Anyone with kids in college-

[Dooley]

...how did you do it? I tend to get negative quickly, when thinking of how much stuff costs vs. how little money we have. My parents were poor, did not provide a car or an education for any of us. Dont think we expected it, but I have always wanted to send our children off with more than I was sent off with, KWIM? We have about 7K per child to give. Right now, my husband is barely working and we are living off savings. I have a teen graduating and another learning to drive, so I am wondering 2 things here.

 

1. What did you do concerning cars? Buy a used one? Loan them yours till they could buy their own? Make them pay for the car while you paid insurance? What?

 

2. How did you assist them, if you did, with college? (our oldest is starting with a junior college and will transfer later to state, thats the plan anyway)

 

 

I want all my children to go to college and be successful in life, I dont want my experience or my negativity to hold them down. Thanks for any input!

[Pamela H in Texas]

We had a car that just needed fixing up. It's taken us a long time, but it's fixed. DD claimed it as hers when she was like 10. Otherwise, she'd use the family car as needed. We also didn't put her in a car at 16 which is so common. She got her permit at 16. That didn't raise our insurance. Our insurance isn't going up much when she gets her license. She still won't have free reign of the car til she's 18 though. Because we completely support her volunteer work, we'll pay the insurance and gas. If she wasn't involved in that, we'd encourage her to get a part time job to handle her expenses or she'd wait to drive.

 

Your daughter should, it seems, get pretty substantial financial aid. A pell grant will give her plenty for community college plus some. And though not ideal, loans are an option. My daughter is accelerating her university studies in order to have less loan responsibility when she finishes school. Of course, you can help as much as you can, but life sometimes gets in the way. Maybe you'll be in more of a place to help pay back loans later too.

 

Of course, you CAN work on saving more and having it invested wisely for the younger kiddo(s) so you can help a little more.

 

In the end, it is the CHILD's responsibility to get an education. If they want to, they will find a way. There are homeless kids that go to college. Where they go, how they go, etc may change, but if they want it, they will do it.

 

BTW, college isn't necessary for "success" and doesn't guarantee it either :) I'm not saying not to encourage them in that direction, but it is important for kids to know that THEY can grasp the key to true success which has nothing to do with formal education or the amount of money one makes. I really think it's sad that society teaches otherwise and then when people make truly successful choices, puts people down for not beign worldly enough.

[katemary63]

When my older 2 were ready for a car, we had the money and bought them nice cars.

 

Now that DD17 is needing a car, our lives are different and we can't do it that way. She has been saving for about 2 years. She has about $3000 and we have about $2000 to help her. We are looking for a used car for her. We will pay insurance.

 

Again, when my older 2 went to school, we didn't qualify for finacial aid, not even low interest loans. We paid for everything. Now we do. DD17 is getting enough scholarship money and aid, to attend our local University. We are not going to pay for any school costs for her. If her aid package doesn't cover it, she will have to take out loans. But we will support her living expenses until she is done. She will probably get enough aid to live on campus, but if she doesn't, she will live at home. We don't want her working much, at least until she is used to college level courses - she babysits quite a bit and that is enough.

 

DS22 is also living at home now and attending the local U - he isn't done yet....joined the Marine reserves after HS and also has been sick some. He works 25 hours a week during the school year and well over 40 in the summer. He will be using finacial aid and loans to pay his school this year. But he lives here for free and we still pay big bills like car repairs and insurance and buy his clothes.

 

One bit of advice I have for you. DON'T mess with your retirement fund to pay for your kid's school. We did for the first 2 and we regret it. We won't be doing THAT again. We thougth we had plenty....but look what happened to the stock market...we have lost a lot and are going to play catch up. Kids can get loans or work it off for school if they don't get scholarships.

[JFSinIL]

We have only one car, a 10-yr-old mini-van (hubby take the "other car" - commuter train - to work.) our almost 18-yr-old, not eager-to-drive ds is still working on getting his 50 hours on his permit (he has 30 hours left to go...and has had the permit ONE YEAR!!!) He has another year of high school before college, and when he goes we will drive and drop him off. None of our kids will get cars unless they can get jobs, save money, and buy one themselves. Just isn't in the cards for us to give them vehicles.

