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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It seems like you've done a good job instilling smart financial management, [b]why punish her with making her pay for application fees [/b]if you can easily afford it? Isn't it a little late to be asking her to pay now, when applications are due in the next several months? Isn't the lesson you're trying to teach is to save up for things she wants, not spring a 1K bill on her for something that hadn't expected to pay? If she is being flighty and wants to apply to a dozen schools without even thinking about them, then yes, you pay for the first 8 applications and she pays for any extra. But unless she is changing her mind every week, wants to apply to all the same schools as her friends etc, it seems like a pretty harsh punishment to make her pay for these.

I think it's fine to have her pay the parking permit if she wants to bring a car on campus, and work out a budget where you pay for required things that you can afford and she pays for any extras. Let her focus on school work and getting establish in a new place without all the added stress. Basic clothes, you buy, fancy dress for a sorority party, that's on her.

You've done a good job so far, don't screw it up now! [/quote]

Talking through her college application list is one thing. Of course one makes choices. But, I wouldn't conflate cost with opportunity. Penny wise, pound foolish? She should apply wherever it makes sense to do so. Having her pay for things once she's in college is fine. There will be loads of incidentals she'll want and pay for herself. But, this? I think you need to talk through her list and make sure it's robust. This just doesn't seem like a cost issue. You've already shown her that you support the prep courses. Paying the application fees is consistent with that. The parking pass is entirely on her, and that is a separate thing. The $100 sweatshirt, the cute necklace that all her dorm mates have, that night out in the city with new friends,...these too could be things she's responsible for, OP. One is not like the other.

She gets the point and so do we. Applications is not the place to teach the lesson she's already learned. If I were you, I'd also pay for textbooks. What's your stand there? Knowing that I could set her up at the college of her choice, I wouldn't want her to limit her courses to those with textbooks she could afford. That would be incredibly shortsighted.
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