Over in this thread there is a discussion about specific child support requirements. One of the topics veered into the legal and moral obligations of parents to support their adult children with their medical and college expenses. Interestingly enough some states do have requirements that divorced parents provide financial support for these things beyond the age of majority (18) of their children. Conversely, there is no legal obligation of married parents to provide such support to their adult children.
So, should there be a legal requirement of any parent to provide such support? And second, if there should not be a legal requirement, is it a moral obligation of any parent to provide this support to their adult children?
I know I’ll be in the vast minority, but I’m for 18 being a legal cut off for everything. I think the drinking age ought to be returned to 18 as well.
I understand WHY the courts orginally thought it a good idea to make parents support their kids in college and on insurance, it’s good for society type thing.
I think the sooner the kids get out and on their own, I mean really on their own the better off they are. Youth is a time for screwing up and making mistakes.
But I imagine most people now-a-days would disagree
If you are a parent, then that means that you have created a life and you are responsible for it. I also don’t think that responisibility magically evaporates at a certain arbitrary age number. Of course kids need to fly the coop and head out on their own and life their life and make their own mistakes and so forth. I’m certainly not advocating anything otherwise. I’m just saying that if the now-grown offspring genuinely and truly needs help then the parents should be first in line to provide it.
Where that line is drawn is left as an exercise for the reader.
Yup - me too. Well, the drinking age already is 18 in Alberta, and I’m fine with that. Either you’re an adult or you aren’t, and as far as I’m concerned, 18 is a good age to start adulthood. Being an adult also means you pay your own way - it’s nice if your parents can afford to pay for your university, but I don’t see it as a requirement any more than parents should be required to pay rent for their adult children.
I think treating young adults as juveniles past 18 is extending their childhoods far beyond what nature intended, to the detriment of the adult children and our society.
I’m on the fence as to college. College now is what high school was 50 years ago - it’s almost a given that you have to do it if you’re going to be successful and get a good job. That said, a kid can earn that money themselves, whether through a combination of scholarships and jobs or having a job alone.
However, I do think that parents are obligated to cover their kids’ medical expenses morally, especially if it’s a dire-need situation.
From a personal perspective, I’m working my butt off to provide for my kids’ college. I don’t want them to start off their adult lives in debt. However, I do want them to have some appreciation for how expensive college is and that they need to work hard for the things they want and need.
As for medical, I’d generally try cover my kids’ medical needs if they needed it, as long as it was medically necessary. However, I don’t think it’s valuable to go into all the what ifs. Oh, yeah, what if you had to choose between food and cover your kids’ medical needs? What if X, Y or Z? I think it should be obvious that common sense should be applied in any situation.
I think that mostly it’s a moral obligation, and in most cases it shouldn’t be a legal obligation. My husband and I gave some support to our daughter through college, but she also worked and got some student loans for the rest. I think that ASSISTANCE is good, but I’m sure that our daughter felt more invested in her education because she had to pay part of it herself. And I know that a lot of kids (and to me, anyone under about 25 is still a kid) just laugh off their classes if someone else is paying for them, because if they flunk a class, then Mommy and Daddy will just pay for another semester. A student who has to pay or partially pay for each class will usually be more serious about studying.
If you can pay for it, sure. My parents cut me off in the middle of schooling, without prior notice (they were upset with me) and while I have railed about it all my life I have never thought they shouldn’t have been allowed to do it.
College expenses I think are a moral obligation for the first four years out of high school, assuming the kid has the aptitude for college. When I went back to college at 38, I didn’t expect my parents to pick up the tab. I don’t believe in Universal College Education as a federal or state funded mandate.
My parents refused to pay one dime for any of their kids to attend college. I was the only one who wanted it badly enough to figure out how to pay for it myself. Like Anaamika, I resented that and have railed against it for years, but I’ve noticed… in my old age, I tend to not respect people whose mommy and daddy financed the first few years of their adulthood, including paying for any and all college expenses, grad school, and/or professional school (medical, law, etc.). I do respect people who had to figure it out on their own.
That said, what I resent even more than the lack of financial assistance was the lack of emotional support in those years. Again, that might turn out to have been one of the best favors my parents did for me: they taught me to be self-sufficient and to find happiness within. I might be as self-centered as they are, but at least I’m not needy and dependent.
Bottom line, no, I don’t think parents should be required (and who is doing the requiring? who is enforcing?), but financial assistance seems like the loving, ethical thing to provide (see also: not wanting your kids to start out life up to their asses in debt). If the parents are able. If they are not, then rides, care packages, and emotional support seems like the least a parent could do.
If the parents can help to pay for college, they should. But that’s not carte blanche for a kid to decide they want to live in the most expensive dorm of the most expensive school they can get into.