[Quiver0f10]

We have 3 college students this coming year. Unfortunately we aren't in the position to help them at this point. They all work, have gotten grants, some scholarships and student loans for the rest. They have chosen cheaper colleges rather than going to more elite, expensive ones. We did buy/contribute $ a lap top for each of them before starting college.

 

Each of them has bought their own car during high school and pays their own insurance.

 

Edit this to add: Neither my husband nor I feel it's our obligation to pay for our children's college. We both went to college ( me briefly, Dh for a BS) as adults and paid our own way. If we had the # we would gladly pay for them, but we don't feel it's part of obligation as parents.

Edited June 1, 2009 by Quiver0f10

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

My oldest two worked in high school, bought their own used cars, paid their own insurance and gas.

 

Right now we are paying ds's insurance because he has so many other expenses right now, plus he is a good driver and a good student. We wouldn't pay for it otherwise.

 

After taking out parent loans for our daughter's brief stint at a 4year college, which we are still paying off, we decided our kids would pay for their own education after high school and we would provide support when ever we were able to without going into debt. This is what we feel is best for our family.

 

I think starting at a community college and transferring to a good state school is great choice, it really minimizes college expenses and does not make a great deal of difference as far as education goes. Unless you have an ambitious child who excells in whatever they set their mind to, then it might be worth it to find a specific school that caters to their talents. A child like that can usually come away with quite a bit of scholarship money.

[Joaly]

For my DH and I, our parents did not have the means or the desire to send any of their children to college. If we wanted to go, we had to find our own way. We wound up going in phases: working to save money, taking some classes, then working again, etc. We didn't want to take any college loans.

 

We have one son in college so far. We had saved money for him to go and always encouraged him to do his best so he could go anywhere he'd like. We felt that his working hard in school was his way of earning his way through college. This theory really paid off as he won full-ride scholarships at four of the colleges to which he applied. (SAT score is REALLY important).

 

We now plan to hold on to the savings and perhaps help him to make his first car purchase or a down payment on a house after he finishes school. The rest of the savings will roll over to our next child.

 

While we could afford to buy him a car now, we haven't. With his studies and his extra-curricular activities, he doesn't have time for a job. We believe that no job means no car. He also asked us not to buy him one: he wants to earn his own way. At this point, it looks like his under-graduate accomplishments will be paying for scholarships to graduate school. He really is learning that hard work is paying off - his professors are impressed with his work and perseverance and have made many opportunities and extra-curricular activities available to him with transportation provided.

[Merry]

The oldest one in college is working days and going to school nights. She will have to take out a loan in order to finish this year. She lives with a roommate in town. The next younger one lives at home while going to the local university. He has a part time job and students loans plus pell grants. They both have cars of their own that they paid for and they also pay their own insurance. The third one is going to Moody Bible Institute which pays for all tuition but unfortunately the room and board are not covered so my ds will have to work as much as he can this summer and then work part time during the year. No car for him. We aren't able to help them hardly at all other than letting them live here if they need to. None of them have had high enough ACT scores to qualify for scholarships. But they're all doing quite well and are loving what they are doing.

[bettyandbob]

Cars: I plan to go with the approach that my parents had. We all got licenses at 16. We were permitted to use a family car when it was available. We were assigned chores that required the car--grocery shopping. We all had jobs, but our jobs were within 5 miles of home so we all rode bikes to work.

 

I've told my son he has an additional requirement. He goes to public school. He needs to be on A/B honor roll. This slightly reduces insurance costs on adolescent males.

 

College: We've been paying into to the state savings plan for one child, probably oldest, but if he does not use it another family member can. We've also been lucky that my grandmother left a small amount of money for each of her great grandkids when she died 7 years ago. Even with this money state university costs appear to beyond what we can pay. Our community college system has an excellent reputation so this is an option for the first 2 years and there is good university within driving distance. If our dc live at home and start at cc or go the local university and live at home to save on housing we will find a way to get them a safe reliable vehicle.

[TravelingChris]

WE haven't bought cars and don't plan to unless one or another gets a full ride or it works out to be more economical. We help pay for college. So far we have spent 40,000 on our oldest son's college. We expect to pay another 12,000 or so over the next year and half. That was paying half tuitipn for three years and paying full tuition at a much cheaper state school for the final one and half to two years.

