Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our kids don't know about their trust funds, so we plan to have them take out a portion of their educational costs in loans. Assuming they graduate and do well, the loans will be paid off (but they don't know that). A little skin in the game, whether real or perceived, is a good thing, I think.

This is brilliant. I am going to suggest to DH that we do something similar.

So this is an entirely different situation than 99% of people are facing. My hope would be to raise a kid who understands that understands that she has "skin in the game" because it's her education/life and I would consider it a great blessing if she could make her decisions without the overhang of educational debt. I'm not going to treat my kid graduating college like a toddler.

And that's great! I'm not going to tell my 18 year old that they have a trust fund. I don't consider that making them like toddlers, I think that until you are in that position as a parent you really have no idea what you would do. We all do our best. That's great that your hypothetical 18 year old with a hypothetical trust will be so mature.

What you said is that you would make your kid take out loans (and then you would repay them for them if they met your standards of success). That is entirely separate from whether to set up trust funds for them and when to tell them. I do expect my future 18 y.o. to be old enough to take primary responsibility for their education and I wouldn't make them take out unnecessary loans just to make things more difficult for them.