Just a quick survey, how many out there have paid for their child’s college education. My daughter is saying that a lot of her friends parents have. Just trying to get an idea. My daughter has been out of college for 8 yrs now and earns 90,000 before taxes. Her total cost for college with masters was 45,000. I have been divorced for several years. Support myself. Approx 6 yrs to retire. She lives with me rent free for approx the last 3 yrs. Would like some feedback. Thanks
Posted by Decent_Fix5729
19 Comments
I work in financial aid at a college, and it’s about 1 out of 10 students have their parents pay for their tuition. It’s rare.
My parents didn’t pay for mine, but everyone in my high school friend group has their parent’s pay for theirs.
Tell her “That’s great! You should start saving now so you can pay for your kids’ college!”
Leave it at that
My parents paid for my undergrad, I paid for my masters; I am going for PSLF. My spouse’s parents paid for both undergrad and grad school.
I think when people say that it often depends on the backgrounds of the people in their circle. It’s entirely possible that a lot of her friends’ parents paid for their college because they likely all come from similar backgrounds. That doesn’t mean that most parents do. It’s also entirely possible that some or many of her friends are lying or partially lying.
There were TONS of kids in college who’s parents paid.
Mine didn’t personally (but helped financially whenever feasible), but the majority of people I knew in school had parents who paid every single penny of their higher education.
It really depends on the college you go to, but it was extremely common in my experience that parents helped financially.
We paid for most of our college kids’ education. They took some student loans – up to about $15,000 total. Most of the parents I know paid for their kids’ colleges as well (undergraduate only) although their kids may have gotten some scholarships and may have take student loans, but only up to the limit for federal student loans for undergrad.
I don’t know many parents who paid for graduate school.
You can only give your child what you can afford to give. It sounds like you didn’t have the money to pay for her college. But you are allowing her to live with you rent free for 3 years. Earning $90,000 annually she should have been able to spend 1/4 of her income that would have been going to rent, to her loans. She could have paid them all off in three years.
We have four kids and committed to provide for each one of them the cost of our in state university. Because we live in Pennsylvania it’s not very cheap. So the budget for each kid is whatever the cost of the state school is they wind up paying only the federal loans. They can go to school anywhere that they want as long as it does not exceed the four year cost of our state universities in Pennsylvania. We are not cosigning any loans for them.
Paying for your kids’ college only makes sense if you start on day 1, feeding a 529. If you suddenly hit the cliff of college costs, it’s impossible.
Getting them through without loans was my pledge. One done, one to go. This involved long term saving, scholarships, work study and in-state schools. The majority of my friends have made the same pledge as we all started careers with student loan debt.
Your daughter got a bargain at 45k for a ba and ma. She should be proud of herself. It is too bad you and her father couldn’t pay, but 10 years after is she just complaining or asking for help?
I paid for my two kids colleges. They were given four years, and both made it through on schedule. Private colleges in the Northeast. Hopefully they can pay that forward to their children.
I went to a private liberal arts school in a major city and a lot of my close friends had parents who paid or parents who took out loans to pay for them. I took out my own loans to pay for undergrad and grad school and am still paying them back. My husband did the same. I also always babysat in college and worked through the summer to have spending money. I did live at home for a few years after undergrad, but truthfully, paying for my own schooling has made me a more mature adult in a lot of ways. I had to figure out how to budget expenses REAL fast.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter one bit what anyone else does. You’re close to retirement and THAT should be your priority.
Her living with you rent free IS your contribution since you’re likely saving her 1,500 a month in rent, not counting groceries and utilities. She should be throwing everything at her loans
Ok back to your question. I’m farther away from retirement than you are, so I have more wiggle room IMO. We are trying to cashflow as much as possible, and my student did a good job saving during HS and community college. During school, I’m paying half and my student is paying half. He does have to take $5k in loans for 2 years and I’ll need to take roughly $8-10k myself the final year. We agreed we will each take care of our own in repayment.
She’s in a privileged circle if all of her friend’s parents are footing the bill. My family helped me a lot with tuition, but I’m still sitting on a fair amount of debt.
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My parents paid for undergrad. I paid for my masters.
I did get generous need based grants for the private undergrad college I attended, but cost was still about 20-25k a year (which was comparable to state school tuition plus room/board).
I took out federal loans for my two year masters, about 70k after a merit based scholarship. I never expected my parents to pay for my graduate education. No free rent for me, but I’m now married so paying off the loans quickly was much easier with a dual income.
Rent free is crazy and still hasn’t paid off her student loans she totally could’ve done so by now. At this point charge her rent and pay them for her jeez. But she needs better financial literacy put her on to Dave ramsey or money guy show for starters. Best of luck
Oh also I was very blessed to have college paid for due to scholarships but my parents did chip in for the rest of misc but they could afford to do so without sacrificing their own wellbeing.
She’s making 90k and lives with you rent free for 3 years? Where is her money going? She could have easily paid of 45k in those 3 years
From the other side -my parents didn’t pay for any of ours though we could take “interest free loans” from them for small amounts (like $5,000 or less a semester basically what we couldn’t possibly earn after summer employment). I can tell you since I handed over my hard-earned cash each semester you bet I showed up to every class and learned what I needed. I would call our family upper-middle class and they just saw too many friend’s kids just waste their education years partying and knowing mom and dad would pony up more money for extra years. We avoided traditional loans and it forced us to treat money like it should be respected. That was a lifelong lesson though. Allowances and budgeting started at maybe 7 years old. The same scenario might not be possible with the cost of school today. This was 20 years ago.