Paying for college

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2000
Paying for college
61
Fri, 08-03-2007 - 11:14am

Next year at this time we will be sending DD off to college. We are making campus visits, she has taken her ACT test, and has college and scholarship applications on her mind.

My question...how is your student's college bill being paid? H and I have been discussing this for years and now the time is here to make a decision and make it known to DD. We would like to help her, but we don't want college given to her and we don't want her to be overwhelmed with debt when she is finished. We believe she should put tremedous effort into scholarship applications (and have strongly encouraged her to do things that look good on her applications), however, we don't what her hopes dashed if she does not receive a lot of gift money.

DD will not be eligible for federal grants. Any government assistance will come in the form of a $3500 Stafford Loan. We thought we would give her $5000 per year which is about 1/3 of the budget for the school she plans to attend. She would be responsible for the rest through scholarships, working, and her savings. (We are hoping she will not opt for alternative loans or ask us to take out the parent loans).

I'm interested in other thoughts or philosophies on this subject.

Thanks....Julie

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Avatar for suzyk2118
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-30-1997
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 8:26pm
I have to agree with you as far as the technical field goes. I'm also in the designengineering field, and when I got my first job our salary was based on an equation, on GPA, school we went to (they had different 'grades' of schools), and extracurriculars and how they applied to the proposed job (plus we had to have an MS or be working on one to even set foot in that dept). The fact that I worked free or for low wages at 2 national labs and doing microprocessor programming for the EE dept was of much more importance than if I'd held a constant job being a personal caddy or bagger etc. And at my current employer, when we got to see resumes, it made much more of a difference to see relevant experience or coop experience. It is somewhat of an 'old boy network' and what opens the doors can be very subjective.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2006
Tue, 08-07-2007 - 9:12am

I have a question. If your son is living on little (in today's standards), and your family saves rather than spends, may I ask what it is that you are saving for? Do you intend to buy him a car? A house? Do you intend to leave him a huge inheritance? Or is it just for a 'rainy day'?

I'm just wondering, because from reading your posts, your son receives quite little in the way of indulgences. College is a burden, I agree, and children can be a burden too at some points.

What exactly do you do as a family, though? From what I gather, church is a big part of your family's life, but do you do 'fun' things or buy indulgence items? I'm just wondering what you intend to do with money if you are not spending it for the benefit of your family.

Avatar for weberdns0
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2000
Tue, 08-07-2007 - 9:59am

I just read an article on this in the paper and it gave some intersting financial perspectives.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-21-2006
Tue, 08-07-2007 - 11:06am

Wow, windrush! Your post truly resonated with my brother's philosophy on life and money! My brother is the one that convinced me to buy a bigger house (which I love!) because he feels life needs to be lived and enjoyed, and yes, life IS short! Thank you for saying all this, as I was slowly going back to my stingy ways! Now I am reminded to "loosen up" a little!

Thanks!
Amelia

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 08-07-2007 - 6:46pm

We talk about retirement a lot-DH was in school until age 30 and then started talking early retirement about.....age 33! The man drives me crazy!

It seems that the predictions of how much money you will need are often based off never touching the principle. So you save a million dollars which is then enough where you can live off Social Security and interest and, when you both die, there is that 1 million dollars left for your heirs! Most of those formulas dont allow for anything akin to dying as you spend your last dollar which is more my way of thinking!

And they assume you will need some variation of your current income which? I sure hope not. As soon as DS3 graduates high school, I want a small house in the country-goodbye current mortgage and the taxes we tend to buy into to get the better school district. And I will stop paying for college someday...please.

So I do think one has to take some of the retirement planning advice with a grain of salt.

I like Scott Burns-practical and down to earth-he's the investment guy in many newspapers

But, I DO so totally 100% agree that no one should be using necessary retirement funds to pay college. That is way too much to sacrifice for your kids

Interesting advice on grad school vs undergraduate. Never thought of that but it makes good sense. The more we get advanced degrees, the more that undergrad degree is going to be like a HS diploma-and no one quizzes college grads about what HS they went to

Avatar for jbgattuso
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2003
Tue, 08-07-2007 - 7:33pm

I love your attitude :) I often say that you got to live while you can and I know that some of my attitued about helping my children comes from my DS's parents.

