Anonymous
Post 01/03/2024 18:21     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:One of 3 siblings offers to pay private school tuition for a 6th grade nephew due to specific circumstances. Nephew applies to a variety of schools and the cheapest option, after financial aid, is one that would otherwise be one of the most expensive. His parent enroll him and aunt pays the $10K that’s left each year of the $50K tuition.

The third sibling has 3 younger kids. His income is a lot lower than sibling 1, but solidly upper middle class, and much better off than sibling 2. Family has made choices like a large house in an expensive area (with great public schools) that would make it impossible for them to pay 3 tuitions at the kind of school the other cousin attends.

Sibling 1 intends to be “fair”. While they initially made the offer due to specific needs for a specific child, they want to treat all evenly. They offer sibling $10K (will adjust for inflation) per kid per year for middle school and high school. Sibling 3 and spouse don’t feel that’s fair. They feel as though if one cousin gets a $50K education their kids should too. They also feel that limiting it to 6th and up is unfair as well.

What do other people think?


Curious what Sibling 1 spouse thinks or says in the matter.
Are they gifting out the same amount or thing for that sides nieces and nephews?

Frankly family 3 sounds like ungrateful pricks. They should go make the best of public school.

I don’t know anyone’s sibling flinging out $10,000 per family member per year. Wealthy grandparents yes, and it’s estate planning, but not people in their 40s or 50s even income jobs or in the money RSUs. There’s too much uncertainty and volatility in companies and the market to make those kind of promises unless your liquid net worth is over $20m. I work in institutional investing. Gifting out $10k gross times 5 other peoples kids a year is a lot of money if you’re still relying on income or even investment income.
Anonymous
Post 01/03/2024 18:16     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:One of 3 siblings offers to pay private school tuition for a 6th grade nephew due to specific circumstances. Nephew applies to a variety of schools and the cheapest option, after financial aid, is one that would otherwise be one of the most expensive. His parent enroll him and aunt pays the $10K that’s left each year of the $50K tuition.

The third sibling has 3 younger kids. His income is a lot lower than sibling 1, but solidly upper middle class, and much better off than sibling 2. Family has made choices like a large house in an expensive area (with great public schools) that would make it impossible for them to pay 3 tuitions at the kind of school the other cousin attends.

Sibling 1 intends to be “fair”. While they initially made the offer due to specific needs for a specific child, they want to treat all evenly. They offer sibling $10K (will adjust for inflation) per kid per year for middle school and high school. Sibling 3 and spouse don’t feel that’s fair. They feel as though if one cousin gets a $50K education their kids should too. They also feel that limiting it to 6th and up is unfair as well.

What do other people think?


That’s fair.
$10k per niece or nephew per year for educational or extracurricular endeavors.

That is awesome! And a lot of money they are gifting out a year.

Can use it for camps, sports, private school, study abroads or school trips, gear required, etc.

Is this an American family and everyone is based in America or is there some cost arbitrage at play? Like how our nanny pays for everyone’s private school in Peru.

What would not be fair would be paying for whatever you choose no matter what the cost. Manhattan schools cost $70k, DC ones $40k and Florida ones $25k. Parochial schools cost $10k. Scholarships take time and effort to apply.

Splitting the costs and getting some alignment and skin in the game via scholarships (gpa dependent usually, or financial need) or copayments is how we help family members too.

Anonymous
Post 01/03/2024 17:55     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:
Sibling 1=kids out of college. aunt/uncle willing to pay 10k annually for sibling 2's 1 and only child.
Sibling 2= unable to work, 1 child, not great schools. Child accepted to great private.
Sibling 3= has home in fine school district and 3 kids. Sibling 1 paid for parochial which is not the same total cost as the Sib 2 child's private.


To be clear, Sibling 2's kid didn't apply to private until after Sibling 1 made the offer, and the parochial school, while it costs less than the listed tuition for S2's kid's school, costs slightly more per kid than what S1 is actually paying for S2's kid. I rounded everything to $10K.
Anonymous
Post 01/03/2024 17:52     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
I am curious about these responses, because in this thread (which I didn't start or participate in)

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1175098.page

the message was that giving has to be "fair". Which is one reason I came to ask what's fair in our situation, which is similar except K-12 vs. college.

