Hi all,
I have three kids and in general want to see them all graduate from college and help pay for it.
My father's deal with each of his three kids was that we could go anywhere we wanted to that we could get into, and he would pay for it. After we graduated whatever was left in our college accounts was ours to do whatever -- house downpayment, wedding, etc.
I'd like to offer something similar but I want my kids to have some incentive to be aware of the price of the college or university they're choosing.
I also am not sure I'll have enough money saved up to pay for all of it by the time they reach college age, so I'm concerned about that.
Then there's scholarships which my kids might earn.
Then there's grants and loans and work study.
Any of you have thoughts on how to make the overall process "fair" and still achieve all of the goals above?
I'm thinking that as each kid goes through, I'll pay for their college in the following order:
1. Scholarships and grants
2. Their college accounts
3. Loans
And then when they graduate, whatever is left in their college accounts becomes theirs, but I'll try to even it out based on some proportion of how expensive a school they went to and how much in scholarships and grants they got.
If there's no money left over (i.e., they all choose Harvard), then I'll do the same thing with their loan balances; try to make it proportional somehow based on how expensive of a school they went to and their scholarship/grants.
I also don't want them to grow up to be the kind of people who say, "You should pay $X towards this because you did Y for my brother/sister," you know? I want them to grow up all feeling loved and appreciative of the opportunity to go to college and feel that we treated them all fairly -- i.e., no "Cinderella" children.
malakito.
I have three kids and in general want to see them all graduate from college and help pay for it.
My father's deal with each of his three kids was that we could go anywhere we wanted to that we could get into, and he would pay for it. After we graduated whatever was left in our college accounts was ours to do whatever -- house downpayment, wedding, etc.
I'd like to offer something similar but I want my kids to have some incentive to be aware of the price of the college or university they're choosing.
I also am not sure I'll have enough money saved up to pay for all of it by the time they reach college age, so I'm concerned about that.
Then there's scholarships which my kids might earn.
Then there's grants and loans and work study.
Any of you have thoughts on how to make the overall process "fair" and still achieve all of the goals above?
I'm thinking that as each kid goes through, I'll pay for their college in the following order:
1. Scholarships and grants
2. Their college accounts
3. Loans
And then when they graduate, whatever is left in their college accounts becomes theirs, but I'll try to even it out based on some proportion of how expensive a school they went to and how much in scholarships and grants they got.
If there's no money left over (i.e., they all choose Harvard), then I'll do the same thing with their loan balances; try to make it proportional somehow based on how expensive of a school they went to and their scholarship/grants.
I also don't want them to grow up to be the kind of people who say, "You should pay $X towards this because you did Y for my brother/sister," you know? I want them to grow up all feeling loved and appreciative of the opportunity to go to college and feel that we treated them all fairly -- i.e., no "Cinderella" children.
malakito.