It is no different than telling (or implied) your employees on what’s the minimum standards for them to hold on to their jobs. Some employees need it to motivate them and some do not. I am someone who likes to lay everything on the table so there are not surprises. I told my girls that they needed minimum 3.0 for me to pay for their private school and 3.5 to live in their sororities.
When they were in K-12, I used to tell them that if they didn’t take advantage of their private school (by getting good grades) then they could go to our very good public school. After a while they just understood there were certain expectations to enjoy certain things in life. Nothing comes for free. Their approach to work is the same now - they know they have to work hard to excel in order to keep the jobs they have.
And just because a kid is super-motivated in high school doesn’t mean she will be in college. I was burnt out from making straight As in high school and playing piano competitively, so I went a little wild in college. I turned myself around and ended up doing well, but some kids in my shoes don’t. I think it’s good for kids to know what your expectations are for them when you’re shelling out a lot of money.
Our children were told that we’d cover the cost of any college they wanted to attend. If the cost was less than the amount in their 529, the remainder could go to graduate school or eventually be converted to a Roth IRA in their name. If the cost exceeds the 529 (which is likely) we’ll just pay the balance from income or other savings. Grad school/professional school will be on them although we are likely to provide some support if they go that route (but we won’t pick up the whole tab like we’ve done for college). We didn’t tie support to maintaining a specific gpa however we’ve discussed that a gpa below a 3.0 could necessitate a conversation about what is going on. My kids are responsible for their own spending money and are required to have a summer job.
We’ve told our kids that we can pay the equivalent of tuition, room, & board at an in state public university. So if they want something more expensive than that, they’ll need merit scholarships because we do not qualify for financial aid.
We are in similar situation. Too much income for any financial aid and too little to really afford full fare out of town. Our son has our college savings account as a base. He covers the excess which means working, getting merit and whatever the hockey coach will get for him. When I looked at the higher end schools, you have the mix of the uber wealthy and the ones with low levels of income. Middle income is totally squeezed out.
Just an update. My son made the decision to go to school locally (Montreal). He realized that playing a sport for 4 more years at university would handcuff him financially. He wants to go to grad school (maybe medicine) and realized all the money he earns for his summer job can be for his future (since he can live at home during university).
Very hard decision for him. He is a bit disillusioned because coaches told him they would make it affordable but, when he actually drilled down on the numbers and hidden costs, he realized it was a sales pitch. It is super hard to rationalize the cost of boarding and meals north of $12K each year. We were honest with him all along which makes the decision his and much easier.
Neither of my boys was interested in picking out/researching colleges so I did it all.
I made lists considering affordability. I don’t know if either child has asked what college costs.
But there is also a certain part of the population that does not feel comfortable talking about finances/tax returns with their college-bound child. I know that seems to be the case with many of my friends.
A close friend of mine has a child going to a T20 this fall. When I asked what it costs, she said she had never looked. She assumed mid 80’s but wasn’t sure.
It has been some time since my kids were in college. So, it was before 529 plans, and we had been putting money away in some mutual funds since our oldest was born. It would not be enough to pay for our two kid’s colleges completely, but a good start. We also had high enough salaries that we would be full pay, no matter what.
I told them I wanted them to have some skin in the game and that they would be taking out the standard student loans, which they did. After that, Mom and Dad would pay. We didn’t set a price but told them that money would be a contributing factor in college selection.
We told them to keep up their grades as they might have to rely on merit money to attend some colleges. They did.
My son went to Cal Poly, a state school. No merit money, but tuition wasn’t too bad. The the San Luis Obispo area isn’t cheap to live in, however. He shared a house a little outside of town which saved some money. We made it work for the most part. What did catch us a little off guard was the 4-year graduation rate was only about 15% for his department. We didn’t plan on the 5th year, but it happened and made things a little tight as our daughter was also just starting college that same year. We did survive financially.
Our daughter was choosing between Cal Poly and an east coast private school. Much higher sticker price for the private, which had us concerned initially. However, they did come thru with a good amount of merit money. It made the cost between the two colleges about equal. And when you consider that the private had a 4-year graduation rate around 95%, the choice was clear. She did graduate easily in 4.