The answers seem to be almost exactly the opposite.
Anonymous
Post 01/03/2024 17:47     Subject: Re:S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:OP is this a cultural thing? Are you Indian?


Wow, that seems like such a stereotype!

Everyone involved is white, of European descent, and the family has lived here for multiple generations.

-- OP
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2024 13:21     Subject: Re:S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:OP is this a cultural thing? Are you Indian?

In American culture this is just bizarre. While it would be fine and thoughtful for a wealthy sibling to gift money to a lower income sibling to close the gap between the financial aid award and tuition bill , it would be really strange for another upper middle class sibling to stick their hand out expecting a gift too. This would be viewed in American culture as greedy, gross and really embarrassing, cringe worthy in fact.

However, in other cultures, shoving hands out whenever they find out a relative has money to get as much as they can isn’t viewed as negatively.

It’s up to you to decide which way to go. As the sibling, you are under zero obligation to give the UMC sibling anything.


Is this for real? I can't wrap my head around it.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2024 13:10     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:None of it is fair. Sibling 1 should not have offered, given that none of the other children of sibling 2 were offered money for their education. Sibling 3 is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!

Sibling 1 should rescind the offer.


Sibling 2 just has the one kid.



OK, but it doesn't change the conclusion. I bought in a very expensive school district to send my kids to the good publics we have in our area. I do not want to send my kids to private, and if I did, I would have planned things differently.


But S3 does want private school. His kids were in private school before the offer.


So Sibling 3 has the money to pay for privcate school but just wants rich Sibling 1 to give him the money because poor Sibling 2 could not afford it? Oh no way. You didn't include that detail in the first post, OP! Sibling 3 is a terrible moocher.


S3’s kids attended parochial school before the offer was made, so S1 picked up that bill. But, S3 wants the same kind of school that S2 attends, which they can’t afford without making changes they don’t want to make.


Sibling 1=kids out of college. aunt/uncle willing to pay 10k annually for sibling 2's 1 and only child.
Sibling 2= unable to work, 1 child, not great schools. Child accepted to great private.
Sibling 3= has home in fine school district and 3 kids. Sibling 1 paid for parochial which is not the same total cost as the Sib 2 child's private.

Sibling 1 is not a parent or grandparent so throw out the equity argument. Sounds like Sibling 1 was very successful and needs to extricate himself/herself from the grifters for their own sake and that of their own children and possible future grandchildren. Financial requests might not stop at K-12 tuitiion and could expand to cars, college, down payments.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2024 13:01     Subject: Re:S/O What makes this fair
OP is this a cultural thing? Are you Indian?

In American culture this is just bizarre. While it would be fine and thoughtful for a wealthy sibling to gift money to a lower income sibling to close the gap between the financial aid award and tuition bill , it would be really strange for another upper middle class sibling to stick their hand out expecting a gift too. This would be viewed in American culture as greedy, gross and really embarrassing, cringe worthy in fact.

However, in other cultures, shoving hands out whenever they find out a relative has money to get as much as they can isn’t viewed as negatively.

It’s up to you to decide which way to go. As the sibling, you are under zero obligation to give the UMC sibling anything.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2024 12:27     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Something feels off about this whole scenario. But if I'm taking this all at face value, Sibling 1 doesn't owe anything to to Sibling 3. If I was Sibling 1 and wanted to be "fair" then I would just put some money in a 529 for Sibling 3's kids and call it a day.


Why would that be more fair?


Fairness is a somewhat juvenile concept in this situation.

But sibling3’s definition of fair - a 50k private school for his 3 kids to match the 50k private school of sibling2’s kid regardless of the financial expenditure by sibling1. Is insanely off base and what I think the pp is saying is that if sibling1 is vexed by this, just put the same amount of money per kid into a 529 (educational savings fund) and let sibling3 be mad, but nieces/nephews have the same financial investment across the board and sibling3’s kids can use their money for college.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2024 12:20     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
I also don’t think that these personal finances needed to be public.


