When our kids were born, my spouse and I started a savings plan for our children’s college tuition that would pay 100% if our kids attended a state school. The problem is that now our eldest child is feeling dissatisfied because all his friends went to out-of-state schools, and he wants to do the same.
While he did get substantial merit scholarships, we would still have to borrow $150,000 to send him to a private university out of state for four years. We are not eligible for any need-based aid. We are not willing to co-sign since we have a viable alternative. His course of study is in STEM and we are beyond confident that he will be able to be employed regardless of the school.
As a matter of fact, he has already lined up an entry-level paid internship for his freshman summer. He is so miserable because he feels that the state school lacks “prestige” and that he is missing out on the college experience. My spouse and I feel we have failed because neither of us got this same kind of support growing up.
We paid for our own schooling and lived at home to save money. Our parents encouraged us to not go into debt and fed and sheltered us. We also think it’s incredibly foolish to go into $150,000 debt for the experience of practicing as an adult, something our son calls living in a dorm away from home.
Things are tense because of our differences in expectations.
What’s your take?
The Parent
Dear Parent,
Get him a calculator and a clue.
Your son, despite his intelligence or maybe because of it, has created his very own paradox. He wants to become an adult and experience life as an independent man — hundreds if not thousands of miles away from his parents — but he needs his parents to borrow $150,000 in order to fulfill his dreams of becoming an adult.
That is how I would present this solipsistic situation to him. If the price of his college experience is $150,000, he can pay for it himself. There is something so deeply contradictory about his request that it barely needs to be entertained. “If the price of being an adult and having the college dorm experience you dream of, take out a loan.”
The expectations part is easy. You don’t need to worry about his expectations. They’re his to be concerned about. If you are experiencing anxiety about your son’s expectations, it’s time to cut the cord. That is codependent behavior, and you need to be the adult in the room. Start by telling him to treat your money as if it was his own.
You have a rare gift. Nearly half (49%) of American undergraduate families borrow money for college, up from 41% who said the same the previous year, according to a report released in August 2024 by Sallie Mae and Ipsos. What’s more shocking: Only 40% of those families who borrowed money actually discussed who would be responsible for paying back the loans.
What’s more, three-quarters of college families used parent income and savings to pay for college, the report found. “Families earning $150,000 or more annually were most likely to use parent income and savings (91%),” it said. “However, 63% of families earning less than $50,000 also reported contributing from this funding source to help pay for college.”
You’d better sit down for the next time: Families that used parent income and savings contributed an average of $14,282 toward the cost in the 2023 to 2024 academic year. Your son expects you and your spouse to hand over multiples of that so he can have a dorm room and enjoy a social life free from his parents’ gaze while he studies.
A would-be undergraduate who wishes to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) should understand the very simple math involved in attending an in-state college and all the ways that money could otherwise be used — for a down payment on a house to an investment return of more than $500,000 after two decades if he invested in stocks.
It’s a simple equation.
Life = Expectations ÷ bank account.
The Moneyist regrets he cannot reply to questions individually.
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