You have been saving a bit for the last couple decades to get your child into college. The 18 y/o “takes a year off” to do stuff with friends, then comes to you saying “I want to go to ________ University.” You are aghast, the very thought of that school sets your teeth on edge, you feel your child may end up with an unacceptable education, or you have some other strong objection.
But you specifically set that money aside for your child to use for school. What do you do?
I’m kinda old-school on this. I believe that college is way too important for an 18-year-old kid to have all the privileges of decision-making but none of the accountability. If I’m paying the tab, then I should get to have some say over what happens.
So if the kid has his or heart set on a school that I’m staunchly against, I’m not going to stop them. I might even provide some financial assistance. But I’d probably tell them if they want my full support, they have to study at a school that I approve of, studying something I approve of. And they’ll have to maintain their grades too. I don’t believe people are entitled to money with no strings attached.
We often tie a gift to control of the giftee, but in this case I’d say I haven’t given my children the gift until they go to a school I approve of. If I put the money aside in their name then they’d be entitled to use it as they see fit. I wouldn’t consider that a wise way to save to for a child’s education.
Surely the first thing to do is find out why they want to go there? And the second is to weigh their reasons against your preconceptions?
See, I’m seeing this as the perspective of my nephews and my brother. And what would the objections are…
For example, my brother completely irrationally dislikes UF. Why? Not academics, but sports. Cannot stand them, always bets against them. He wouldn’t want his sons to go there, but rather his own alma mater (in another state), or even University of Miami.
Yet objectively, UF IS the premier flagship university in Florida (where they live). And I, their aunt, am a UF alum. I can tell that academically it is a good school.
So I voted for the first option, let them use the money as they see fit. Because if my nephews are accepted at UF (and if they keep up their primary grades up in high school they can be), I see no reason why they shouldn’t, stupid sports aside.
I agree we need more information. I mean, “My kid wants to go to Auburn because they have a great pre veterinarian program but I root for Alabama” is totally different from “My kid got a partial scholarship to Vanderbilt but wants to go full pay to Kansas State because his girlfriend is going there”
I was thinking more along the lines of either a place like the college of homeopathy, or a school with some sort of religious angle that deeply disturbs or offends you.
Oh, that would suck. Yet I firmly believe that people (including college-aged people) should make their own decisions (with my advice, of course) and live with the choices they made.
My father told me once “I don’t like what you’re doing, but I’m glad you’re not listening to me.”
Adults get to fuck up. 18 year olds are adults.
Live and learn.
My father had only one rule when it came to my choice of college: “Do not go to Berkeley!” He was fine with just about every other college/university.
I didn’t go to Berkeley - not that I could have gotten admission to it anyway (I wasn’t exactly a stellar student) - but I think he still would have paid for it had I gone to Berkeley.
Financial considerations have to play a role. A parent can very fairly argue, “I’m willing to pay for a $50,000 college education, but not a $100,000 one.”
I subscribe to this philosophy too.
But I don’t think parents should be obligated to fund ALL of their children’s decisions. If Junior is ballsy enough to decide he wants to go a non-accredited school that hands out worthless diplomas, then he’s ballsy enough to take out the loans to fund that disastrous decision. Meanwhile, the money I’ve set aside for him to attend an accredited university will be earning interest in account somewhere, waiting for him once he realizes his mistake.
I agree basically. the hard part of the OP is who is considered the beneficiary of the money. Legally, of course, it’s the parent’s. I suppose if junior was doing something truly ridiculous I would too say “go for it, but on your own dime.” I would try to save that position for objectively stupid decisions.
I am saving money for college not because I want my daughter to go to something called a “college” but because I want my daughter to be able to get what is now an unspoken pre-requisite for (though not a golden ticket to) a financially stable life.
So if she wants to go to an unaccredited bible college, or major in buggy-whip making, or do something else that has literally no path to a career, that’s fine. 18 is old enough to make your own decisions. But it’s also old enough to make your own money or take out your own student loans.
But if what she’s doing is generally good enough to check the “has an undergrad degree from an accredited university” box, I doubt I’d object to it. It’s not like I’m demanding engineering at MIT or anything. I just want her, if she has the ability, to be able to pass the basic cut-off for jobs that require degrees.
If my kids can get in and we can afford it, it’s fine with me. It does have to be an accredited school, though.
Me too. I don’t think I have any irrational hatred for any fully accredited, non-profit university, so I can’t see myself ever withholding money from a hypothetical child based on something trivial like UGA instead of GaTech. But if they want to be a research scientist when they grow up, and they think taking online classes through a diploma mill is a reasonable way to achieve that dream? No.
I gave the first answer, but I suppose this is probably where I draw the line as well. To take Manda Jo’s example ( with apologies to Manda Jo 
), I’m pretty okay with a kid following their girlfriend to K-State to study Spanish, instead of going to Vanderbilt to study engineering. Because objectively speaking they’ll get a decent enough education at K-State and that’s about where my own comfort zone lies. I might argue against it, but I wouldn’t refuse support.
It’s really only the likes of the unaccredited Bob’s Discount Kollege o’ Homeopathy and Haberdashery that pushes my “best of luck, but you’ll get no help from me” button.
I voted the first option, but a couple of caveats…
First off, I’m not a believer in paying a kid’s way through college no matter where they go. I’m not saying they shouldn’t receive some help from parents or family, but student loans, part-time jobs, etc. should be providing the bulk of the money. The kid should value the education and they should have an incentive to consider the costs by bearing some of those costs themselves. I know some kids actually see college as a way to avoid having to get a job and I think that’s a disservice to kids and parents both. College should always be seen as the more difficult option; the role of the parent is to provide enough support to make it possible, not easy.
Secondly, I’m not a believer in the idea of a “wrong school.” As long as we’re talking an accredited degree that will stand up on a resume or for later graduate studies, I’m pretty much OK with any place that would offer it.
It could be the reverse, though.
The parents insist the kid go to Jesus Is Us U, but the closet-athiest kid wants to be a nuclear physicist.
I went for bacon.
I wouldn’t pay for any school. Had I had children, I planned on going the same route my aunts/uncles/father did.
a) You will attend at least 2 years of college
b) You will pay for it yourself
c) You don’t have to graduate with a degree but failure is not an option
The conclusion was usually “or I will kill you”. Did we think our parents that cruel and capable of murder? Not really. But not one of us has less than an Associate Degree and we have way more more Masters and Doctorates than a normal family. None of us, it seems, was willing to take the risk of finding out.
Agreed that it is their choice within a very wide berth.
Forcing my now adult child to attend a school that is not his or her choice would be a near certainty to make it The Wrong College. The best chance (s)he has of going the The Right College is that he/she owns the decision he/she made. And if a semester or two goes by and it becomes clear that it was not a great choice for who he/she is, or for who he/she became over that time … well transferring is not so hard.
Agreed also that a wide berth still has edges that can be crossed.