Anonymous wrote:Yes. There seems to be a theme in this thread that if you pay for college your kids will not appreciate it or work hard. That was not true in my experience. My parents paid my way and I'm very grateful that I was able to focus on doing well in school and didn't have any debt when I graduated.

+1 Me too. We plan to play for college for both. Tuition/fees, R&B but their "fun" money is for them to provide. My father worked a year puttingon right rear bumpers in Detroit to save money for college. He said the year gap was too much and he lost some of his study skills. He eventually recovered and earned a PhD in Physics. So, he was determined to pay for his children to go to college straight from HS.

We will pay as much as possible but probably not everything. Oldest is in college and gets some aid and does work study, loans. We pay the rest. Two more kids coming up on college -- expect to do something similar for them. I recently got a job with tuition assistance as a benefit. I intend to take advantage of this to fill in the gaps.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. There seems to be a theme in this thread that if you pay for college your kids will not appreciate it or work hard. That was not true in my experience. My parents paid my way and I'm very grateful that I was able to focus on doing well in school and didn't have any debt when I graduated.

When I was in college the kids with the free ride were not using their extra free time and extra cash to work hard and focus on school. You personality might mean you would work hard regardless but many kids with a free ride just think party, party, party.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. There seems to be a theme in this thread that if you pay for college your kids will not appreciate it or work hard. That was not true in my experience. My parents paid my way and I'm very grateful that I was able to focus on doing well in school and didn't have any debt when I graduated.

What do the studies say about this?

Trying to. Saving. And will be working while he's in college, so we can do some pay-as-you-go. Can't promise the school of his dreams.

And I like the idea of making them pay for extras. I paid my way through school and it was rough. My grades suffered from the job. So I want to make it easier on my child. But not too easy.

Yes. There seems to be a theme in this thread that if you pay for college your kids will not appreciate it or work hard. That was not true in my experience. My parents paid my way and I'm very grateful that I was able to focus on doing well in school and didn't have any debt when I graduated.

No, absolutely not. They are adults and part of doing our job in raising them is for them to be able to take on adult responsibilities and that includes finances. I also won't be taking full responsibility for making their meals, doing their laundry, checking their homework or buying them a car. We are happy to provide assistance if they need it but we aren't taking it on as our responsibility. We will be there for them but we won't do it for them. They already have jobs and know about scholarships and loans and are preparing for this responsibility, as they should be given they will be adults and independently out on their own. If they can't function as a adult, we have failed them.

Probably one of the things I appreciate most about my parents was preparing us to be independent and responsible. Both my DH and I paid our own way through school and are appreciative of that.

No.

We can't. It'll be a team effort. If they want to go to college, they're going to have to work for it. And we will do as much as we can.

No.

We would love to.

Yes, that's our hope. Although DH and I haven't discussed the details, I expect summer jobs to pay for costs beyond tuition, room, and board. I would prefer that DC not need to have a job during the school year and not leave school in debt. I had both and it was hard; having to work through school definitely negatively impacted my sleep and grades and the debt negatively impacted my options once I graduated. I have had a job of some kind since I was 15 years old, and I expect that DC will as well, so I don't think there's anything wrong with kids working. DH's parents paid for his school and he didn't have to have a job during the school year, and we are both able to see the contrast in our experiences.

There's no way we possibly could. Both my DH and I have parents who did not go to college. Blue collar through and through. I went to an Ivy League school on a combination of aid - some scholarship, some work study, some loans, my own summer work savings and the rest from my parents. That will be what my kids have do too. The bonus for me - you had better believe I worked hard because it was my money going into my education as well as that of my dad who busted his a$$ at multiple jobs. My roommates dad wrote a big check at the beginning of each year. She invested nothing into her time there.

Yes, but we won't pay for every extra- travel, entertainment, luxuries. He'll need to work for those. I've seen too many entitled brats with horrible attitudes in my time.

There have been several threads on this topic recently.

My answer is yes. One is in college and one soon to go.

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