What does your kid get besides (perhaps) some college tuition?

[Nords]

Rich's comments sparked a thought, so I split his response off from the mortgage thread:
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...3&postcount=27

This isn't intended to be another who-pays-for-college thread. Instead, after the kid matriculates, I'm wondering when the purse strings should be cut. Perhaps some of you with parenting life experience could share your successes at launching your kids through the college years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich_in_Tampa Play money was on them.

I'd take this approach, too, but there's a concern that a kid might not earn enough money to carry them through the year's necessities or to support an appropriate amount of studying. While work/study tuition assistance isn't necessarily a bad idea, I'd hate for the choice to be (1) go to the evening's six-hour shift of the "part-time" job or (2) study a little more for that mid-term in the class they're barely passing-- let alone (3) "party on, Wayne!"

As for saving their summer-job earnings before college, I went to college with one of those piles of cash. It didn't even make it through summer break, let alone stretch to sophomore year. "Lifestyle creep" is one of the reasons that we've been encouraging our kid to lock up her paychecks in her IRA.

Our kid already takes care of her own chores (like laundry and cleaning) and she has her share of family chores. She has a clothing & toiletries budget, which meets her needs if not her wants. She also gets an allowance that supports a low-key lifestyle, and she's welcome to earn more from home & yard jobs. She works part-time now (funding her IRA) and she'd probably do more of that during her holiday & summer breaks-- if she wasn't already planning to stay at college for internships or research or some other job.

We're not funding spring break in Mexico or winter holidays at Aspen. We've told her that she'll get her share of the tuition savings from the scholarships that she earns. Of course if she goes NROTC or service academy then that's all her own money. But otherwise I'm not sure how parentally-funded budgets & allowances would change when she goes to college.

How did you guys handle it?

[Moemg]

I paid for tuition ,room & board . I also supplied a basic allowance and bought most of their clothes . They both worked in the summer but not during the school year and I encouraged ( strongly ) to graduate in four years because that was all I was paying for . They knew enough to not even bring up spring break . I also stated that if they ended up partying and flunking out the check book closed and graduate school was on their dime ( but I relented and did help with graduate school ). I ended up helping their first year after graduation but then I closed the checkbook .

[Khan]

I'm old now.

I'm sure stuff has changed in 40 years.

Had a state scholarship.

When I attended college I got no cash from parents.

Got use of car for summer jobs.

Senior year, parents moved out of state and I had to declare financial independence and take out a small federal loan.

After graduation had a job, parents payed for bus ticket from Foley AL to Dover NJ; borrowed money for a car down payment and payed it back.

[jazz4cash]

This is a good topic for me............ Three kids aged 23, 20 and 17. Oldest daughter finished undergrad one yr ago moved back home and worked a temp job out of her field with decent pay. Hired full time to slightly better paying career ladder Civil Service and started grad school last month.

Undergrad we paid for everything EXCEPT they end up with maybe 20k worth of student loans in thier name. No funding of spring break in Mexico, but did pay for study abroad which was a bargain. I told her my contribution to grad school was room and board in MY house. So that's it for her but she is getting a free cell phone and auto insurance on a car shared with two siblings. I think she should at least pay for her phone, but Ive been too weak to lay the hammer down. Bottom line for us is THEY are responsible for 1/3 or so of thier undergrad expense and they seem to respond pretty well in terms of not being extravagent. Scholarships earned by them reduce thier 1/3 contribution. I would pay more but with 3 kids and private tuition before college, we're maxed out.

[W2R]

My parents chose not to pay for my college, either, so I worked my way through and struggled and learned how to minimize my living expenses. And what's this about summer jobs? Summertime just meant that I had to be more creative to fit summer school hours around the hours when I needed to work. I had no car so that lent its own complications. (can you hear the tiny violins, yet? ) I was pretty headstrong, and knew what I wanted so when I realized it wasn't going to be given to me, I reached out for it and earned it.