They are Old and alone and mulit-millionairs. They were "self made", although the first buisness that my FIL bought was with money from a lawsuit because my DH got pushed into a cement mixer at age 4 (was one of the first micro surgery's in New York) to put his arm back on and back together. Anyway....

They have not given a dime to any of their children except for college, which I think is great (DH got his savings after graduating from USNA) They didn't even offer to help us when DH got layed off of a job and we had two small kids. Did it make us stronger....no, it made us sad and DH mad. It hurt him so much because he would have paid them back in full. Anyhow, They have even decided to do a generation-skipping will (they hate me and the other in-laws) so every bit of their money is to go to my three children (which my kids don't know and won't) But!!! Here is the funny part. It won't go to them till they are 35 LOL My gosh you could be in the gutter by 35 LOL. Wouldn't it be nice if they got to know that their rich grandparents helped them with their education, or grad school or something....a first house maybe?!

I know I am rambling, but as I started this post, They can't take the money with them. I don't need their money and as I said, they may have alot of money....but they don't have love of a family. Not because they are stingy, they just think that kids should be on their own, leave the nest for good etc.. They never come visit. We go down to see them once a yr because we really want the kids to at least know who they are. Very Sad...don't ya think

Julie




Edited 8/7/2007 7:42 pm ET by jbgattuso
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-14-2000
Tue, 08-07-2007 - 8:22pm
That is sad, Julie - they sound like very unhappy people. And your dh getting pushed into a cement mixer??? How terrifying - does he remember it? Does he have pretty good use of his arm?


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Avatar for jbgattuso
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2003
Tue, 08-07-2007 - 10:32pm

"And your dh getting pushed into a cement mixer??? How terrifying - does he remember it? Does he have pretty good use of his arm?"

He doesn't remeber being pushed in. The mesh gears close on his arm. I will say that his father had one of those adreniline pumps and pulled the gears apart with his bear hands to get his son out of the gears. His arm was torn to shreds and broken every two inches. He remembers being put on the stretcher and when they picked it up, the arm fell off, hanging by a bit of skin. I will say that although he doesn't have memories, When our children have gotten hurt, stitches etc...he can't handle it. This is a former Marine, who has seen alot, but when his kids have been hurt, he about passes out. I think this comes to him in a form of a memory.

He almost died from blood loss :( He was so lucky he was living in NY City at the time. He had multiple surgerys and the arm really is in good shape. He only has Half of his left hand. He fought his way into the Naval Academy and into the Marines, proving he could do chin-ups with just two fingers from his left hand :) The scars on his body are extreme. They did a skin graph on his leg to put on the arm and went too deep on the leg, so it caused another scar. He loves to tell stories....Like it was a great white shark, that bit his leg and then he stuffed his arm in it's mouth to fight it off LOL The boys love those stories :)

His parents....they really are a sad pair, DH is the most loving son you could ask for ;)

Julie

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-28-1999
Wed, 08-08-2007 - 10:55am

I have read a lot of articles which say that if you have a choice of saving for retirement vs. saving for your kids' college, you should save for retirement. The reason is that your kids can take out loans for collge, but you can't take out a loan for retirement!

Also, another time I read that you really don't need as much money when you are retired. Of course, the big thing is whether or not your house is paid off. My ex & I refinanced to a 15 yr mortgage about 10 yrs ago, so my house could have been paid off soon. Unfortunately, then we got divorced, I got remarried and we refinanced again to get my ex's name off the house. This was 4 yrs ago and we got a 20 yr mortgage :( but at least it should be paid off by the time I retire.

Last week all our kids were gone for the whole week, and I thought about how little we would be spending on food if it's just the 2 of us compared to now, the electric bill will be less because of all the appliances, air conditioners, computers, etc. that won't be running, we won't have the expense of using a lot of gas to commute to work, buy lunches out, I won't have to buy suits, then of course we won't have to be supporting the kids, paying for all the school related expenses, their clothes, etc. So that is something to think about.

Avatar for weberdns0
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2000
Wed, 08-08-2007 - 2:01pm
You still will be spending as much or more on what you have because of inflation.

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