Reply to S/O What is our obligation as parents regarding college $$$?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are slightly below you in terms of HHI at ~350k. I feel that my obligation to my children is to pay for undergraduate tuition at the school of their choosing, plus basic room and board (i.e. residence and meal plan in first year, equivalent cost if they want to live with roommates after first year, cell phone, textbooks, flights home for holidays). I expect them to maintain overall decent to good grades, to work during the summer and budget that money for shopping, hobbies, travel, etc during the year, i.e. no fun/spending money from us. Other costs we'll take on a case-by-case basis and would expect DCs to contribute.
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OP here.  Thank you so much for this answer!  This is exactly the type of response I was hoping to get.[/quote]

We have a decent HHI, but have taken some really big hits due to having to private pay for significant amounts of mental health care, which could easily have funded more than one college education.  But, I'm not sure any of that changes my answer.

I pretty much agree with PP except that I don't feel compelled to pay for the school of  their choice and I don't care to pay for the "college experience", which may be colored by all of the mental health issues we've dealt with.  We are fully funding our retirement so that we will not be a burden on any of our kids.  We will fund undergraduate for any of our kids who are capable and will actually attend and do the required work.  Fully funding undergraduate means a combination of community college and a  four year school.  It does not necessarily mean room and board, though that is possible depending on the circumstances.  We will also fully fund trade school because not all of our kids are college material.  I cant even think about grad school because only a fraction of kids actually go and I am just not one for that sort of contingency planning.  So, we will have to see when the time comes.

We very much believe that it is important for our kids to contribute to their education in some fashion.  And, we are fine with our kids taking what we will offer and supplementing with loans to go to the school of their dreams, but we will not cosign loans.  Finally, we don't believe that we need to offer each kid the same thing because they have different needs.  One got a full scholarship to trade school and lived at home, which was a personal choice, not a requirement.  So, there is no need for us to do anything there.  [/quote]

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