After high school graduation, my daughter was dying to "move out". She got a summer job, found a nice roommate that we knew and liked, and they moved into an apartment three blocks from our house. We gave her the furniture in her room, and helped her to move it there. We let her do her laundry at our house, whenever she wanted to. She decided to go to a local college, starting the September after h.s. graduation.

My ex and I decided to pay for her tuition and books, plus about half what she would need for living expenses. She continued to work while in college as well, to earn the rest of her living expenses. We felt that she would gain a lot of self-confidence from that, and she did. We gave her my seven year old Daytona, and paid for her car insurance. We kept her on our health insurance as long as it was allowed.

She knows we are available if she needs us, for example for loans if she needs them (but she is 30, now, and has been self-sufficient for 12 years).

I think parents know best when it is time to cut the (financial) umbilical cord and how much. You and your wife should listen to your own instincts for the best guide in this. Each child is different, and each seems to need different life experiences to grow and thrive. That is my opinion, anyway.

[bright eyed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Rich's comments sparked a thought, so I split his response off from the mortgage thread: http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...3&postcount=27 This isn't intended to be another who-pays-for-college thread. Instead, after the kid matriculates, I'm wondering when the purse strings should be cut. Perhaps some of you with parenting life experience could share your successes at launching your kids through the college years. I'd take this approach, too, but there's a concern that a kid might not earn enough money to carry them through the year's necessities or to support an appropriate amount of studying. While work/study tuition assistance isn't necessarily a bad idea, I'd hate for the choice to be (1) go to the evening's six-hour shift of the "part-time" job or (2) study a little more for that mid-term in the class they're barely passing-- let alone (3) "party on, Wayne!" As for saving their summer-job earnings before college, I went to college with one of those piles of cash. It didn't even make it through summer break, let alone stretch to sophomore year. "Lifestyle creep" is one of the reasons that we've been encouraging our kid to lock up her paychecks in her IRA. Our kid already takes care of her own chores (like laundry and cleaning) and she has her share of family chores. She has a clothing & toiletries budget, which meets her needs if not her wants. She also gets an allowance that supports a low-key lifestyle, and she's welcome to earn more from home & yard jobs. She works part-time now (funding her IRA) and she'd probably do more of that during her holiday & summer breaks-- if she wasn't already planning to stay at college for internships or research or some other job. We're not funding spring break in Mexico or winter holidays at Aspen. We've told her that she'll get her share of the tuition savings from the scholarships that she earns. Of course if she goes NROTC or service academy then that's all her own money. But otherwise I'm not sure how parentally-funded budgets & allowances would change when she goes to college. How did you guys handle it?

won't your kid be going to school on the mainland? you have to factor in all those holiday trips home and even a few in between to hold you all over as well...will she have a car at college? who will pay for the insurance, gas, parking permits (they were over $400 a quarter when i left school 10 years ago!)

almost everyone i knew worked while going to college - in the 70's and 80's the tuition for a UC school could be fully supported by a part time job in the student union! But fees etc are so high most kids end up working.

Given that the 1st semester/first year can be rough and you might consider giving her more support to adjust to school. Then let her know you will be weaning her off...My parents did that for most of the first year and it helped me get through they year and they only lived an hour away!

I started working half way through my freshman year and it was fine - i don't think any of my jobs were more than 15 hrs/week.

[REWahoo]

In the case of our two daughters, we established some guidelines:

- They were expected to return home during the summer, work (both had lifeguard jobs at our neighborhood pool) and save for future expenses.
- Both were encouraged to take a few basic courses during the summers prior to their Freshman and Sophomore years. Kept costs down and allowed them to take slightly lighter loads during the school year.
- We would pay all tuition, fees, books, room & board costs for four, and only four, years of school.
- They would be provided an experienced but reliable car to drive beginning their Soph year, provided they maintained a 3.0 or higher GPA. If grades declined, the car was gone.
- We would provide a very modest monthly allowance for gas and spending money. If they wanted more, they had to save from summer jobs or find part-time jobs.
- They were both encouraged to find part-time work beginning the second year of school provided they worked no more than 15-20 hours per week.
- We would not pay for non-essential items (Spring break trips, etc.) nor would we pay for either to join a sorority.

