<p>SerenityJade–my kids can follow their dreams all they want, they just know that we won’t pay for them to waste 4 years in UG and however many years in law school to work at Starbucks. They can do that without spending $300,000+:D.</p>
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Pretty much what happened to me. I made A’s and B’s in my math classes (up to Precalculus) and because of my school’s bad habit of “teaching to the test” and I would even say because I didn’t get mainstreamed until 7th grade, I’ve been forced to retake math all over again. Considering the major I’m wanting to go into (Astronautical Engineering), it’s going to take me six years to graduate. </p>
<p>It’s that along with several other reasons why I have to do community college for three years. And unfortunately, my grandparents (whom I live with) can’t afford to pay any tuition whatsoever and neither can my parents (my dad can barely pay for his house and my mom’s a drug addict living with an abusive boyfriend). Heck, the only reason why I even get to go to college is because my scholarship I"m on pays for free tuition for my community college.</p>
<p>…and now I have to get a ton of them in order to transfer. :(</p>
<p>I love how this turns into people trying to decipher why I act the way I do. Fun thing: my parents are fully supportive. I have no tug of war. The financial situation is not great but we’ll figure it out even if my mom has to ask Granddaddy for some artifacts to sell. Between my grandparents and my parents, we will make it work. Now how about you quit trying to turn my disdain for someone who doesn’t support her child’s dream and actually talk on the subject. I am so sick of people trying to psychoanalyze me. It’s not possible.</p>
<p>My daughter is only 10 and I can ALREADY SAY that the amount I pour into her college WILL BE COLLEGE MAJOR DEPENDENT!</p>
<p>I just hope that after I start having kids (which won’t be for a long while) and they start going to college that I can be able to pay tuition for four years of undergraduate college. I don’t want to put my kids in the same position that I am in since my grandparents weren’t able to pay for college for me or any of my brothers.</p>
<p>SerenityJane - Parents not paying $$ for college for a student to pursue their “dream” has nothing to do with how supporting or not they are of that “dream”. You seem to think that ability and/or willingness to pay for college is the same thing as approval of what the child is doing. When you grow up and have bills/other priotities you will understand why parents have to draw the line and say no.</p>
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Hmm, that’s interesting. Why do you think so many people are doing that?</p>
<p>SerenityJade -</p>
<p>A parent who won’t pay for X, but will pay for Y because of better career prospects, is not stomping on anyone’s dream. Rather they are accepting and acting on their responsibility to be the parent. Sometimes we have to say no.</p>
<p>GLOBAL, I do hope that in the next 7-8 years, you will come to understand YOUR child’s interests and passions, and will support an undergrad education in the field they are interested in.</p>
<p>An FYI…just because a kiddo completes a degree in a field doesn’t mean they will want to WORK in that field. DD has an engineering degree…probably something Global would support. Well guess what? The kiddo does NOT want to ever be an engineer and will pursue some other field in grad school (on her dime). </p>
<p>DS, OTOH, has a degree in music and is working In that field. </p>
<p>We paid for the engineering degree, and the music degree.</p>
<p>We originally told our daughters we would pay for undergrad and grad school was on them. Both daughters ended up receiving generous scholarships… And we changed our tune.</p>
<p>After college, oldest daughter did an Americorps program which funded her Masters. We helped some with living expenses. She now wants to work on a second, more specialized Masters and we will probably help fund it.</p>
<p>Younger daughter is still in college, but should she need help funding a Masters, we want to contribute.</p>
<p>I don’t feel we are being overly generous. The undergrad scholarships made cost of education reasonable. And both daughters worked/are working hard to finish in four years. Plus we can see where the Masters degrees fit in with their career plans.</p>
<p>We are not especially wealthy, but have enough to help with education expenses, so we do.</p>
<p>I might have different feelings about helping if daughters were partying their way through school, or continually changing majors. Luckily that is not the case. </p>
<p>And once our daughters are done with school, I hope to put a little aside for those grandchildren that are yet to be born.</p>
<p>“changing your major is a result of poor planning and thinking on their part.” - I disagree. There are many majors where it won’t be totally clear if it is the right path until taking those classes at a college level.</p>
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<p>I didn’t say that I would give her 0% support, but let’s just say I am not going to pay private institution amounts for a sociology degree. She can “state school/local college” that major. Even if she takes engineering, if I know that it will be a “hot” area, I still won’t pay a lot of money because I know I would not need to.</p>
<p>They are planning on help from us for 4 years only. We have told our kids repeatedly they are on their own for any additional years. d is on track for graduating on time or early if she wants. S is now double majoring in two enginering majors and may need an extra semester so we are planning for that. He is working as an RA and is paid a stipend and is saving most of that stipend and should have more than enough saved to pay for that extra semester if needed. Both kids came in with about 30 AP course credits. I am sure that without those S would not be able to double major and get done as quickly as he is planning. S is also taking a very heavy courseload - about 20 hours. Not many kids could do that with these engineering courses but he is doing very well – even better actually now that he is an RA and has his own room and can study on his own schedule instead of dealing with a roommate with very different sleep patterns.</p>
