<p>Are you paying for your kids education… as in are you paying for their college education?</p>
<p>My parents and my best friends parents are paying for all of ours, we figured it was because our parents were foreigners… and my other best friend was so shocked that her parents were paying for her…</p>
<p>i guess, is it a mentally that you (the kid) takes out the loans possible to go to school? I’ve always grew up knowing my parents are paying for my college education…</p>
<p>Lori, there are a lot of different responses to this question - maybe as many as there are families. We saved for our kid’s educations, and a priority for me has always been to get each of my kids through four years of college with no debt. (After that - we gotta talk.) But the financial advisers suggest that it makes more sense for a family to save the money for the parent’s retirement, borrowing for the kids education, which is low interest and which they’ll have a lifetime to pay off. And I guess when the parents die the kids will inherit the money then.</p>
<p>I know lots of parents with varying opinions on this. It’s not really very straightforward.</p>
<p>i’m no parent, but a hs senior just like yourself.</p>
<p>my parents/gradparents are paying for college. i know it is because i come from a family that essentially values education above all else (hyperbole, but only slight) my grandmother told me when i was in SIXTH grade that i shouldn’t worry about paying for college. </p>
<p>I think this mentality of paying for your children’s education also stems, in part, from religion. I’m jewish, and an inherent part of judiasm is teaching, and learning. i have family in isreal that has few material posessions, but they consider themselves VERY well off because their sons spend all day studying torah. </p>
<p>i recognize that i am very lucky, and i’m grateful. very. if i have children, i will do everything in my power to make sure they graduate from college debt free.</p>
<p>My parents paid for my education, I will pay for my kids. One grandfather was a German immigrant who sent three sons to Harvard, but I don’t know who paid. The rest of the family is pretty WASPy, but upper middle class enough to be able to afford to pay for college - that’s really a big issue. We are very lucky to have enough money to pay for our kids - if we didn’t our choices might be different.</p>
<p>My DS was able to get a full tuition ride. So, I only pay for room+board.</p>
<p>However, had he not gained a full scholarship, I would have most definitely paid his full tuition expense. </p>
<p>Since he is in a 7 year BS/MD program, I intend to pay for his 4 yrs of med school too. I am originally from India. For most Asians like me who have emmigrated to US, it’s a integral part of a parental responsibility to pay for children’s education. My parents paid for mine. So, I will do the same for my S.
It’s a debt you pay forward in the next generation. This way, each generation ensures enrichment of the next.</p>
<p>Well, nth generation American here. My wife’s family did not contribute one cent towards her education - or that of any of her siblings, either. My Dad paid for my first year in college, then a dwindling amount for the next five years (ended 2nd year of law school.) I worked and scrounged and lived cheap and graduated debt-free. My wife took 5 years to graduate, working part-time, and had a small amount of college debt which she paid off in her late 20s. (Of course, back then tuition was $750 a year, and you could rent a 2 BR apartment for $200 a month…)</p>
<p>My father helped me in college but he didn’t pay for my older sisters - which was a source of a lot of ill-will. We all disapproved of him for that, but I have to acknowledge - I’m the only one of the three of us who has been his family’s primary breadwinner ever since graduating. Does that make only contributing to my education pragmatic, even if philosophically repugnant? The older I get the less judgmental I’m inclined to be about my late parents. It’s a different world now, of course, and I think every young person who can go to college should, and nobody should have to start out life in debt if they and their family can avoid it. But college is so expensive, and there are so many variables…</p>
<p>We will be paying approximately 90% of our son’s undergrad (tuition, fees, room/board, books, and transportation to & from home). The rest he’ll cover via loans or working. I think it’s a reasonable amount (thank goodness he got a scholarship or it would be more).</p>
<p>My mom paid for most of my college tuition. Of course, it was a lot less expensive back then - I went to a CC for two years and an in-state public for two years. I was married, so she wasn’t paying room & board, just tuition.</p>
<p>I have an uncle who helped me a little and is helping my kids even more. My own parents were not in a position to help me and it was not expected. Same for my husbands family. I didn’t know anyone going to college, let alone having their parents pay for it. I didn’t think I would want to pay for my kids, but now I do…at least some days…</p>
<p>I came from a single parent family so scholarships, grants, loans,work study and social security benefits(when I was in sixth grade my father passed away) paid my way through college. My H’s parents paid for his whole way through (except he had to pay for his off campus apt. senior yr).</p>
<p>S1 is going to school on scholarships plus works part-time so we are not having to pay for him. We do send him spending money monthly.
