<p>The student said that she had to take an additional $3000 loan to make up for the shortfall when the parent stopped paying for spring semester. We don’t know how much more the student had already been borrowing or paying from her own resources – only that she came up short $3K for spring semester. </p>
<p>I have a feeling that the financial aid department at Stanford would be able to assist a kid in that situation pretty quickly, in terms of helping to arrange a loan. Stanford probably has a loan fund of its own for emergencies.</p>
<p>Obviously the Ivy league education of the mother didn’t exactly put her in the income bracket normally associated with that background. Or maybe (and this IS catty) she is one of those people that is all about pretense and what it looks like to other people. So she has spent far beyond the family’s means and has become one of the people that people the system owes them? Just saying… hard to ***** about what your kid is doing when you’re not paying for it, and from doing the math here, it looks as though she might never have been paying for the majority of it.</p>
<p>What moral values? Oooh a co-ed residence! Stop the presses! The sky is falling! </p>
<p>Give me a break. :rolleyes: Sooner or later, you’re going to have to live with people you don’t know, or <strong>gasp!</strong> even members of the opposite sex. I see no problem with coed rooms/suites. I think more colleges should do it.</p>
<p>I can guess why: because they were very eager to spin the piece as the Evil Liberal University corrupting the youth by forcing its liberal theories of morality on them and one bold parent standing up to them.</p>
<p>A story about a grown up daughter battling her controlling mother is just not as compelling to a publication like the National Review and would not have served their usual agenda.</p>
<p>Now the mother posted again on the New York Times blog:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Apparently, this mother thinks Stanford should have found another room for the daughter, even though the daughter was perfectly happy with her room. </p>
<p>Mom: quit while you’re behind. You looked like a fool when your daughter posted. Now you look like a sanctimonious prig, too.</p>
<p>Yes, quit while you’re behind. How embarrassing to argue with your 22yo via the NYT website. We get it. You’re unhappy with your dd and with Stanford. Now go repair the relationship with your dd in private, please.</p>
<p>The poor girl must be mortified, and I’m sure she’s feeling just awful that her mom brought negative publicity to her school, her co-op, and herself. It looks like the mom was desperate, so she tried to get Stanford to enforce her own personal rules for her daughter because she was unable to do it herself.</p>
<p>I don’t think the school was where the parent needed to place the pressure. It was the kid’s job to get a room assignment acceptable to her parents. She missed out on getting her room choice so she got the leavings. When that happens, it’s take it or leave it. Some schools have nothing left you miss out on the timeline for room apps. You have to get your own place or take a leave that semester. My son’s school is that way.</p>
<p>cpt,
according to the daughter, she did not miss anything (she had a friend representing her at the meeting), and got the room assignment she was perfectly happy with. The problem was mother’s, not daughter’s.</p>
<p>Well, I think different gender roomies is a better solution than my S’s: live with GF in a tiny room meant for one and have one room go vacant (that is paid for.)</p>
<p>We must maintain the room in case they break up, and I don’t think the college would allow a student to have no address.</p>
<p>I really don’t see the problem. </p>
<p>Now if they mandated co-ed dorm rooms, that would be a different story!</p>
<p>If the daughter wanted the room assignment and had a disregard for what her parents were willing to finance, that is her problem. I do not hold any university responsible for housing assignments beyond the freshman year. It’s up to the kids to be in agreement with their parents if their parents are paying for the experience.</p>
<p>My son did not want to live in the dorms and deliberately did not sign up for a room sophomore year. I insisted that he get a room in the dorm, and he ended up in a quad and valiantly took a room in an off campus house that he paid for himself. The worst snow storm in years hit, and the house was out of electricity, heat, hot water for weeks. The bus service was spotty and his roommates were not driving any more than they had to. Son moved back to the dorm where he had a nice big warm room, running water, and could wait for the campus shuttle in a tunnel of sorts that is attached to the dorms. HIs dorm had a cafeteria in it and the quad had pretty much turned into a double by then.</p>
<p>4 out of the 6 kids in that house did not complete the semester successfully. 2 of them left the school. The landlord never did get the house put together.</p>
<p>2 years later, he repeated the experiment, but this time without playing games with us and picking a better residence having learned from the humiliating experience. It seems to have worked this time around. I still think he’s nuts living off campus when the on campus apartments are much nicer and more convenient, but that is his choice. A part of my issues with what he pulled a few years a go was the deception involved. </p>
<p>If any of my sons wanted to go into a coed arrangement, I would not be happy about it, but if presented properly, I might go along with it. But if he tried to pull a fast one, with our footing the bill, the reaction would be very different. </p>
<p>Many universities do not guarantee housing, and you get whatever is left if you are late on the process. Also if you specify no preference in the type of housing, you may end up in something your parents are loathe to support. When you are in someone’s pocketbook, there is an obligation to communicate where the money is going and if there is something that you feel might be an issue like coed room, maybe you had better discuss it with your parents before it is a fait accompli.</p>
<p>Just wanted to say I love the daughter’s response. She’s not only more mature than her mother but she’s able to stick up for herself rather than let herself be used for political purposes. </p>
<p>Lots of my family went to Stanford. They’d never force people to do anything.</p>
<p>I’ve known a number of parents faced with their kids wanting to move in with a significant other. That leads to a tough issue since such relationships can be volatile, and at their age problems often lead to an unsuccessful semester at school. It’s not something I want to support. Clearly, if S wants to spend all of his time at his GF’s place, that is not something controllable by me, but I strongly feel that an escape hatch, ie having his own place as well, is something I want him to have while I am paying for his room. When he is paying for the whole dang thing himself, then it’s his business. </p>
<p>My friend’s D wanted to move into a nice apartment with BF and could do it if her parents would continue to pay the same amount as they would for university housing. They would not do it. So they were paying for a dorm room while their D was living with BF. That arrangement worked well for the year, so the following one, they gave in and permitted an official live together. Which lasted all of two months, and necessitated Mom flying cross country for this traumatic break up. D had to find an expensive off campus place for herself in October, and had a horrible semester. She equated it to a falling out with a same sex roommate, but both friend and I feel that these things don’t happen as often and with such venom when there isn’t the emotional aspect there. Moving in with a significant other is a whole different story and it that goes for those who are of the same sex as well.</p>
<p>I wonder if NO mom is going to expect her daughter’s future employers to keep her apprised of their policies given that she can’t rely on her own child to behave in the way she demands. Time to cut the cord, mom, and to accept that our kids turn out to be individuals with values and minds of their own.</p>
That is exactly what the daughter said - the issue had nothing to do with the university or it’s housing policy, and everything to do with the mother-daughter relationship. It’s just too bad that the mother opted to deal with it in this public and humiliating way. It is, of course, up to her to decide what she wants to pay for. And it is up to the daughter to decide how much contact to have with her parents once she is not financially dependent on them.</p>
<p>I think this is a good “how to” for folks who are looking to estrange their kids and have very little contact with them as soon as they can be financially independent.</p>