I can speak only from my own experience. We weren’t affluent, but my parents were able to pay for my college. I paid for my own pizza and leisure activities. I didn’t feel a sense of entitlement. I worked hard. Each family has to do what works for it. If a family perceives there will be a sense of entitlement and wishes for its children to have some skin in the game, then paying for part of college might be a reasonable approach, even if it’s a very small fraction of the overall cost.
If kids take college seriously, no. It is a silly generalization that wealthy kids don’t do well because everything is handed to them. I say this as the second generation in my family to have college fully paid for. My parents worked hard and I’ve worked hard. We paid for our kids to go to college. I think that the cost now is way over-inflated, but both kids learned a lot, made many friends and contacts, and have brand name degrees. The brand name issue, however, is a serious one. My wife worked full-time through a state school and probably got a better education than I did at a brand name school. Also, with the current differential between typically hourly pay and college tuition, what she did then is probably not possible now. I look at the question a different way; what schools are worth paying for and what diploma credentials are you buying? I say that A grades at a lower cost school are worth more than Bs or Cs anyplace else except maybe Stanford or Yale. Junior Phi Bet may open doors. Not everybody can achieve this, but working for this without distraction of an hourly job is more important than making a point of work.
I have to add a coda based on a discussion I just had with my wife. In addition to a full schedule of classes that allowed her to graduate early, one of our kids worked unpaid in a university biomedical research lab during the school year and one summer in a lab at a different university. She learned a lot and got paper authorships in two different fields. There is no way she could have done this if she had to work for $ in addition. The point is that embracing privilege can provide true opportunity.
Absolutely. That doesn’t mean that you can’t help later if conditions warrant but this is such a strong chapter in their financial education.
I can speak only from my own experience. We weren’t affluent, but my parents were able to pay for my college. I paid for my own pizza and leisure activities. I didn’t feel a sense of entitlement. I worked hard. Each family has to do what works for it. If a family perceives there will be a sense of entitlement and wishes for its children to have some skin in the game, then paying for part of college might be a reasonable approach, even if it’s a very small fraction of the overall cost.
If kids take college seriously, no. It is a silly generalization that wealthy kids don’t do well because everything is handed to them. I say this as the second generation in my family to have college fully paid for. My parents worked hard and I’ve worked hard. We paid for our kids to go to college. I think that the cost now is way over-inflated, but both kids learned a lot, made many friends and contacts, and have brand name degrees.
The brand name issue, however, is a serious one. My wife worked full-time through a state school and probably got a better education than I did at a brand name school.
Also, with the current differential between typically hourly pay and college tuition, what she did then is probably not possible now.
I look at the question a different way; what schools are worth paying for and what diploma credentials are you buying? I say that A grades at a lower cost school are worth more than Bs or Cs anyplace else except maybe Stanford or Yale. Junior Phi Bet may open doors. Not everybody can achieve this, but working for this without distraction of an hourly job is more important than making a point of work.
I have to add a coda based on a discussion I just had with my wife.
In addition to a full schedule of classes that allowed her to graduate early, one of our kids worked unpaid in a university biomedical research lab during the school year and one summer in a lab at a different university. She learned a lot and got paper authorships in two different fields. There is no way she could have done this if she had to work for $ in addition. The point is that embracing privilege can provide true opportunity.
My belief was that paying fo