I don't see how you come across as such either.

I agree that in the end, within a few parameters, it is ultimately the child's choice. Our DS is a HS senior and just last week committed to an out of state school. Although we visited two schools during the fall of his junior year, we started to look at schools he was interested in during the spring. We discussed with him his thoughts about interests, school size, and of course cost and made it clear how much we will be able to contribute. Our HHI is ~20k less than yours, but we didn't write off any school simply because of the "sticker price" or because it wasn't in-state or was private. Contrary to what some will post, not all schools will cost you $70k/year. He did most of the narrowing down based on the size of the school, majors offered and whether or not they had the sport he wants to continue (this last one helped to weed out many quite quickly). All along we have guided and supported without pushing.

In the end he chose an out of state public. I don't know why people automatically write-off OOS schools. It can't hurt to look. Some schools offer regional rates or substantial reductions for "high achieving students" with SATs over a certain number. In our case the tuition next year will be ~$11k (due to discounted tuition of $5,700 based on SAT score). Of course there are fees, room and board on top of that but you pay that in state as well.[/quote]

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