<p>It seems weird that so many people are upset with this subject. And where does tipping fit in? :-/</p>
<p>From conversations with my working peers, the amount of assistance a parent received during their own education influences how much they intend to spend for their children. </p>
<p>I paid my own way through school. First, I saved during High School and worked as a waiter while attending a two year community college. Before continuing, I joined the Army for their matching funds program at that time. Then, borrowing as much as I could borrow, I attended a local regional college while working the 11PM to 7AM shift as an armed guard at JFK and living at home.</p>
<p>The debt I incurred (and it was small by today’s standards) was a heavy burden while starting my career/life. My parents were proud and liked to say it taught me something, but in reality it didn’t. All it taught me was being poor really sucked. I tend to believe most already know this fact.</p>
<p>No child of mine will start his career and life with education debt. The world has become too competitive and education costs are too massive for a young person, just starting out, to handle.</p>
<p>The suggestion was that most people take their cues about how much to tip by determining how much everyone else tips, and adjusting accordingly. Further, maybe the same could be applied to how much parents contribute to a child’s college education. Perhaps, if you are questioning how much to contribute for your child’s college, you would gauge according to what others do.</p>
<p>Many of us don’t give a darn what everyone else does.</p>
<p>I don’t see a connection between tipping and how much one invests-in/financially-assists their child.</p>
<p>I was a waiter back in the day. It got me through community college. </p>
<p>My feeling about the percentage is it should not increase over time. The cost of food increases with the cost of living, so the tip tends to rise accordingly. </p>
<p>I tip 15%, even if the service is poor. They could be learning or having a bad day. I only lower the tip if they are nasty to me. I only increase the tip if I’m given something for free. I increase by the amount that “something” would cost.</p>
<p>I’m not swayed by what others may contribute to their kids’ college costs, and I can’t imagine that most people would be.</p>
<p>We’ve always felt that college was an obligation to our children that they would hopefully play forward. Neither needed “skin in the game” to appreciate what they had, or to do well. They are both very frugal with their money, as they were with ours when we were supporting them in school. Personally, I feel that a sense of entitlement comes from how your kids are raised, not with how much they are given monetarily, for college or otherwise. At least, that’s been our experience.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing the article. Here are a couple of tidbits from the article.</p>
<p>Median debt load for schools specializing in design, art or music averages $21,576. Median debt load for graduates of research universities is $18,100 vs $19,445 for liberal arts schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think knowing what others are contibuting is helpful, unless they are in the same fianancial situation as you are, and even then, it is a personal thing . I live in a communty and my kids went/go to schools where most of the parents pay it all. My kids go to private school, so the money allocated from the budget to pay that just continues on through college, and most of the parents I know make or have enough that they can pay the extra right on up to a $60K+ tab.</p>
<p>But that isn’t relevant to me or my kids Others don’t have as as many kids as we have, they may make more money, have investments, inheritances, family money that we don’t have. They may have a house that they bought for a lot less than we paid, their family could have helped with buying a house, they may have put a large down payment on their home. Trying to count other people’s money is really a useless activiy, IMO. We have certain obligations that we took upon ourselves, certain priorities and certain luxuries that others have not. We’ve also saved in ways that others are not willing to do. So what anyone can or can’t, will or won’t pay for college is a whole other thing. </p>
<p>I don’t think it has anything to do with tipping. You can control the cost of restaurant meals and tips by adjusting the frequency of them and where you eat. When you commit to a college, you are pretty much stuck for the cost for at least 4 years. Though there is the option to tell your kid you can’t pay anymore and require him to transfer, that is a whole other thing than just deciding not go back to a given eatery. Plus you really don’t have to tip at all, if you left your wallet at home and all you have is barely enough to pay the tab. Bad form, rude, but yes, you can do it. Can’t tell a college you can’t pay. The magnitude is also such that college really goes into the category of major family expenses, like buying a house. </p>
<p>I can also tell you all, that whatever you budget, you will likely end up paying more, because stuff happens. Son just called me with an ankle injury. He’ll have to have it looked at and if it 's an issue, the high deductible will have to paid for the medical treatment. Sigh. And I don’t quarrel about these things because my kids are likely not to get medical care if I do,and it’s important to me that they do. Things also tend to happen on the homefront as well to make these hefty payments difficult to make.</p>
<p>I know for myself I’m paying for the 1st 4 yrs. after that she’ll have to get loans for Grad school. It’s very hard…I’m working myself to the bone. Like right now my break is over and back to the computer I go!! LOL!!! …really it’s not funny :(</p>
<p>It’s certainly more expensive now than it was in the 80s, and most kids are simply raised differently, and many have higher expectations than when I was going to college. I do agree that college shouldn’t get in the way of retirement, but it’s tough to hear when people talk about all the ways they spend money while their kids are struggling to pay for school. I’d rather leave my kids with an education than with an inheritance, but I’m hoping I can do some of both. It certainly a personal/family decision, and there’s not 1 size for everyone.</p>
<p>We paid/ are paying our EFC for each.
Grad school they are on their own.
Neither H or I attended a 4 yr college but we wanted our kids to have that opportunity.</p>
<p>Basically we are paying everything for D at private U. For S, he got significant merit aid and we paid everything not covered by it. Both kiddos graduated debt-free and without having to touch their savings accounts. For D, it has been 4.5 years of school plus 3 semesters of CC. D has cost a lot more but neither has grumbled. </p>
<p>We have still contributed to retirement accts and paid off our mortgage. No regrets. If either kiddo needs help with grad school we will see if we can help. </p>
<p>It seems irrelevant to us how much others decide to contribute and/or volunteer and/or tip. We have never gotten a penny of FAid for our kids. </p>
<p>H and I each paid our way thru college but we think that’s also irrelevant and want our kids to pay it forward and put the grand kids thru school.</p>
<p>Our D says she prefers her education over an inheritance but we are also hoping to leave both kids some inheritance, perhaps in the form of helping them with a significant downpayment on a place to live so they can move back to HI.</p>
<p>A small amount of debt would be okay, but if it was going to be a significant amount, I’d definitely be willing to continue working to help them keep it to a minimum. But ask me again in a few years… I may have become a lot more crotchety by then. :)</p>
<p>We contributed enough so that our kids, who earned generous scholarships, could graduate debt-free. That was our gift to them…now they’re on their own!</p>
<p>Last child is on near-full ride, so with his co-op earnings, he is paying his own way easily. As the youngest, he may have been somewhat babied, so I think it’s good for him to be independent at this point. This is nice for us too, of course, but we would have gladly paid for him if he needed the money.</p>
<p>We could never live a lavish lifestyle while our kids went into debt for college. Then you hear of kids struggling to pay for a house, or their own kids’ medical bills, while still trying to pay off those college loans.</p>
<p>We saved to pay the cost of four years at instate public u’s which both sons happily attended. Graduated debt free with some money leftover in their college savings accts. to start "life’ with.</p>