So, the that away is that the possible merit money from a private does make the sticker price not be as much a factor as it could be. Also, saving money early makes a big difference.
He made a really smart decision, that while disappointing in the short run, he will be very glad of in the years to come.
A close friend of mine has a child going to a T20 this fall. When I asked what it costs, she said she had never looked. She assumed mid 80’s but wasn’t sure.
“I mean it’s one banana Michael, what could it cost? Ten dollars?”
The big thing for our son is he plans to go to grad school and maybe medicine. And he realized having no cash in the bank and no college savings left after undergrad was unappealing. Our college savings for him are more than enough for local school (and we live in Montreal so we have have great choices). Taking on debt is a risk tolerance thing but, I see more young people shying away from debt. He loves the sport which is the hard part. And it is the politics of that part which sucks.
D23 grew up in California but we live now on the east coast. She applied and was accepted to San Diego State and CSUN. While their annual tuitions were affordable for us, especially compared to the UCs and privates, we put them aside once we figured out that few students graduate in four years and needed to base the COA on graduating in five years.
CSUN is not that selective, so it is not surprising that students who were admitted with 2.5-2.7 HS GPA need more than 8 semesters to finish. But if your student had a 4.0 HS GPA, her risk of needing more than 8 semesters is lower than that of a typical CSUN student.
One of my great surprises in looking at schools was how many schools have such low graduation rates within 4 years. To be honest in looking at course catalogues, some schools need major streamlining of course selection.
Can he play club hockey in college? We have a friend whose S played club hockey at UMich, and he really enjoyed it.
It depends very much on how selective those schools are, as @ucbalumnus points out:
D23 had a 95% HS GPA and applied to CSUN for the film program but it’s my understanding that most students at SDSU, CSUN and other state schools take more than four years to graduate because of how crowded the schools are and it’ll take you longer to get the classes you need, not because they’re unmotivated.
He can and was offered spots on handful of Division 1 Club teams but, the cost was still pretty high even after merit scholarships. Two offers were from club teams in the midwest/west but, the schools were very small and I was very wary of their academics. It is a bit of a negotiating game (he is 19 so still naive). I always look at universities like hotels. If you have capacity, you price your room at variable cost to fill up the empty spaces. So I suspect he will get better offers still.
We took a very different path with both of our kids. Our conversation was making sure that the school was a good fit and that we’d make the math work out. Also our expectation was that they’d take out the max allowable for federal loans and we would cover their payments since we viewed this as as to adjust the cash flow. We also took out Parent Plus loans for the same reason.
But your circumstances may very, both DW and I had very stable jobs so this was the plan that made the most sense for us.
I will shed more light (lesson learned from my son) on my son’s experience. We had a family budget going in. My son was recruited by a few hockey coaches. Visited and skated with a couple of teams. Got multiple acceptances and merit awards. He narrowed it down to 1 that he liked and fit our budget based on the original letter and cost breakdown they sent him for his F1 VISA. In May, we began to see inconsistencies in what he was offered and the school’s web site. So he emailed international admissions, financial aid etc… to get an official cost break down before he accepted. We noticed, for example, that the base tuition in the letter was $6K lower than what was on the school’s site for 2024-25. Secondly, one scholarship said up to $10K, when the scholarship he won was supposed to bring the out-of-state rate down to state rate (more than $10K).
Finally, the coach got involved. Get this. The original tuition they quoted was based on 12 credits. Good grief. He would need 5 years to graduate but, his awards were for 1 plus 3 renewable. Secondly, tuition rates were bumped up 8% since January. But, of course, the merit awards weren’t. And they couldn’t explain why they didn’t just quote him the state rate when that is what his grant was supposed to be for!
We haven’t determined if this was incompetence by the school or deliberately misleading. My son basically decided to accept an offer at a hometown school (put his money in the bank for grad school). This needless to say was such a disappointing experience. We felt so bad for the hockey coach who basically lost a player at the 11th hour. The sad part is the school has an enrollment issue over the years (4% declining) AND has struggled to get high end academic performers. He had similar dealings with other small schools where the admissions office did more harm to the school’s reputation than anything else.