Looking back, I wonder if we (OK, if I) wasn't a little too strict. But they both made it in 4 years, made good grades, got good jobs...and off my payroll!

[Hamlet]

My take on this is that there isn't a moral requirement for parents to help with college if it is going to create an extreme burden to do so. Many, many children manage to make their way in this world without parents with large checkbooks, so I don't consider it cruel to make them pay their own way.

However, since you have the means to pay for their college without undue hardship, it seems reasonable to do so. My suggestion would be to pay for all tuition and books, and to make them pay for their regular living expenses. Yes they will have to work some, but you can live amazingly cheap in college. Suggest that they forgo owning a car in college. Honestly, if they hit it hard in the summer they could probably get by on 10-15 hours a week during the school year.

I would be reluctant to pay more than this, as it will encourage too much dependency.

[quietman]

I do not think there is any moral requirement for parents to help with college. When I was in school, some did, some didn't and many were in between. I worked while in school and while I learned some useful things, I'm not sure I wouldn't have been better off studying. I plan to pay for room, board, tuition, books for my kids for all 4 years plus enough allowance that they can get through without working if they choose not to (and hopefully concentrate on studying) but that includes no car and no fancy trips on breaks - they'll have to pay for those themselves. Trips home I'll cover 100%. So far #1 son is making this easy by going to local state school. We'll test my plan when the others pick schools.

[laurence]

I think I'll just play it by ear. My siblings were all different, and got different "packages" from my parents. Nobody played favorites, it's just hard to justify springing for a laptop if you are living at home going to JC (sister) compared to far away in the dorms at Cal (brother).

Like I said elsewhere, the fuzzy-minded plan was to cover expenses for a UC school, we'll see how we feel when they get there. Rich may be right that we'll want to do more.

[Nords]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Spouse and I are starting to get a clue, and we'll see how the college applications go. She has a set of SATs under her belt and she's taking the PSATs this fall. Geez, next summer she starts writing application essays!

Quote:

Originally Posted by bright eyed won't your kid be going to school on the mainland? you have to factor in all those holiday trips home and even a few in between to hold you all over as well...will she have a car at college? who will pay for the insurance, gas, parking permits (they were over $400 a quarter when i left school 10 years ago!)

Spouse & I attended USNA with a guy whose parents would only buy him a plane ticket home to the islands if his grades were above a 3.00 and he racked up fewer than 30 demerits. (Minimum GPA to stay was 2.00.) He was not very pleasant to be around, especially as the weather got colder.

Our kid will almost certainly go Mainland but we'll buy her plane tix. (You know we won't be going there if the temperature drops below 55 degrees!) She'll get about $4000 back after depreciation on her initial $5000 investment in her share of our Prius, which she'd be smart to put into a CD for her own Mainland beater. Gas, insurance, parking fees-- all her problem. I guess USAA could cut us a family deal while she's a student and she could reimburse us for her share of that. Buying herself a car probably depends whether she's trapped in a service academy (no car until late in junior year), in an urban university, or abandoned in the middle of a cornfield.

During our last USNA trip we noticed a distinct trend of grateful parents splitting the college fund with their mid kids in the form of a hot sports car. My nephew the Army Ranger says the same happens at USMA. We'll share some profits if our kid ends up on a full ride, but not for that kind of ride. I had a grandma & grandpa loan for my first car, and an '81 Mazda GLC only got "hot" when the water pump broke.

We'll have to take a look at her budget during her last year of high school and make some projections. She'll certainly need to spend more money on winter clothes, pants, shirts, shoes, socks-- I can see an allowance big enough to support a pizza habit but she'll have to buy her own beer.

Heck, we could just split the savings on our current grocery bills and still come out way ahead...

[TromboneAl]

We paid tuition, room, and board, and then had her come up with a budget for additional expenses. That worked pretty well, although she bounced a lot of checks and didn't manage the money that well.

Summer after freshman year, she got an internship running a painting company, learned a lot, but didn't earn a lot. Net loss for the summer.

