Once your children would move to graduate schools(if right after undergrad), how much of their expenses do you intend to pay? College cost? Rent? Everything? Nothing? A percentage?
DH & I are just starting to think about this. Our S is only a Soph UG, but definitely wants at least an MFA. He will graduate w/ no loans to pay back, so that’s a big help. One of the things he’s concentrating his focus on is programs that are 50-100% funded. If that happens, then we would be definitely willing to help bridge the living expenses gap.
That said, S also understands he has a little brother who doesn’t have the benefit of a free college education via GI Bill. So he gets that we will be focused on making sure we are able to fund his brother’s education as well.
We’re not up for fully footing the bill. Some living expenses, help setting up an apartment w/ furnishings, rental deposits… that sort of thing. That seems reasonable to us when he’s already gotten a degree for free and there’s another child waiting in the wings.
very little. Son took a big merit package for law school (instead of attending a higher rated school at sticker). D went the PhD route, and it is fully funded (as much a starving grad students need!)
Two of my three got their masters. They got some scholarships and we paid the rest. They lived at home and we helped with their car expenses.
S1 did a doctorate but it wasn’t funded. He now has a ton of student loans to pay off. We bought a tiny house for him to live in and so helped him avoid paying rent, and we gifted him some trips home, a new laptop and a few other major items while he was in school. But generally, he did it himself.
S2 was in a funded PhD program (stopped after getting his Masters) and also received a stipend – which was so modest as to be laughable. At one point he only owned one pair of pants – with a broken zipper! – so I stepped up and bought him about five pairs of jeans.
But generally, grad school was on them.
D2 is doing a doctoral health professions grad program. No scholarships available. We are paying all her living expenses and I will often buy some of her clothing when needed. She is using a combo of savings and loans for tuition.
In undergrad we also split costs.
It’s a three year program so 1.5 years left to go. 
Yay.
My kid would only apply to funded programs. There are funded master’s programs to be found with research and talking with peers and faculty mentors.
However, she ended up doing a master’s as part of a funded PhD and was funded that way. Tuition, fees and health insurance are fully funded, but not living expenses. She has been a TA to earn her funding, for 5 years, and now in 6th year an actual paid instructor.
Funding was extremely, unbelievably low, in a high rent area. Some do loans, some work. My kid is very responsible but has a health condition, making an extra job impractical and also resulting in some extra bills.
I have paid for whatever she will accept from me. Or I just send a check. She never asks. One more year to go, during COVID, and jobs are going to be scarce at cash-strapped schools.
Avoiding loans is really important I think, both undergrad and grad. Unless the degree promises a reliably high income.
We have one kid in grad school — professional health field.
It’s all on her.
She had a full ride scholarship for undergrad, and she took the best financial offer for grad school. We paid for private high school for this one, albeit at a discounted price with need-based aid.
We are still paying for the car she uses, and will transfer the title to her early next year.
We are not in a financial position to be supporting our adult kids any longer. We are still paying down a tuition loan for the other kid for undergrad.
We are tapped out. No more, please!
My son’s program was funded, but I helped with things like clothes or shoes, which he wouldn’t have spent money on. He lived with roommates and a mile from school, with no bus route. He took on TA positions and summer jobs.
I offered to help with rent so he could live closer to campus. He did accept $ to eat out for special occasions. I paid for air fare.
Splurges were boxes of food delivered. Those boxes taught my son and his roommate to cook, which appealed to GFs and friends.
It’s all on D2 with her law school, except for a lot of incidentals and interests on her loans while she is in school. She got some scholarship money and has had some good paying internships. She has a job lined up at a well known law firm when she graduates, so she should be able to pay off her loans pretty quickly.
Both of my kids graduated from UG without any loans, so my responsibility ended there. D2 gets a lot of subsidies from D1 & me. D1 said it is because she is the baby.
DS is in a funded phd program so he takes care of most of his own expenses. We pay college student insurance for him. We’ve been doing that since undergrad. We would have paid for his phone if he had stayed on our plan. However our provider did not get very good coverage in his grad school’s area. We still send him care packages from time to time!
My D is currently getting a joint BA/MS, and while she’s on full ride scholarship for the BA, her scholarship only covers a portion of her MS. The gap is only about $5,000, and I am paying that out of pocket. She could have TA’ed to cover it but is super busy, so I told her to just focus on her current commitments. I am gifting her what undergrad would have cost at our flagship as a graduation present. She is also planning on an elite MBA (rarely any scholarships) down the road. That will hopefully be employer-sponsored. If not, I will split it with her since her undergrad was free. She’s an only child, so it’s not a financial burden for me to help out.
