Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP: I have not read through the entire thread. Culturally, I was raised with the notion that each generation pays for the subsequent generation's education. My parents paid for my college, I am paying for my daughters.

Why? By giving the money for education, you are more likely to have a successful offspring. Education is where we do the intergenerational wealth transfer. My DD may not inherit much, but her undergrad education will be paid for -- and by me paying the 160K over 4 years (state, no aide), DD will be able to pursue her dreams rather than chase the dollar. That means she is more likely to be happy with her career choices. I was able to not chase the dollar, but pursue my interests.

That is my UMC Jewish Privilege.

I love this. That is all.

+1

At 24 years old, my son (who graduated debt-free a few years ago) now understands fully the value of the gift of the debt-free education we provided for him. Because he has no debt, he is able to max out his retirement account, buy a car without debt, and save in a rainy-day fund. He sees how his peers struggle and understands the meaning of what we did for him. We also do not believe that “successful offspring” comes from signing a check. Building resiliency and grit do.

I guess that is the cultural difference. In our family we do not believe in parents removing struggles. We believe that struggle is a GOOD thing. Struggle is something to embrace. It builds character, grit, and breeds success.

A couple of generations or so ago, sure. Letting a young adult Enter the working world with massive debt is not a matter of 'building grit', yay! It is pushing them into potentially serious struggle with securing healthcare and decent housing... throw in just a little bit of bad luck, and the consequences are devastating.

And honestly, you are removing struggles for your children everyday. You didn't consider the school district when buying or renting your home? You don't do things to make their lives easier? You for sure do. Which is fine, it's all fine. I just don't buy the not providing money for college thing as, well we have to let them build grit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP: I have not read through the entire thread. Culturally, I was raised with the notion that each generation pays for the subsequent generation's education. My parents paid for my college, I am paying for my daughters.

Why? By giving the money for education, you are more likely to have a successful offspring. Education is where we do the intergenerational wealth transfer. My DD may not inherit much, but her undergrad education will be paid for -- and by me paying the 160K over 4 years (state, no aide), DD will be able to pursue her dreams rather than chase the dollar. That means she is more likely to be happy with her career choices. I was able to not chase the dollar, but pursue my interests.

That is my UMC Jewish Privilege.

I love this. That is all.

+1

At 24 years old, my son (who graduated debt-free a few years ago) now understands fully the value of the gift of the debt-free education we provided for him. Because he has no debt, he is able to max out his retirement account, buy a car without debt, and save in a rainy-day fund. He sees how his peers struggle and understands the meaning of what we did for him. We also do not believe that “successful offspring” comes from signing a check. Building resiliency and grit do.

I guess that is the cultural difference. In our family we do not believe in parents removing struggles. We believe that struggle is a GOOD thing. Struggle is something to embrace. It builds character, grit, and breeds success.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP: I have not read through the entire thread. Culturally, I was raised with the notion that each generation pays for the subsequent generation's education. My parents paid for my college, I am paying for my daughters.

Why? By giving the money for education, you are more likely to have a successful offspring. Education is where we do the intergenerational wealth transfer. My DD may not inherit much, but her undergrad education will be paid for -- and by me paying the 160K over 4 years (state, no aide), DD will be able to pursue her dreams rather than chase the dollar. That means she is more likely to be happy with her career choices. I was able to not chase the dollar, but pursue my interests.

That is my UMC Jewish Privilege.

I love this. That is all.

+1

At 24 years old, my son (who graduated debt-free a few years ago) now understands fully the value of the gift of the debt-free education we provided for him. Because he has no debt, he is able to max out his retirement account, buy a car without debt, and save in a rainy-day fund. He sees how his peers struggle and understands the meaning of what we did for him. We also do not believe that “successful offspring” comes from signing a check. Building resiliency and grit do.

I guess that is the cultural difference. In our family we do not believe in parents removing struggles. We believe that struggle is a GOOD thing. Struggle is something to embrace. It builds character, grit, and breeds success.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP: I have not read through the entire thread. Culturally, I was raised with the notion that each generation pays for the subsequent generation's education. My parents paid for my college, I am paying for my daughters.

Why? By giving the money for education, you are more likely to have a successful offspring. Education is where we do the intergenerational wealth transfer. My DD may not inherit much, but her undergrad education will be paid for -- and by me paying the 160K over 4 years (state, no aide), DD will be able to pursue her dreams rather than chase the dollar. That means she is more likely to be happy with her career choices. I was able to not chase the dollar, but pursue my interests.

That is my UMC Jewish Privilege.

I love this. That is all.