She had jobs during sophomore year. Summer after sophomore year she did an internship in Sweden, and was partially subsidized by her Swedish grandparents. She made enough to pay all her own expenses junior year beyond tuition, room.

This (junior) year she worked three jobs [edited to say that sounds much more work that it was -- that is. For example one job was occasional campus tour guide. Not many hours per week total], and has paid all of her expenses including much of her own food (living off campus). She told me she spends $30/week on food. Although she had struggled academically in freshman year, she did extremely well this year.

This summer she has an internship in St. Louis, and says that things are going very well money-wise. When we called today (Sunday) she was at work.

She'll have about $20K in student loans, but I'm confident that she won't have problems paying them off (biomedical engineering).

I have one university bill sitting in my in box, and there will be one more check in December, and then the purse strings will be cut.

Bottom line: Ours was pretty much a tough love/you have to contribute/get a job strategy and it has turned out well. That may be due to the strategy or her innate qualities. YMMV.

[thaidyed]

Speaking from the 'kid' perspective...I'd add a few more cents. State school is not always cheaper. My dad declared bankruptcy a few years before I was due to head off the college but had a nice income (70Kish in '96). I was a top student, high SATs and the financial aid packages offered to me by top private universities (those with "need blind" admissions) were cheaper options than going to a good UC. No one believed me until I showed them the package I got.

My dad ended up paying 8K/year towards tuition, room and board. I took loans of 8K a year. The rest of the 30K annual cost was covered by financial aid in the form of grants and a little bit of petty cash from Dad. I worked part-time, first on campus for minimum wage and later doing private tutoring for better money. I had a beater used car from HS days that he covered insurance for but I paid for gas. I had the middle cost meal plan on campus but any other entertainment/meals out/movies etc was all on me. Spring break was a couple of friends sharing gas and camping and didn't cost much more than any other long weekend. Books were crazy expensive, and Dad did help with them.

What made it all the better was I also got to travel--without Dad nor I paying. I applied for every travel and research grant I could and got $4500 for sophomore year summer in Thailand and the plan to get a grant for a month's trip to China ended up being so much money that I ended up staying and traveling for an entire semester instead. These 'free money' opportunities exist at a small elite school--not at massive universities.

I managed to graduate in 3.5 years due to taking a slightly heavy load and some transfer credits I did at the JC during high school and during freshmen summer. In all, I finished a BA from a top tier college in 4 years including 7 months abroad with 14K in debt payable at $120/month (an amount I could cover no matter what job or volunteering I ended up doing).

I always assumed that when college was over I was independent (actually I felt independent in college cause I never *saw* the money he was spending on me ).
My father never told me when and if I could live at home. I just knew and expected that at 22 with a degree I *should* be independent. I knew I was welcome at home but I never considered asking for money. When I look back, its a mystery as to the how and why but I definitely knew and I think I would have been embarrassed to mooch

[TromboneAl]

Quote:

Books were crazy expensive

Related to this: my daughter discovered these in her sophomore year, and saved about 75% on books.

Buying International Edition Textbooks

[PBAT]

For books - don't forget Half.com - usually less than half price for brand new books with all supplements included (CD's etc).

[youbet]

Paid tuition, room and board for DS at an out of state public school. He had a little money saved from a part time highschool job and he co-op'd during college which provided book and misc spending money. Freshman year (pre co-op) was a little tough since he only had his savings from his highschool job and hadn't yet discovered the meaning of the term LBYM! But that was good for him and he managed his co-op money very well the next four years and never needed any supplement from us.

Turned out OK I guess. He married a Chem Eng he met at school who DW and I just adore. He's a Mech Eng and did his MSME part time on MegaCorp's nickle. They have three kids and live about 20 miles down the road........

[Marquette]

I was fortunate enough to have poor parents. I went to a state uni ($1600 a semester in '98) with scholarships and grants covering 100% of tuition (scholarship from the school for GPA, scholarship from Michigan based on need and ACT score, federal Pell grant based on need). Parents split the cost of books with me, which helped immensely.

I lived at home. Then again, I was too young to drive when I started and I think this country bumkin would have been intimidated by relocating out of town, much less out of state.

