My dad wants me to apply elsewhere... help me!

R124687
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:50:28 +0000

Alix: Yes, actually is DOES mean they can tell him/her where to go and what to study - IF they feel like it. Same as they decide what house to buy, where to live, and therefore the high school you do to. If they buy our car, they can decide exactly what it is. No one is saying that is OPTIMAL. But everyone will have their own opinions/ideas about how much the student provides input, and how much the payer provides input. If the student can’t pay, but wants to go to college, telling one’s Dad to “get off your back” is definitely NOT the way to go about making that happen. A college applicant is NOT an adult yet. Has not (for the most part) had a job with financial obligations, been in the “real” (working) world, has no CLUE how much money this education costs…no CLUE what nearly $60,000 a year really means. As for what I do, in terms of my own child, that’s irrelevant. But I will say that NYU is her dream school too. And there is little to NO chance that we can afford it. And I earn a healthy salary. But, what I can and can’t afford is NOT for my daughter to decide. And, yes, FYI - I DO have input in her major. If I’m going to pay more for an education than any home I’ve ever purchased, only to have my child return to my home after college without a job or any prospects of a job because she chose a major in which it’s difficult to impossible to be hired…and I’ll then have to KEEP supporting her…you can betcha I have input. I would HOPE most parents would want to work together. But they don’t HAVE to. And your insistence that OP put his/her foot down is irrational. If my daughter did that, I’d say “good luck to ya…hope you find a way to pay for that education”.

My asking “who is paying” is an “opener” so that OP understands that, contrary to some of the children answering on here…it is an “agreement”, and can require finesses, negotiation, give and take. Hopefully everyone can be happy. But that will never happen with ultimatums.