S2 will be a freshman next year. We will be paying the full cost of the state u. for him. We started saving when both boys were babies.</p>
<p>As others have said, it depends on the family, and each family is different. To the OP: If you know kids whose parents are not footing the whole bill, you will be a good friend if you do not judge them (or their parents!) about their choices. (From the sounds of your question, I don’t think you would do that.) The best thing parents can do is be honest–in advance, not at the last minute–about what their financial capacity is. You’ll find a lot of debate on CC about what the parental obligation should be. I’ve had people I otherwise like and respect (in real life, not online) make negative comments about parents who don’t “care enough” to pay full freight. Usually, it’s not a question of caring. It’s just reality. So understand that you are fortunate, and be sure to say thanks to your parents! ;)</p>
<p>In our case, we hope to pay the full cost (OOS at a state university, but with in-state tuition due to a scholarship). Our S will cover expenses through summer jobs. It is our goal that our S, an only child, won’t have to support his parents financially in their old age. We think that’s an important gift. I know from firsthand experience what it’s like to have parents who were clueless about finances, lived on the financial edge for their whole lives, and now need their adult children to support them in their old age.</p>
<p>It is a family thing - I come from a poor WASPy family, dirt farmers from the late 1700s. My Mom was the first person in the family ever to go to college, back in 1949. Her entire family pitched in to some extent to send her. She and Daddy paid for me, we pay for our kids. Understood in that is the kids will work and make spending money, buy books, etc. It is a pay forward thing in our family. the problem is what Oregonianmom says - it is a lot more money than it was when my parents were paying, even though my salary is also a lot more.</p>
<p>S is fifth generation college, and right now is paying for his education via job, loans and scholarships. This is because despite H and my warnings, S bombed his h.s. senior year so badly that he almost didn’t graduate. We told him he would have to pay for his first year of college, and get at least a 3.0 (S is brilliant) for us to kick in $20,000 a year.</p>
<p>Since S is now getting very high grades at a tier 2 LAC, H and I will pay $20 k a year for his college starting next year as long as he keeps a 3.0. S had scores in the 99th percentile, but had mediocre grades throughout h.s. If his gpa had been decent, he had the ECs and scores to have gotten major merit aid at some of the country’s top colleges. H and I don’t see any reason for us to chip in more money because of S’s laziness. </p>
<p>When I went to college, I went with the help of scholarship, loans, work study and help from my mom (Dad was a dentist who claimed he had no money to help with my college). My parents had gone to college on their own dime due to the Depression. My grandmom had gone to college with help from her mom, who was a domestic. Her dad had gone to college, but had become blind, so wasn’t employed.</p>
<p>Yes, we are paying for our sons’ college educations. We paid for private school education since they were 3 years old. And we will (most likely) pay for their grad school education.</p>
<p>It is our gift to them.</p>
<p>My parents paid for my education all the way through law school. My husband had a liitle assistance from his family as well as the GI Bill which put him through law school. Ditto my father. My mother did not attend college, nor did my grandparents.</p>
<p>We would <em>love</em> to help our ds with college, but we just have no ability to at all. We’ve faced some circumstances in the past few years that have destroyed our savings. Our hope is to help him with a house or getting started later when we are on our feet again.</p>
<p>My family has been in this country since before the Revolutionary war- my maternal grandparents paid for my mothers college education, my father paid for his 100%.
