Another $0 for spending money here too. We also don’t pay for car insurance, gas, or parking passes. But do provide tuition, room, board, books, plane tickets home, and cell phones. Our kids both worked in high school and are both working in school.
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I’m glad to see your reference to the importance of developing financial perspective in college and early adulthood. It’s surprising to me to see so many posts with parents seemingly looking down at jobs requiring their child to serve others or clean. Not only do these jobs teach customer service, kitchen skills, getting along with others from different backgrounds, and the accomplishment that comes from hard work - they also require a young adult to start on the ground floor, truly understand what privilege is, and build independence.
I paid my own way (and borrowed) to finish 5 years of Big10 college and 3 years of private urban law $chool. I did not have a choice not to work and paid over $100k in 8 years waiting tables in the summer, working the country club beer cart, making beds, cashiering, selling tickets at the student center, mopping floors, and later working as a law clerk and summer associate at a prestigious law firm. The appreciation for that first law firm paycheck would not have been as sweet without the perspective of having mopped a bathroom floor, put on a smile to pour coffee at 6am, or chatted up a stranger at the checkout counter. These jobs were not dead ends. Somehow I managed to also cover sorority dues, modest spring breaks, and look presentable!
My kids have had a very different upbringing, although we have emphasized our values and tried to relentlessly balance handouts with the expenses that are woven in to the fabric of our affluent community. Since we have saved to pay all of the tuition/books/board and transportation costs, I am really struggling to justify giving anything additional as my oldest (and least financially prudent) begins college. While I can’t imagine he will ever have the same degree of perspective, this is a very helpful thread. I like the distinctions others have noted: safety net vs. “primary provider” - “adulting expenses” vs. luxuries (like concert tickets, even if they do enrich the experience) - emergency costs vs. opportunity costs - safety vs. recreational use of my uber account.
I agree with you 100% - it all comes down to what values you want to instill, and I hope I can give him even a smidge of the independence and satisfaction that came from earning my own upward mobility, truly appreciating those who work in service jobs, and being able to hang with both the kids from the Hamptons and the guys loading boxes on a truck. I am glad to be able to give him an easier path than I had, but damn straight he is getting a part-time job! 
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