Many years ago I made a promise to my daughter that I would give her the “opportunity for a college education”. For the first two years she stayed in our house, had free food available to her, had tuition and books paid for, and for the most part had a part time job. She spent those two years in a community college and earned 36 hours (that’s 9 hours or three classes per semester).
She’s now starting at a real college, Southwest Texas, and here’s the deal I’m offering her:
I pay for tuition, books and an apartment.
She works 20 hours a week, and from that she pays for food, car, gas, clothing, etc.
She completes each semester with 15 hours of passing grades.
Is this fair?
It’s been a long time since I was in college, so I’m hoping to get some input from those of you who are there now or have been recently, and also from the parents of college aged children.
I think 20 hours is a bit much to allow for adequate study time for an undergradusate courseload; plus she’ll want to have a bit of a social life. I think 10 hours of work per week would be more reasonable, assuming you can afford it.
Perhaps you could allow for flexibility by saying that if she takes fewer credits she has to work more, and vice versa. Otherwise, yes, I think it’s fair. My parents paid for my education and made no such conditions, but I held a job and had passing grades throughout college anyway. But even if I hadn’t I would have agreed to those terms. As I see it, a parent isn’t obligated to finance their kids’ education, so there’s nothing wrong with attaching a few conditions if you choose to.
Based on my experience, 20 hours per week is putting a pretty big strain on her. When I was in college I took 12 hours per semester, and worked 20 hours per week, and my grades definitely suffered. After going to school all day, working at night, I would come home and be so tired I went to sleep. There was no time to do homework, so it was kind of crammed in on the weekends and on my nights off from work, and it just wasn’t enough time to review the material from class, do research, get in library/lab hours, write papers, study for exams, etc.
If you can afford it, I’d say relax your work requirement and be extra-stringent on the grades.
I had much the same arrangement with my parents, except I paid for my own books and part of my rent. I worked about 15-20 hours a week and was poor, and busy, but I got through and was also involved in a full course load and a time-consuming major (theatre). I also worked more during the summer to save up. There might be a few weeks during the semester she might want to work less, though (mid-terms, finals), I always tried to get some time off. But then, I had a job that allowed me to get some homework done if we weren’t busy, so it does depend somewhat on how much homework she has.
Plenty of kids work and go to college and pay for it all themselves. I think your offer is very reasonable and generous. (I graduated in '99).
(I should add that I did not get out of college debt-free, but I went to a private college.)
I think the expectation of 20-hours at a pay job per week plus 15 credits a semester might be tough to meet, depending of course on the rigorousness of the school/program she’s in and her academic abilities.
I went to a reasonably tough university and found working 12-15 hours per week along with between 12 and 16 credits a semester to be very taxing. I definitely did much better grades-wise during the semesters I only took 12 credits and worked about 10 hours a week. FWIW, my on-campus work study job did not allow any studying on-the-job. While we were there it was only to work, never to study, even during quiet times.
Not sure if this matters at all, but it might help shine some light on my point of view (?).
I paid for my schooling entirely on my own, my parents didn’t help at all (they couldn’t, financially), so I used a combination of need-based grants, loans, summer employment savings and during-the-school-year earnings to pay for all my school year expenses. My parents’ contribution was to feed & house me during the summers and help out as much as they could with fall semester books.
You are being very generous. My parents paid for nothing. I worked and put myself through school and am now paying back my student loans. So are you willing to adopt me.
If you can afford it, though, you don’t need to make it hard for her.
I agree that 20 hours is a lot of time to be working at non-school-related stuff. I’d say 10 is fine, and you can help more with the costs to make up the loss in pay.
I think 20 hours is just fine. I took 15 credits a semester, rowed crew, was involved in several political organizations, worked 20 hours a week in our library, and still pulled out 3.8 GPA. And still had time to party when I wanted.
If you are really worried though, make it 15 hours a week minimum. She’ll be just fine.
It sounds like the 20-hour work week might make things difficult.
Let me rephrase the question a bit. Given that her tuition, books and housing are paid for, is it reasonable to expect her to take care of the rest? Whether she works at all or not is not important to me, just that she somehow scrapes up enough to meet her needs. This could be done with student loans, odd jobs, etc.
I do think it’s reasonable to expect her to pay for the remainder, especially if she’ll have some summer savings to draw on during weeks when the work hours she can squeeze in won’t keep her in ramen and Cap’n Crunch.
My experience taught me a lot about how to manage my money and live frugally but still enjoyably. I’ve since forgotten a few of those lessons, but I’m sure I could remember them if I had to.
AND I learned to be a stellar cook, because I couldn’t afford to eat out much and wanted to eat more than ramen and cereal.
Just remember during the holidays that quarters and phone cards make great stocking stuffers.
I think the work is good for her. If school comes easy to her, it shouldn’t be a problem. On the other hand, if she’s the type of student that has to struggle for every grade, she might be better off working less, depending on your ability to help her out with her bills.
Goodness… My parents paid for nothing and I ended up dropping out of school… That’s a mighty generous package and I can only hope we can give our daughter assistance through college!
I’m still repaying loans for an education I never got the chance to finish
Man, I ould have been so happy with an arrangement like that! Due to the joys of divorced parents and support litigation, I got full tuition in grants. Dad, who could have easily afforded much more, chipped in a couple grand a year, and Mom, who had almost nothing, did the same. I carried 16-18 semester hours, worked about 15 hours/week, and managed to carry off a 3.5 GPA. I still graduated with about $10k in loans (in 1989), and was extremely sleep-deprived throughout. Due to space and logistics, living with either parent wasn’t an option.
I think your offer is very fair, although you, of course, know better than we do how much this will tax your daughter’s abilities.
Maybe I’m an exception but I went to school with a full load (12 - 16 credit hours per semester, except the last one which was 24) while working full time (40+ hours per week) and supporting a wife and family. Graduated with a 3.79 GPA. It certainly isn’t easy. But it is doable.
bnorton, your offer sounds very generous. I think having your daughter work part time is also a good idea. Personally, I had an extra incentive to not mess around in school knowing that every class I had to retake was one I would end up paying for (hence I didn’t end up having to retake any).
Your offer sounds generous an dvery workable to me.
How does your daughter feel about it? Does she think that it is going to be too much for her? Not everyone can handle the same work load and some people need more study time then others.
I think you sound very generous, but, is there a reason that you want her to work a certain number of hours a week? Perhaps you could just say she has to work as many hours as she needs to pay for her part of the deal. That way, if 20 hours is too much for her, she can cut back her expenses or look for a better paying job or work something out to have more time for her grades.