+1

At 24 years old, my son (who graduated debt-free a few years ago) now understands fully the value of the gift of the debt-free education we provided for him. Because he has no debt, he is able to max out his retirement account, buy a car without debt, and save in a rainy-day fund. He sees how his peers struggle and understands the meaning of what we did for him. We also do not believe that “successful offspring” comes from signing a check. Building resiliency and grit do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. We're older parents. We started saving when our first of 3 was born. 19 years later, we have 3 generous 529s that enable all our kids to go to college more or less where they choose. The downside? Impossible to get financial aid. We also made a lot of sacrifices along the way, despite pretty well-paying jobs. We prioritized. We know we're outliers. No judgement of parents who do things differently... it's unfortunate higher education in this country comes with such a price tag.

You apparently didn't need financial aid, so what's the problem?

New poster.

The problem is moral hazard. Some parents make difficult choices to limit their family size and only have one child. They prioritize funding a 529 and saving instead of taking vacations and leasing expensive cars. Then they don't get financial aid and feel like chumps when other people with the same financial resources who made different decisions over the years get rewarded with financial aid for their children.

If you reward asshole behavior you get more assholes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. We're older parents. We started saving when our first of 3 was born. 19 years later, we have 3 generous 529s that enable all our kids to go to college more or less where they choose. The downside? Impossible to get financial aid. We also made a lot of sacrifices along the way, despite pretty well-paying jobs. We prioritized. We know we're outliers. No judgement of parents who do things differently... it's unfortunate higher education in this country comes with such a price tag.

You apparently didn't need financial aid, so what's the problem?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP's plan might work because -- (a) she only has one child; (b) she does not seem super concerned about the prestige of the college; and (c) her daughter is a high achiever.

DH and I have 3 kids, and they do fine in school, but are not academic super stars by any means. My DS is a 12th grader, and we recently filled out the Common App that many colleges use. It asks if you plan to apply for financial aid. We figured it helped our DS that we were able to check "no" to that box because we have 529s for each of the 3 kids (thanks to my in-laws). It may help him a bit in the admissions process that he is full pay. That's not really fair to have "full pay" count toward admissions, but perhaps my DS would be subsidizing another student who is a better student but does not have the $$ to pay for this college.

Even my DS (with a 3.1 GPA and similar ACT score) is getting offered some merit aid from (not well known) colleges. So that suggests that, if you have a high-achieving child and are not too picky about the college, it might work out for OP.

Oh my. I was with you until you talked about subsidizing another random student who can't afford college by paying full price for your own. It doesn't quite work the way you think it does. Your ability to pay full price is what's actually inflating higher ed costs and keeping more poorer kids out of college. Not that it's your fault, it's just the current system.

It's not her ability to pay for college. It is the absurd loans the government keeps giving out like candy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP's plan might work because -- (a) she only has one child; (b) she does not seem super concerned about the prestige of the college; and (c) her daughter is a high achiever.

DH and I have 3 kids, and they do fine in school, but are not academic super stars by any means. My DS is a 12th grader, and we recently filled out the Common App that many colleges use. It asks if you plan to apply for financial aid. We figured it helped our DS that we were able to check "no" to that box because we have 529s for each of the 3 kids (thanks to my in-laws). It may help him a bit in the admissions process that he is full pay. That's not really fair to have "full pay" count toward admissions, but perhaps my DS would be subsidizing another student who is a better student but does not have the $$ to pay for this college.

Even my DS (with a 3.1 GPA and similar ACT score) is getting offered some merit aid from (not well known) colleges. So that suggests that, if you have a high-achieving child and are not too picky about the college, it might work out for OP.

Oh my. I was with you until you talked about subsidizing another random student who can't afford college by paying full price for your own. It doesn't quite work the way you think it does. Your ability to pay full price is what's actually inflating higher ed costs and keeping more poorer kids out of college. Not that it's your fault, it's just the current system.

Anonymous wrote:People save for college so that they can give their kids a head start in life. Your kid may or may not get merit aid. What’s more, the best schools do not give “merit” aid and your income/net worth will count against their need based financial aid. Even a “cheaper” school may be out of reach for your kid in that case. If you can pay as you go, this is obviously not an issue for you. If not, do you really expect your kid to turn down a top tier school or be saddled with tens of thousands in student loans because you didn’t want to save for college? [/quote

This in a nutshell. College is not the same as when I went. Even then I had nearly $80K in loans (from undergrad and grad school). I paid them off but it sucked. And limited what career path I took b/c I needed the money to pay them off. And it set back saving for retirement, buying a home, etc.

My child will be able to mostly anywhere she chooses b/c we saved aggressively for it. I hope she gets some aid based on her grades, etc. Or other scholarships. But, that is FAR from certain. Plenty of smart kids don't get significant scholarships.

We look at this as opening up options and not saddling herself financially as she starts her adult life. I certainly don't want her to experience the struggles I did just b/c of college tuition. It was grim: eating little beyond noodles and cereal type products, no traveling, no home, working MULTIPLE jobs at once while in school to swing it.