@ucbalumnus Agree with you there. As a high income family, my kids have rarely seen me buy anything without a discount/code or value assessment. Yep, even expensive stuff like a night in a fancy hotel gets a thoughtful review. We don’t care about designer duds and keeping up with the Joneses. The kids went through a phase where others tried to impart these marketing needs on them and they just rejected them with a laugh. Then again, there were kids in our town of lesser means and their parents often bought them $200 jeans, expensive shoes and much more. They never said no. And the kids became entitled and thought they “deserved” these things. The drip feed of parents is certainly more important that a single course.
There are many kids (myself included) who did not get good financial skills from their parents and had to learn them along the way. So, learning outside the home is also a good option.
If parents have dripped fed the notion that kids should work hard and they will be able to go to any college, that’s just wrong and sadly mistaken. Parents need to be realistic about their means. Kids will eventually learn the truth and it makes no sense to look at million dollar houses when you earn 50K. Or look at expensive private colleges when your budget doesn’t allow it. It also undermines the kids idea of parental truth.