It is a practical impossibility to make your children’s lives ‘equal’ to each other. Birth order, life events over time, etc. make each of us unique just as the genetics and variables in education make the academic results unique.
Like many with exceptional kids, we have struggled with how to balance his lack of need for our support with his sister’s need for more. The remaining 2 kids are still works in progress. Ultimately, we help where we can but made it clear to them early on that education was their responsibility after HS. That has the added benefit of giving them the freedom to choose schools, majors, etc. without any undue pressure from us to choose differently. It is their life, let them live it. Our contribution primarily comes in the form of continuing to cover things like insurance, cell phones, and personal items like clothing and supplies. We are more than willing to co-sign on loans for them, with the caveat that they would need to have a reasonable ability to pay the loans after graduation. (in other words, we are not going to sign on a huge loan if they are going to major in art appreciation). If/when the time comes that they do their best, but struggle to pay, we will help them out.
It can be tough. In some ways, the kid with the scholarships earned them. In other ways, he coasted to them because of his God-given intellectual ability.
Another way to look at this is what would you do if one of your kids got into serious trouble Many of us can think of times in our lives when, but for the grace of God, we could have made a bad decision or been caught at something we did and had to pay serious consequences. Do you leave your child hanging financially to face the consequences, or do you help them get good representation to reduce the consequences? The real answer is probably that none of us know until it happens. My point is that we help our kids when they slip and fall. When they do not fall, do we love them less? Don’t worry about equality and fairness in how you raise your kids. Make the best decisions you can with the information, resources and situation and hope for the best.
Thank you to everyone for the thoughtful input. I am surprised by the number of responses that advocated for paying the full shebang for college, but I also lean in that direction. It doesn’t seem to be the general consensus here, but maybe your voices have been suppressed by the deluge of “can’t pay/won’t pay/shouldn’t have to pay/don’t want to pay/not worth it to pay” threads.
I am not sure why I was even questioning the “fairness” aspect. @Torveaux you make a great point:
I realize I want to provide ALL of my kids with the best college experience possible, no strings attached.
Planner03- re:post 41- you have your answer. To me, that is the most important thing. Be clean and clear in your own head. Be able to look yourself in the mirror and the rest will follow (presuming that finances also work).
As an aside, S2 has autism. We have spent far more on his therapies and K-12 private aide than we will spend on college for each of the other 3 kids. There was never a question of fair or equal; we provided for his needs.
S1 was/is a spender. He worked a lot over the summers in high school and college to support nice clothes, meals out, gas, electronics as entertainment is our kids’ responsibility. He blew through our study abroad gift money in 6 weeks, so he didn’t travel much because his pot was empty. We made him take loans for grad school (though we could afford it) to learn budgeting and living on his own dime. He scrambled, but eventually came around. A year ago, we paid off his loans. He is getting married this summer and we intend to pay off FDIL’s loans at Christmas. Thankful we can afford it.
D1 hoards her money. She works less than S1, but she spends less. We increased her study abroad gift at the rate of inflation and she managed a lot of travel.She wants to go to dent school; we will cash flow her living expenses and have her take out loans for tuition, fees, books, and equipment. When she finishes, we will help her pay them off (but she doesn’t know that yet.)
D2 spends very little. She doesn’t have a license so no gas or many random times out with friends. She starts college this fall and will probably have about $3000 in her account from gifts and working.
Our kids’ skin in the game has been to achieve the minimum GPA needed to maintain the merit scholarship.
When you talk about the can’t pay/won’t pay threads, I think the consensus is that parent’s shouldn’t be guilted into taking loans or hurting their retirement to pay for high college costs, not that parent’s shoudn’t pay when the ability is there.
My parents gave my brother and I the exact same amount of money to spend on our educations as we see fit. My brother chose expensive private, I chose affordable public. I will have enough left over for grad school. My brother spent nearly everything on undergrad. I would say that is about at fair as it gets. My uncle kept a running tally of college cost for each of his kids and wrote two of them checks to cover the difference when the third had graduated. That seemed pretty fair as well.
Several will point out that rising education prices make this an unfair system. But its certainly more fair than paying significantly more for one child over another.
Whoa! Not sure how to interpret that statement, I certainly didn’t indicate I have a preferred child. I said S2 feels that way, which I think is pretty common amongst siblings. I even remember thinking my mother had a favorite (and it wasn’t me!)
My 4 kids span 12 years. They aren’t getting the “exact same amount” for college expenses because THAT wouldn’t be fair. I kept the 529s indexed for inflation and the cost of our state flagship. D2’s fund is a lot higher than S1’s was.
Actually they are getting the same amount adjusted for inflation, that is the whole point of of your investment strategy, indexing for inflation. I would say that is about as fair as you can be over that span, and 'is" the exact same amount “adjusted for inflation”. Good Job.
My parents did not contend with 12 years of inflation only 2 years, and it was crazy low especially once you took out energy cost.
Sounds like you and my parents are on the same exact page in regards to fairness.
This may change once they’re actually in college, but our thinking is along the lines of we have X dollars saved for the two of them.
If kid #1 gets a full ride because of all her hard work and doesn’t cost us a thing out of pocket for undergrad, she’ll get 1/2X for either grad school or as a gift from us upon graduation.
If kid #2 gets no scholarships, she still gets 1/2X, and then since we don’t believe in loans, she’ll have to pick a college that costs that amount + whatever loan she’s allowed to take out. (I want to say $5500).
We opened 529’s for our kids when each was 3, 8 years apart, with exactly the same amount for each one. Not because we felt it was fair - rather, for our kids to feel they are being treated equally money-wise. I told my daughter 529 money are essentially hers to manage throughout her lifetime - it would be her choice to spend it on undergrad education or grad school if she gets into a school with large merit aid, so she can decide for herself how hard she wants to work in HS. But in the end, if we have the extra money by the time she gets to grad school, we’ll help out with that, too, even if she spends 529 money on undergrad degree. After all, where else to spend the money we earn than on our kids
I haven’t read all of the posts, but I can tell you I’m not writing any checks for differences in college costs. I paid for expensive private for 1 son because he got a large scholarship. I offered a similar deal to other son, but he chose in state public (note, he did not choose OOS public that offered him a ton of money). There will be 10s of thousands in difference between their college costs, but they each got what they wanted. I may buy a car or pay for a year of grad school for the one that incurred fewer expenses, but I’m not counting exact amounts. At a different point in life, if they need different things, the reverse may occur. I don’t plan to track, other than “generally.”
^^My kids also think they know what the other is getting, but they don’t really. They don’t really even know how much their schools cost because I do all the financial aid forms and reconcile the bills and financial aid. One, the jealous one who always thinks life if unfair to her, is always accusing me of wasting money on her sister’s education but has no idea how much I pay for the sister, or what the sister borrows in student loans or pays for from her earnings. The amount I pay is really a lot closer to even than she thinks, and it is really not her concern. Why don’t I just tell her? I do, but she prefers to think she’s getting less. Just her nature.
We went for equivalent experiences rather than matching dollar for dollar. D is at Wellesley, full-pay. S is at Oberlin, on a merit scholarship. We don’t give our son the money his merit scholarship saves us. Instead, we make sure both kids’ needs are met, including money for books, transportation, extracurricular fees for things like retreats. In the summers, we expect both of our kids to work so that they will have money to spend on extras, such as the occasional dinner out, gifts, etc.
