UChicago Financial Aid conundrum

annikasorrensen
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:52:26 +0000

*Mostly, I’m horrified that your father is not stepping up to the plate to contribute to your education if he has enough money to make your “profile” this way. I’m actually surprised more of the adults here haven’t commented on that and not your desire for a better package at Chicago.
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I don’t know what the split would be but not everyone believes it is a parent’s duty or obligation to provide for college if he or she has the funds. For the sake of this comment, let’s assume the parent has enough funds, retirement is on track, and is able to live comfortably and support all or any other children he or she brought into this world or has chosen to be responsible for through marriage, adoption, etc. That list is a very long set of “ifs”–especially the retirement account, which many parents forgo and instead pay for their kids’ colleges instead which I do think is a foolhardy mistake. Chances are this father does not have a good retirement fund. But let’s assume otherwise for now.

There are plenty of parents who believe that a child of 18 is now an adult, and considering the average child will live to the age of 75+, there are plenty of ways to get a college degree without using the sweat equity of the parent. Two obvious ones are to do service in the military or to work and do other jobs until the student turns 24 and can be determined independent. The pricing-system for universities is beyond ridiculous and the only reason it costs upwards of 25 - 55K for many colleges is that college has become a 4-year country-club experience with state of the art gym facilities, dorm rooms that are more like upscale apartments, and new mega-buildings being built as fast as one can say boo. Not every college is doing this, but the majority of them are.

Also problematic is the assumption that every adult child with enough smarts to get into a college should go to college (and at any cost). There are countries that have set up a much different higher-education system, such as in Germany, where many young adults go off to trade schools to learn a trade and make a good living from that route. We have created a society here in the USA that has in many ways over-emphasized the importance and need of a college education–nevermind the college dropouts, the graduates who come out with 100,000+ in debt, the Basketweaver Major who will never in his or her life weave a single basket for pay and the idea was never reasonable in the first place.

Yes, there are many reasons why a parent might decide that the costs of higher education are not “worth it” and frankly, in a free land, that is the parent’s right. There are simply OTHER WAYS OF SEEING the situation… and someone can have an opinion about it, even a very angry judgmental opinion, but I will stand here and represent for those voices who just might be seeing it differently.