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<p>However, sometimes it is due to poor planning on the part of an undecided student. An undecided student needs to consider all of his/her possible majors and plan his/her first few semesters so that s/he can sample and make progress in all of them until s/he decides on one soon enough that s/he can graduate on time.</p>
<p>Again, people refuse to read what I say. Love how y’all use my age to disregard my knowledge and view that a woman who says she would tell her daughter that law school at a non-top-6 school is worthless and that she should forget her dream if she doesn’t go to one of those top-6 is not a good mother. A mother should encourage her child while guiding. Not stomp on her dream on the basis that she (the mother) gave up her own dream.</p>
<p>“An undecided student needs to consider all of his/her possible majors” - It would be great if they all could do that. But honestly not every hs student is at a point they can do that.</p>
<p>@Serenity,
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<p>In the real world, dreams have to be reconciled with economic reality. </p>
<p>Children are not the only one with dreams that need to be funded; their working parents are entitled to choose for themselves if they want to risk retiring in poverty to fund their children’s dreams:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/business/some-parents-shouldering-student-loans-fall-on-tough-times.html?ref=education[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/business/some-parents-shouldering-student-loans-fall-on-tough-times.html?ref=education</a></p>
<p>"There are record numbers of student borrowers in financial distress, according to federal data. But millions of parents who have taken out loans to pay for their children’s college education make up a less visible generation in debt. For the most part, these parents did well enough through midlife to take on sizable loans, but some have since fallen on tough times because of the recession, health problems, job loss or lives that took a sudden hard turn. "</p>
<p>Law is a terrible profession to get into now. Law graduates without a famous school name, or a supplemental expertise (i.e. law + engineering degree) are a dime a dozen. A lot of legal grunt work is being outsourced to India.</p>
<p>colorado_mom, that is where parents come in again, IMHO. My D1 pretty much always knew what she wanted to do, so that was no issue. D2 is a different story. So… junior year of HS we discussed various plans for summer programs the next year, and she decided to attend an engineering program to see if that is the career for her. It would make a big difference in what colleges she would apply to if she wants to be an engineer, and also make it important that she be really focused from the beginning to graduate on time. She decided after the program she does NOT want to be an engineer, which is fine. Point it, she spent summer before her senior year looking into it.</p>
<p>She also spent the last week of the summer reviewing the College Board Book of Majors, and tagging areas she is interested in. She has narrowed it down to Physics, or possibly something biology related. A few other items caught her eye (eg, architecture), but when we reviewed and discussed the options, it became pretty obvious that there were groupings in those two sciences that she is strongly drawn to. She also wants to be able to take studio art classes, but does not want to be an art major. So she will apply to colleges with strong physics & bio, and ideally also a good art program (that is secondary). She will take classes in both science areas in her first year so she can finalize her major (and she will take the math required to stay on track for Physics, too). She will also try to get some research experience during year or the summer to make sure she is on the right track.</p>
<p>It IS something that a high school student can plan for and prepare for. If not now, when? After we have spent $100,000+ and then they start thinking about it? No, thanks… not for our family. But parents have to direct traffic to some extent… I asked her to review the majors book and flag the ones of interest. She gets that college is a huge expenditure, and that she owns figuring this out. It is part of her responsibility in this process. She is not such a delicate little snowflake that we are going to avoid putting any responsibility on her for this decision. By the way, if she felt she needed a gap year, and had a plan for figuring out/trying something related to what she wants to study (and could self fund it if it did not involve living at home), I would be fine with that.</p>
<p>I’m done with people twisting what I said around. I never said a parent should necessarily fund their child’s dream. But they should emotionally support their child chasing it if they can make it work. Encourage them to have three backup plans, whatever. But actually support their dream. Don’t tell them to drop it because they can’t get a Harvard degree. Let them go to Cornell or UCLA or UVa. Those schools still have a name and connections.</p>
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<p>Unless they can somehow graduate within the top 1/3 or better* and the legal job market grows much more quickly than has been the case since 2008, you’re effectively encouraging parents and their children to flush another $200k+ down the toilet on top of undergrad costs/debt. </p>
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<li>No way to guarantee how one will stack up considering everyone’s coming in with impressive above-average/stellar undergrad GPA/LSATs and with extremely few exceptions, law students are usually graded on a curve against each other.</li>
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