Anonymous wrote:$500/month for a car? Yeah, that is ridiculous for a recent college grad

My husband drives a pretty nice Toyota sedan and it is $350-ish/month.

Without a trade in or down payment or a credit history, that Toyota sedan may cost nearly $500 a month

High School: dinner
College: security deposit and first month's rent on an apartment.
Best: my now wife got me a tag watch for college graduation.

$500/month for a car? Yeah, that is ridiculous for a recent college grad

My husband drives a pretty nice Toyota sedan and it is $350-ish/month.

I got a trip with my Mom to England for college graduation (vacation plus visiting family). For high school, they bought me a desktop to take with me to college.

High school- 10k.
College- new car (it was a 1 year old preowned, but still very nice!)

I think the car was key. SO many of my friends had junkers and immediately had to go out and get $500 a month financed cars and they really weren't able to save much because of that. Partly their own fault for getting such expensive cars though.

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely nothing. They might have taken me out for ice cream. Never expected a gift and I don’t think I received any.

This.

High school a $5k bike
College a Rolex and a car

A week after college graduation, they took me to IKEA and bought me some furniture for my little bedroom in my first apartment in NoVA.

Anonymous wrote:They payed for my college. Best gift ever.

right? My parents had paid for me to attend a parochial HS for a better HS education (I didn't grow up in the DC area-I also had gotten a small merit scholarship that covered about 25%) and then paid for my private college tuition.

It helped that I was an only child, but seriously, not having loans to pay back was the best gift ever.

They then signed over the paid off Geo not long after I graduated. I wasn't allowed to take it to college, but I didn't really need it as my campus was pretty self contained. I had driven it my senior year in HS and anytime I was home from college. It became mine and ran for about 4 more years.

We'll see what happens with my kids. We are basically steering them to state schools. My oldest is not a top student due to ADHD, is into dance and is also a bit of a homebody - I see no reason to send her outside of VA. Her top choice right now is probably Radford, which is regularly laughed at on these boards, but they actually have a really great dance program, a decent sports medicine program and the campus is really nice (she spent 2 weeks there last summer). Our second is much younger, so we'll see, but we will remain in VA where we have really great state school options.

We gave money and he used it to travel to Europe before college started.

Anonymous wrote:My parents got me a Tag Heuer watch for HS graduation, and gave me a sizable check for college graduation. They also co-signed an Amex card for me.

What is a sizable check? I want to give a check to my kid, but don’t know what amount.

I believe I received luggage as high school graduation gift.

Don't remember anything for college. But they paid for college and grad school (which I was beginning immediately after college). Both were at in state public universities.

After grad school, I believe I requested a piece of furniture for my new apartment in my new town (Washington DC). (Kinda bratty thinking of this so many years later.)

Graduations were in 1987, 1991, and 1993.

They payed for my college. Best gift ever.

High school: A word processor (this was in '93--everyone else had computers, but my parents figured I didn't need one for college and that a word processor would suffice) and a watch (I hate wearing watches.)

College: nothing, but I was getting married a few months later and they were paying for my wedding ($15,000)

My parents got me a Tag Heuer watch for HS graduation, and gave me a sizable check for college graduation. They also co-signed an Amex card for me.