<p>S’s school does not have this to my knowledge. Yes, an agreement like that would be ideal, similar to what you can sign in a pharmacy to bypass privacy law and allow a significant other to pick up prescriptions. This way, a parent can ask the child to sign as a condition for receiving full financial support, or not if the child is very responsible. For S I wouldn’t have required it, however I probably would for D simply because she has been less proactive about nipping problems in the bud quickly.</p>
<p>D’s college didn’t provide parents with any information about a form that would allow us to see her grades, but they send every blessed one of the bills straight to us. Got one in the mail today - $10 for (yet another) replacement ID card. The book store encourages kids to just put textbooks on their university bill… so we get it in the mail a week or two later, and the kids have no incentive to hunt for bargains…Where’s that privacy act when it would do me some good?</p>
<p>The form is the FERPA release form. At all my kids schools, it allowed them to speak to us, but we had to initiate the contact. Nothing private was sent to us.</p>
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Why don’t you just ask your child?</p>
<p>3bm,
We had it signed for the ‘hope it never happens’ event of an ill/injured child; so far 2.5/3 kids complete without invoking.
I have heard it useful for interactions on child’s behalf when they are on study abroad.</p>
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<p>Dragonmom, I was surprised back in 2001 when took my son to college & went to the parent orientation and they were encouraging parents to register their credit cards with the school bookstore. I thought…“no way”… </p>
<p>My d’s college doesn’t bill anything to the bursar account except for added course fees for certain classes. (There would always be an extra $30 or so tacked on for foreign language classes, for example) – but I didn’t mind paying for those.</p>
<p>As to the replacement ID card. When there are things where my kids can run up my account – for example, the cell phone bill (phones are on the “family plan”) – I expect reimbursement. It’s a simple matter of accounting. </p>
<p>Sometimes you just have to tell your kids “no” whatever the college policy is.</p>
<p>TheGFG-- I think any school would have to allow a waiver of a FERPA to be filed – even if they don’t provide the form without asking. You might just have to file the form on your own – if you simply Google “Ferpa release form” you will have the forms you need.</p>
<p>Of course, for those of us who obviously are computer-literate, an easier solution is simply for the kid to give the parent the login info for the college web site that has that info. At least for my daughter, that is the same site where I can quickly check accounts & billing status, so overall it is more convenient for us both for me to have that info. (The college does send bills to me - but with the login I can find out about the amounts due as soon as they are posted, and also easily verify receipt of payment).</p>
<p>Oh, we do get the college bills, not paper, but sent to our email; we have our own access number to the financial accounts.</p>
<p>It’s a real advantage to have the textbooks appear on the university bill if you are paying for college with a 529.</p>
<p>That’s a good point, MarinMom – but the point is that is something that parent should work out with their offspring. Just because the college allows the student to have the books billed that way doesn’t mean that the parent has to allow it. (If I had 529 funds I’d be a lot more generous with the money too. With the 529 you are looking at potential penalties down the line if you don’t spend it all down during the college years --that is, you don’t want to be stuck with $75K sitting in an account after your kids have graduated, since at that point you would lose your tax advantage.)</p>
<p>My very first thread on CC, four years ago, was a thread in the parents forum in which a column by a NRO writer was debated and dissected. The author (the mom) and daughter eventually joined the discussion. It was actually pretty ugly and unkind. This one is a lot less so.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t pay for my daughter to live with a boy friend because I don’t think that’s what college should be for. However, I’ve already commented to her that if she goes far away, I would expect the boyfriend (should they still be together) to spend weekends. I don’t really care about that as long as birth control is used. I want her to have whatever housing she prefers, though, whatever that is and I expect her to meet whatever deadlines are set for her. In fact, I’d probably blow a gasket if we got housing (or any other) stress because she missed an important deadline. I’m not particularly understanding of that stuff</p>
<p>Speaking of co-ed floors and bathrooms (not co-ed rooms), my son has deliberately chosen to be in a single room in a co-ed floor in his “house” in Burton-Judson at the U. of Chicago next year. (This year, his first, he was assigned a single room on a guys’ floor.) Why? He’s concluded from a year’s experience of visiting friends on different floors that floors with girls on them – and bathrooms that girls use – are a <em>lot</em> cleaner. And everything’s less noisy. Sometimes, I guess gender stereotypes do turn out to be true.</p>
<p>3BM103: If you read my earlier posts, you’ll note that I don’t have a problem at present with my own child. We have our lines of communication open.</p>
<p>Re co-ed bathrooms. S1 was in dorms with co-ed bathrooms for 4 years and never once encountered a female student there. Not a problem at all.
Co-ed bedrooms would be different. The Stanford dean suggested that the room was large, perhaps hinting that some room divider might be used? I would not be concerned about sexual activity so much as privacy.</p>
<p>Back to the original topic, I don’t see what the big deal is about rooming with a girl or boy. If they happen to have sex with them or something then that was probably going to happen anyways, whether they were rooming together or not. It should be optional, but I don’t think it should be banned. Then again, I am also bi so it wouldn’t make that much of a difference if parents are worried about stuff going on…</p>
<p>Personally, I would MUCH rather room with a guy. I have had a boyfriend for three years so I am used to sharing my room with guys, and for me personally they are much easier to live with and get along with.</p>
<p>I and many others shared coed apartments in grad school, and it was a total non-issue. (At that very time, Three’s Company was on the tv. Apparently some people found it hard to imagine that people could simply share an apartment in a friendly manner.) My S’s dorm has coed floors, but single sex suites and bathrooms. It seems like a good compromise.</p>
<p>I would have been horrified to be assigned a male room mate if we were expected to share a room, though. No way in hell.</p>
<p>For that matter, I wouldn’t really want to share a room with a female, either. :)</p>
<p>I can’t access the NR article, but this mother sounds like a bit of a nutcase. Of course, the fact that she is apparently an extremist is what got her published…</p>
<p>I just read the article and the mom is complaining becauser her probably 21 or 22 year old daughter’s school didn’t send mommy a letter telling her details of her daughter’s life. Give me a break! I have a 22 year old sister and I can barely tell you what dorm she lives in right now, let alone what her living arrangements are. My parents have no idea, and they don’t care. As soon as she was out of the house, decisions were hers to make (provided obviously that she wasn’t doing terrible harm to herself or others or completely screwing up in school). This mom needs to cut the cord and let her daughter make her own decisions. It is complete crap that the daughter didn’t want or know about this. Stanford is smart enough to cover its butt on issues such as these, they wouldn’t force something like this on to students, many of whom have wealthy parents that could and would sue over something like this. </p>
<p>Ugh helicopter parents drive me nuts! By the time they’re in college, you’ve done all you can. They are going to make the decisions they want to make regardless of what you say. Trust that you have raised them well enough so that they make whatever decision is best for them and their future.</p>
<p>I love that the colleges are so holier than thou about the kids being adults, but the system is set up that the parents have to be involved in paying for college. If they want to be consistent about all of this they can treat the kids as adults financially too. But that would bring down this whole financial house of cards.</p>
<p>Ummm… Sharing a room with opposite sex member is probably not a big deal…</p>
<p>Anyone out there who did college/HS varsity sports? Well, in the locker rooms, people of your own sex show naked all the time. If fact, when you shower, there’s like 50 naked boys crammed in that tiny shower room. That can make it uncomfortable, and even so, voyeurism is not common at all.</p>
<p>I would be much more comfortable being in a room with a fully dressed girl, than a completely naked guy.</p>
<p>Just a question… why is everyone assuming that the guys that the Stanford girl is sharing a room with are straight?</p>