I would hope most parents would let thier kids live at home and work part time to get through school if it was necessary. Full-time school plus full-time work is a very hard row to hoe.
You know what I think it is morally sound for the parents to do? Cause I don’t think they should just throw the kids out on their asses, either.
Have a talk with their kids about finances. About what they can afford, and what they are planning to afford. Help their kids with the financial aid forms. Help them get a job - not hold their hand, but guide them. Help them find out different ways to get money. Talk to them about loans, interest rates, what different terms mean, when to pay things back, help them budget when they are in college…all of these things that you can learn by being thrown in the deep end or you can learn from your parents’ experience.
This is only when the relationship is good, of course. But if it is good, this is all wonderful experience for when the kid has to buy a house, or a car, or spend whatever money in the future…they have had some grounding, with a parent helping them, in how to manage and acquire money.
I don’t like the automatic presumption that if parents divorce, the kid should get a free ride through college. I think the determining factor should be, what were the parents’ plans prior to the divorce? That is what they should be held to. I know that in most families, there is some discussion of this issue at a relatively young age. All my friends knew what their parents were willing to pay for by the time we were out of junior high.
FYI, I don’t know of any state that presumes the kid should get a free ride (I certainly didn’t; my parents contributed some, and I had a PT job and loans, plus I had a full-tuition merit scholarship). I think pretty much every school evaluates the family’s total situation. And I didn’t get to go to the best school I was admitted to, either (the U. of Chicago), because I knew there was no way in Hell I was every going to see more than a small fraction of what they determined my father was able to contribute.
The problem is that the current system assumes parental contributions according to financial ability, unless the child is emancipated, married, or over 26, so the vast majority of recent HS grads are going to take bloody forever to finish school just about anywhere without parental assistance (even the U. of Illinois is costing about $10,000 a year full-time in tuition alone), unless they have independent trust funds or something. I have 3 close HS friends, one of whom never finished college although he is a math genius, and two of whom took 10+ years to finish college, because their parents contributed nothing. The alternative in most cases is going to be PT study, tons of loans, or some combination of the two.
FWIW, both of my parents expected that I would go to college, and go to a competitive college, in accordance with my academic abilities. As both of them had done, with support from their quite working-class parents. (My grandmothers were the most educated, having finished high school. One grandfather went no further than 8th grade.)
Any parent? Some childen are mentally or physically incapable, even when physically adult.
Besides those cases, though, I’d say that no legal or moral obligation should be presumed (especially if you’re the child doing the presuming). It’s nice of parents to shoulder children’s major expenses, but it is distinctly above and beyond the call of duty.
It’s true that there is no automatic presumption in the law. But I did some family law for awhile, and in every case, there was no question in the mind of the judge that there would be an order for full support through college. Yes, they evaluate the total situation. But IME, if your family is at least middle class, the parents will be ordered to pay for college. I have never seen anything less than tuition, books, and fees at a four year state school.
And some wealthier parents are put on the hook for whatever private school the kid wants to attend, even if they never intended to pay for more than a state school. I know more than one upper-middle class family that happened to. In those cases, one parent wanted the kid to go to private school, and got the stingier parent put on the hook for half.
I don’t think that’s the right way for the courts to handle the issue.
I agree there should be no automatic presumption that the student should contribute nothing. I guess your experience has been different than mine. Dad could have easily paid the full tuition room & board at, say, the U. of Illinois or half the full tuition at NYU (where I ended up going, but only because they didn’t consider his income because he wasn’t the custodial parent, so I got a full-tuition scholarship). But that wasn’t what the court ordered, by a long shot.
And in the end, my parents spent more money suing each other for my educational expenses than they spent on my educational expenses, which was totally moronic. (They weren’t worried so much about me as about precedent for my younger sister, who, well, wasn’t exactly in line for any merit scholarships.)
Parents should be teaching there kids how to stand on their own 2 feet.
If parents have done that, there is no obligation for more. They may chose to do more, but no obligation.
Yes, college is expensive, but there are ways to spend less, to earn some and to reduce the costs.
The greatest thing my parents ever gave me was the knowledge, confidence and desire to be resposible for myself.
I’d say no, as long financial aid eligibilty has *nothing to do *with the parents’ income. Right now it does. So if Mr & Mrs Smith (with a combinded income of 500K a yr) decide not to give their son any support he’s eligable for aid on the same basis as say an orphan.
Right now a student’s “Expected Family Contribution” is based on his parent’s income regardless of whether they’re willing to support him. Barring a dependency override (which are hard to get) FAFSA won’t even process the application if it’s missing the partents’ info (which they have no obligation to provide).
Seriously being “disowned” can screw with somebody’s ability to attend college worse than parents dying.