Frankly, I don’t understand why college age kids would be discussing their finances in regard to their college fees. Or anything else.
Some kids, it is obvious, when they are driving expensive cars or wearing designer clothes. Others, not so much. That doesn’t make it okay to discuss family finances, IMO.
@CottonTales most college kids are very concerned about stretching their funds as far as they can so there are lots of discussions about how to do that (where to buy books, cheap food, student discounts for just about anything, etc). Students can become very good at doing a lot with a little.
We never discuss our finances with others, however when my oldest was starting college I suddenly found that a lot of people were very interested in how we were paying for it (it is an expensive private school). We never told people we were full pay, took no loans etc. but an awful lot of people felt they needed to judge and make comments. Not their business.
FWIW - both of our kids realize how incredibly fortunate they are.
KIds also hide the fact that they have a full ride for financial reasons. Things get awkward with wealthy friends who want to eat out or take trips together. Student financial situations are private and noone should assume anything about anyone else.
Most of DD’s friends kind of assumed. But many of her friends also don’t have any loan and we know too. The ones who aren’t well off chose CC. But DD has been working since she was a preteen. Always has a job beside school. She is generous but never acts like we have money. If you don’t know our family and see her work, you probably think we are poor lol. Some random people expressed pity on me when they see DD works at a store during covid.
Would be hard for my kids to hide our standard of living based on where we’ve lived. Also, the kids have been in private school for a couple of years and folks can easily look it up online. And some have asked how much the school costs. One of our kids received a full anonymous merit based scholarship worth six figures but we didn’t share that with anyone. Why? It’s our business.
That being said, we don’t waste money and never have. My oldest is working right now and always looking for more hours. My kids respect money and have seen our ups and downs over the years.
Our kids buy things on sale and even if we take an expensive vacation like we did last year, know that there are trade-offs.
The kids know that the cost of education for them is 1.1-1.3 million after tax. Crazy number for anyone to pay. They also know we’ll pay for college but not grad school. If anyone gets a scholarship we’ll figure out how/ if that will apply to grad school.
I can def see it being a tricky subject. I was fortunate to grow up in comfortable environment and had no loans. But I never had any awkward conversations about it. Some of my fraternity brothers worked 20 hours a week just to pay fraternity dues and college. There’s others that have multiple vacation homes/use of a private jet. But in the end we were all friends and never thought much about it. The only time I could see things being awkward would be times people would wanna go out to bars/restaurants that were more costly. I think in the end we were all college students and going to in n out was just fine.
In the USA, there is a taboo around discussing money. Finances are regarded as being more personal than health. People will rather talk about the results of their last physical than about their bank accounts.
There is also the fact that “making it on your own” is considered a virtue, so admitting to growing up with a proverbial silver spoon seems like admitting to a deficiency in that virtue.
Furthermore, for many teens from affluent families whose social circle includes people who grew up with less money, there is also a sense of embarrassment at having an easier life than their friends and peers. For wealthy kids whose social circle is mostly kids with less money, being more affluent may also seem like something which makes them being different tan the rest, which is also not something that any person likes having, especially at that age.
There is also the very real and justified feeling that speaking of one’s wealth can be construed as bragging. In the USA (and elsewhere), bragging about oneself is considered rude, even about genuinely remarkable achievements, while bragging about stuff which a person did nothing to achieve is far worse. I think that many full pay students feel that advertising their full pay status would seem like bragging.