What do you mean? Are you saying they shouldn’t be public here?


What this person means is that sibling1’s gift to the child of sibling2 should not have been made “public” to sibling3.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2024 12:11     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
1) In life fair isn’t always equal. This is a lesson that we teach kids in school: Fairness allows injured and disabled kids to use the elevator. It does not mean that everyone gets an elevator pass regardless of need.

2) A gift is a gift. It is not an obligation or an entitlement. Someone giving a gift can set the terms. You can like or dislike the terms, but no one is entitled to anything from another person.
Anonymous
Post 12/31/2023 16:56     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:None of it is fair. Sibling 1 should not have offered, given that none of the other children of sibling 2 were offered money for their education. Sibling 3 is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!

Sibling 1 should rescind the offer.


Sibling 2 just has the one kid.



OK, but it doesn't change the conclusion. I bought in a very expensive school district to send my kids to the good publics we have in our area. I do not want to send my kids to private, and if I did, I would have planned things differently.


But S3 does want private school. His kids were in private school before the offer.


So Sibling 3 has the money to pay for privcate school but just wants rich Sibling 1 to give him the money because poor Sibling 2 could not afford it? Oh no way. You didn't include that detail in the first post, OP! Sibling 3 is a terrible moocher.


S3’s kids attended parochial school before the offer was made, so S1 picked up that bill. But, S3 wants the same kind of school that S2 attends, which they can’t afford without making changes they don’t want to make.


Oh wow. This makes S3 seem even worse and entitled. So S3 who chose to have 3 children was ok paying $10k per kid, per year for Catholic school for his 3 kids, but now that S2's child attends Sidwell or something for $50k/yr, he thinks that S1 owes him the difference? And S3 lives in a place with good public schools but chose to send kids to Catholic schools at a cost? If I were S1, I would have a really hard time maintaining a relationship with S3 and his family after this.
Anonymous
Post 12/31/2023 15:45     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:None of it is fair. Sibling 1 should not have offered, given that none of the other children of sibling 2 were offered money for their education. Sibling 3 is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!

Sibling 1 should rescind the offer.


Sibling 2 just has the one kid.



OK, but it doesn't change the conclusion. I bought in a very expensive school district to send my kids to the good publics we have in our area. I do not want to send my kids to private, and if I did, I would have planned things differently.


But S3 does want private school. His kids were in private school before the offer.


So Sibling 3 has the money to pay for privcate school but just wants rich Sibling 1 to give him the money because poor Sibling 2 could not afford it? Oh no way. You didn't include that detail in the first post, OP! Sibling 3 is a terrible moocher.


S3’s kids attended parochial school before the offer was made, so S1 picked up that bill. But, S3 wants the same kind of school that S2 attends, which they can’t afford without making changes they don’t want to make.
Anonymous
Post 12/30/2023 14:49     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:None of it is fair. Sibling 1 should not have offered, given that none of the other children of sibling 2 were offered money for their education. Sibling 3 is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!

Sibling 1 should rescind the offer.


Sibling 2 just has the one kid.



OK, but it doesn't change the conclusion. I bought in a very expensive school district to send my kids to the good publics we have in our area. I do not want to send my kids to private, and if I did, I would have planned things differently.


But S3 does want private school. His kids were in private school before the offer.


So Sibling 3 has the money to pay for privcate school but just wants rich Sibling 1 to give him the money because poor Sibling 2 could not afford it? Oh no way. You didn't include that detail in the first post, OP! Sibling 3 is a terrible moocher.
Anonymous
Post 12/29/2023 22:20     Subject: S/O What makes this fair
Anonymous wrote:Something feels off about this whole scenario. But if I'm taking this all at face value, Sibling 1 doesn't owe anything to to Sibling 3. If I was Sibling 1 and wanted to be "fair" then I would just put some money in a 529 for Sibling 3's kids and call it a day.


Why would that be more fair?