Reply to "Outside of financial constraints: the kid should fully decide w/out parental influence"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So you're saying, if parents have plenty of money, they do not have a right to influence the college decision.

But if they have a budget, then they can influence the decision?

Is that right?[/quote]

I'm saying that if parents have plenty of money, the impact of where the child goes, financially, are not as (proportionally) big. Obviously 100K is 100K, but it may be much bigger of a sacrifice for some parents than others.

And yeah, some parents seem to think that the child is 100% in control.

Some parents seem to think they are 100% in control.[/quote]

Any parent can choose to influence their kid's college choice.  
However, IMO, your job as a parent is to let your kid know by 10th/early 11th grade what the financial outlook is for college.  That way you can help them pick a good list of colleges, and most importantly colleges that will be affordable (or most will be) for you.  Don't let your kid apply to all $80K+ schools that don't give much merit if you wont' get FA and are only able to pay $40K/year.  If you can afford 80K/year but will only pay that for Specific schools, then let your kid know that.  Basically, don't let them apply to schools you cannot afford, or at least make sure they know the 2-3 expensive schools they apply to in hopes of getting merit are not really affordable, and make sure they have plenty that will be.

we let our kids pick their own schools, but we helped guide them thru discussions of what would be better schools (based on academics, fit, location, etc).  Kid even realized on their own that large OOS schools that don't offer merit are probably not worth $65-70K/year when they got into 3 excellent (similarly ranked) private schools that would only cost us $40K/year after merit wards.  So on their own, they realized the advantages of the smaller schools, advantages of smaller classes and better career centers and recognized that it was a much better financial deal---even though initially all the schools costs about the same (pre merit).  Basically my kid who wanted football, big school spirit, recognized that OOS for a school ranked 50-100 is probably not worth it vs private schools ranked 50-100.   
Had they not figured that out, we would have guided them, because while UColorado, CSU, and Michigan State U are all good schools, they are not really worth OOS tuition.  
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