I was very motivated through my senior year. If I didn't keep my grades up, I couldn't afford to keep going. By my senior year, I had a job lined up for after graduation, they didn't care if I graduated or not, and I only had freshman electives to finish out... my highest score that last semester was a B.

I took out a loan for my first car, which I needed when I started my internship. My internship paid $17 an hour so covering that nut plus my half of rent (roomed with a fellow student at the same internship). I was stupid and blew through the money... quite a feat since I wasn't old enough to go to the bar. It only took me another 10 years to get serious about saving after that.

[CitricAcid]

half.com usually has many of the international editions. I calculated the amount I saved by buying international editions (being a math/econ major, most books are written in English and published internationally) as $200 one semester.

As a rising junior in college, I feel the amount the child receives is very important to many aspects of college life. I'll start by saying that I have my room and board and tuition paid halfway through a scholarship, 1/4 through student loans by myself (probably about 25k total when I graduate) and the rest through my parents. EVERYTHING else, fees, outside food, books, my laptop, etc. is paid by me. What I have noticed about spending habits is the major difference between my roommates. I lived with five other people this year and it seemed that half of us (not me) would need chinese food every other day and the other half would just suck it up and eat the dining hall food. It was in no way a big deal to me, but there ARE class problems at many universities. It would be tough for many to not resent somebody who can go out to eat or buy nice things (ahem, beer) daily or weekly on their parents tab. After a while, I feel I have realized that my parents will not let me absolutely fail (they want me in college almost as much as I do... almost) so that if I just decide out of the blue to spend all my own money on whatever I want, they could pick up the slack. With two younger sisters and realizing how much their financial support means to me when compared to others, I feel I owe it to myself and to them to not spend useless money and be extremely strict with my OWN money. Having to work all summer, not going on spring break trips and working during the year helps to. By the way, if I can offer advice, if your daughter needs a place to work for student jobs, food service is always great because you can get a meal out of the ordeal.

All in all, it is a very complicated issue that is too often ignored I feel. If you feel like you could use more perspective from a current college student, Nords, feel free to PM me.

Edit: Forgot to mention, all the costs put together adds up to about $180,000 for the 4 years.

[Sue J]

For our older son we paid tuition, books, room and board. He covered his extras. He didn't have a car so we covered transportation. He was at a state university about 150 miles away. We also covered clothes and dorm necessities at start-up. He had a $2000 a year scholarship based on GPA which he kept for all 4 years and a $1000 scholarship from his high school for 1 year.

For the younger son we cover tuition, books and transportation costs. He goes to a state university 10 miles away, which was his choice after living in a dorm for one semester and he hated living among the drinking and drugging culture. He's living at home and driving my old hand-me-down car (1990 Toyota Camry 136,000 miles). During the school months we cover his gas, insurance and maintenance. During the summer he works and pays for his car expenses. He also works part time during school and pays for his cell phone and other incidentals.

Since he's living at home he eats here most of the time but we also put money on a university meal debit card for him to use while on campus. He can also use it at a few off campus places.

Our health insurance covers college students if under 25, so they were both covered. Car insurance gives a discount for "good student" status.

The older son's college costs were about $13,000 for freshman year and rose to about $16,000 for the senior year. The younger son's college tuition and books without room and board is about $9,000 a year. He's a junior with 3 semesters to go and the tuition has been fixed through 2009.

Another vote for Half.com I wish I had found that sooner.

[popowich]

I honestly forgot I'm still paying my student loans. It's got to be less than 10K by now. It takes $120/month from my checking account. My parents paid a little I think, and I had like $2000 in spending cash saved up before I started college. The loans are in my name and are being paid down. It's something small like 4.9% interest. I had jobs all through college to pay for some college and my fun time expenses.

Want a good start in life? i know of some parents who bought their kids their first house!

Man of man would I be in good shape right now! I got a $5000 loan out of Grandma and paid back $4000 of it. She wanted me to come around more often and figured now having to pay her every time I saw her would do the trick.

-Raymond