@lvvcsf : I agree.
If the parent promised and has money, and the kid made a list according to what the parent said, then yes the parent has an obligation toward their kid.
It’s the parents’ job to check costs and figure out what’s affordable, and communicate that to their kids.
First gen parents may not know but other parents, especially middle class parents, can’t have missed the talk about college costs. There was a whole political campaign about free tuition instate public universities (for all or for some) and all these “disaster loan” articles perennially in the news.
So, its normal if the cost of college comes as a shock to parents - but it’s not normal if it comes as a shock in the spring of senior year.
Parents who say “apply wherever you want, we’ll handle it” or “we’ll figure it out”, only to turn around in March and tell their kid “sorry I’m not paying” or “sorry that’s not possible” are just as bad as the parents who don’t care about parent loans. It doesn’t take more than a high school financial literacy class to know about loans and to tell your child right off the bat, even before you know the cost of college, “I won’t take loans for you”. At least the kid has some sense of what’s possible or not. (How many kids on these boards think that “everyone” takes big loans, that they can take whatever they want, that their parents will be approved…? If loans are off the table the process becomes more real.)
So, in my opinion, if you promised to pay and have the money, yes you should honor that promise.
Should you honor a hastily/rhoughtlessly made promise, ie., should you take on a parent plus/co-signed loan just because you said you’d pay? In my opinion parents absolutely shouldn’t and, as mentioned above, should admit they made an honest mistake - but should be ready to help with a Gap year or the NACAC May List.
It doesn’t stop at “I made a mistake”. The parents are then responsible for helping their child and clean up the mistake.
(Some parents may think of taking on loans as cleaning up the mistake rather as compounding it, though.)