Curious as to the side comment that elite MBA programs rarely offer scholarships.
What is your definition of elite ?
We need to make a list of MBA schools which offer scholarships as the list on another website is outdated.
(I will have to find my notes, but just recently went through the process with another & found adequate scholarship opportunities–although we looked a bit beyond the M-7 programs.)
The kids always have known that anything past undergrad was on them.
That said, we had a prepaid tuition account set up that ds1 didn’t use for undergrad so he is using it for grad school. Between the generous package and the 529 monies, he will be getting his masters without taking out loans, just like undergrad. Happy about that.
S1 is in a fully funded PhD program. It covers tuition, fees, health insurance, and (barely) living expenses in a high cost area.
S won’t accept help, although we’ve offered a small bit.
Our kids knew UG was as far as we would be able to help.
Our kids have always been told that we intend to pay zip for grad school since we paid hefty tuition, in spite of their loans, scholarships and some financial aid, for both. But we hoped to help if and when we can. Neither went/will go to grad school directly after undergrad.
D worked for a few years, before applying to only fully funded programs and is now at one. The stipend is pretty low but as she is still working for her company part-time it helps in a high rent area.
She has budgeted a certain amount for rent but the place that worked best for her needs, costs more. We are bridging the gap.
She’s on our cell phone plan now and that won’t be changing.
We will also pay air fare for her to come home, and for family vacations when those can safely happen again.
S, till last year, was considering continuing on at his school next year for the 5th year Master’s program for which we said we would be willing to pay tuition.
Room and board would’ve been on him (his internships pay well and he works during the school year).
But now that is off as he has a couple of job offers in hand.
He plans to work for a few years and then go back to graduate school/MBA. He probably won’t need much help from us at that point but we will help with non-tuition related expenses if we can. No more tuition payments for us! We will stop our monthly contributions into the 529 plan at the end of the year.
DS1 is getting a masters which is not funded. He had lived and taught overseas so did not have a big nest egg. He moved home to avoid rent and living expenses so that is our contribution. He is also using one of our cars. He is working part time and paying his tuition from savings, work and some loans. We were willing to loan him some money, but not pay for his program. I would not pay his rent if he moved out. He is also over 26 so has ACA insurance.
Youngest is considering grad school. Not likely to be able to do that from home. Have to think about whether we would offer some support, given that his brother has had use of the car (this kid bought his own) and free living for last few years.
Clearly, it all depends on the extent of parental resources and philosophy as to how much they able or willing to help.
@itsgettingreal21: Regarding your comment in post #11 above asserting that elite MBA programs rarely award scholarships, I think that you will be pleasantly surprised to learn that MBA scholarship offers at elite programs are at all time highs. If Forte is taken into account, then MBA scholarships for female applicants is even more generous.
Top MBA consultants report an average offer of $115,000 scholarship offers to elite MBA programs.
On a personal level, we were overwhelmed with the number & amount of scholarship opportunities.
Most generous among the elite MBA programs are Chicago-Booth, Northwestern-Kellogg, NYU-Stern, Columbia, Duke-Fuqua, & Virginia-Darden. (Stanford & Harvard are need based only financial aid to the best of my knowledge.)
We fully funded four years of undergrad school at private universities. All of it except spending money.
For grad school, for both kids, we helped with living expenses. Tuition and other expenses were on the kids.
One kid had an assistantships, and the other had a scholarship for three years of five.
ETA, we told our kids up front that we weren’t paying for college tuition expenses beyond four years of undergrad. And we didn’t.
To start, we had a dollar amount for each of girls for college equal to 4 years at in-state COA. D1 received full tuition scholarship for UG LAC so we covered her masters in education locally while she lived at home. Still came in at less than the original goal for cost.
D2 had full scholarship UG so no debt and 0 expense to us. She got a tuition scholarship + some stipend for masters (humanities). She had a work study job for some expenses, we covered remaining living expenses. We also helped with tuition for her to do 3rd year on masters in preparation for PhD, but it was at a reduced rate. Now she is in PhD program. Full tuition and insurance plus stipend that is livable plus found a fellowship that pays extra. She is living comfortably with no debt. All of that also came in under initial amount we were shooting for.
Very important for us that they didn’t have debt starting off since D1 is teaching and who knows what D2 will end up doing but likely not huge salaries. We feel they both have worked to contribute both with jobs and scholarships and good financial choices. We are lucky to be able to do this for them.