No one paid for mine- I don’t have a degree, nor does my husband who hasn’t attended college. His parents paid for his sister to attend a university until she dropped out.
My brother had the military pay for his.
His kids are paying for their own, although his ex wife and her husband are helping.
My sisters kids are paying for their own, with the help of school based aid.
We are paying for most of the EFC for our kids, although they also need to get loans, workstudy and $ from a summer job.</p>
<p>We committed to have our kids graduate debt free and base what we will pay around what the state flagship costs. One D has merit aid which brings the cost of her small private down to a similar rate.</p>
<p>We have made sure tuition, room & board and books are covered- they earn their own spending money, etc.</p>
<p>My Dad was a first gen student on the GI bill, no one from my mother’s side had been to university; I was the first one of my siblings to gradaute, though the others all went for a while. Even though it was my Dad’s fondest dream, my parents were clueless how to guide or help out at all. I lived at home and they paid tuition ($600 or so a year) and I really wanted my Ds to have a “real” going away to school experience.</p>
<p>My DHs family also has no college background, except his step dad who graduated in the olden days 
So, technically DH was first gen.</p>
<p>My parents paid 100% for undergrad and I was able to get a full-ride for grad school (parents provided some spending money). H paid 50% for first two years undergrad (his parents covered the rest), paid 100% for the next two years, and went on to grad school under his employer’s plan. We will be paying 100% for our son’s undergrad education, but not grad school. He has to take care of his spending money, though.</p>
<p>I had scholarships and worked, my parents somehow came up with the rest for my public U undergrad education. I did not have money to do much or buy nonessentials, wish I would have spent more to do a few more things, buy more books, even if it meant taking out undergrad loans in retrospect. H and I have the money to send son so of course we are paying. He is low maintenance, we live a pay for what it is worth, not what we can afford lifestyle- he is not brand conscience or into the most expensive goods. My childhood neighbor’s parents refused to pay for their Ds’ college- they worked and took a lot longer to finish. Medical school meant summer earnings and a lot of loans, all paid off a long time ago. My parents also helped, but they didn’t have much money. If I had to do it all over again I would have not scrimped as much as I did- back then I had no vision of being financially secure and debt scared me. I think we have a “pay forward” attitude in our family (both H’s and mine), help the next generation as much as you can and in turn they (hopefully) do the same. </p>
<p>My father got his undergrad education paid for by the Navy- needed 2 years of college before they would send you off to be a pilot in WWII, the war ended and he got to finish school through the Navy and he took some GI Bill credits (the reason he is a college grad and his sister was a secretary…). A medical school classmate had done ROTC for undergrad, got med school paid for, then had to do a Navy residency and was in the Navy until he was around 40- those of us with loans (price tag wasn’t anywhere near as high as it is now, but then we didn’t earn as much in training either) are financially way ahead of him.</p>
<p>I am paying 100% of both sons’ college. I am lucky enough to be able to do that through money that my father left me when he passed away. I hope to be able to do the exact same thing for my children, so I will live frugally in retirement, and not touch the principal!!</p>
<p>My parents paid for both mine and my sisters.</p>
<p>My DH, on the other hand, managed through scholarships, grants, loans, and work study. His parents were not in any position to help.</p>
<p>We are fortunate, our parents paid 100% of our college costs and we intend to do the same for our kids. If there are loans involved, we will pay them. But the kids are responsible for spending/fun money. They will probably graduate with almost $0 in the bank, but no debt - in other words, with a clean slate. But we’ve also told them - we pay for undergrad, YOU pay if you go to grad school.</p>
<p>But we are fortunate to be able to do this, and each family is different.</p>
<p>My dad came from a large family (7 kids). His parents paid for the first 2 kids to go to state college, then the oldest were each expected to help next one or two younger ones, and so on down the line. All went to state schools in-state. Dad got loans from his brother and his sister, he paid his sister back in company stock when he got his first job and had a chance to buy his company’s stock at a discount, paid his brother back in cash. It worked out well.</p>