 

Now we are trying to figure out how to pay for child 2 and 3. We will be getting around 80,000 to pay for either or partial educations for both. Like we could get 20,000 a year for one girl to go four years or 20,000 for each girl to go two years. Both girls need stellar educations for their upcoming careers so that makes it hard. If our son turns around his thinking, and does get into graduate school, we may want to help him too. Finally, both girls want careers that require grad school so if the military won't accept them, we may have to help them too. I keep trying to do the college financial aid estimator and it seems like they think we can afford to pay almost 1/2 of our monthly income!!!! It makes me extremely unhappy that dd's won't be able to afford to go to most colleges nowadays. Today's college prices are regularly in the 40-55K category and we can't afford that.

 

Our big problem is that even with the 20,000 for one, that still makes private or out of state colleges difficult to finance. I keep wondering what is wrong with the college finance estimators since it keeps saying we can afford to pay somewhere around 45,000 a year. SInce we have no car payments and

[Dooley]

So far, you gals have reflected my thoughts. It takes work and do what you can. Thank you for your posts, it helps me to feel that we are in the majority.....:001_smile:

[Veronica in VA]

Since I have 2 almost ready to graduate I can tell you what we have done. My ds worked last year and saved money for a car. He bought a car, but the engine went 2 months after he bought it. So we bought a good used car and he will start paying us the payments once he starts his job later this month. We didn't allow him to get his license until he was 18. We also found it does pay to shop around for car insurance. With the insurance we had had for many years, the rates went skyrocketing when he got his license. We saved over $2000 a year shopping around and went with a company we have been very happy with in the past.

 

For college, we started paying into the state's college fund when both children were babies. We had opted to pay for the first 2 years, then they can pay for the last 2 years. So college is paid for and so are the textbooks. If the children want to go past community college then they can pay or their employers can. My dh had his college paid for since he went to a service academy and my parents paid for my first year, and my employer paid for the rest. We wanted to help our dc, but also felt like it has to be partially their obligation as well.

 

Veronica

[theresatwist]

my parents required us to put aside money for college from our allowance. the amount of allowance i received increased gradually as i grew older and was able to do more to contribute. (i think it started at like $2-3 in elementary school and gradually rose to $10 in high school). but the entire time i was required to put 50% in savings. i only ever saw half of my allowance. my parents would immediately put the other half in a special savings account. as i got older my parents would show me the statements so i could see how through saving a small amount of money could grow. great lesson in how to save money and helped with those tuition bills.

 

a lot of people here seems to be opposed to federal aid, but i had a work-study job in college through the federal work-study program. unlike a loan, it's not money you pay back. you're earning it as you go. i think it's a good system.

[RegGuheert]

1. What did you do concerning cars? Buy a used one? Loan them yours till they could buy their own? Make them pay for the car while you paid insurance? What?

As JFS in IL has posted, our DS also was not interested in driving when he turned 16. He's 19 now and still only has his learner's permit and no car. This has saved us a lot of money. Fortunately, he has just secured a spot in honors housing, which will keep him on campus for all four years, assuming he keeps his grades up. As such, we now do not plan on getting him a car or a license during college.

2. How did you assist them, if you did, with college? (our oldest is starting with a junior college and will transfer later to state, thats the plan anyway)

There are two main aspects to our plan to pay for college: 1) Minimize college expenses and 2) Pay as we go (no debt).

 

Here is how we are reducing college expenses:

 

1) Attend state universities. We live in Virginia which has excellent state universities.

2) No car, as discussed above.

3) Live on campus.

4) High academic achievement to provide scholarships. Like all you you here, DW is an OUTSTANDING teacher! :thumbup:This reduces costs and/or provides additional opportunities out of state.

 

Pay as we go: Our approach has been a little different than others here. Rather than saving for college, we decided about 14 years ago to pay off all our expenses, including our mortgage, instead of investing for college. The benefit of paying off a mortgage is that you are guaranteed about 4% return (after taxes) plus your principle is guaranteed. This is contrasted with the state college savings program which only includes mutual funds.

 

As of a couple of years ago, our debts were paid and much of our income has gone into investments since then. Now we are paying for college. We do not qualify for any aid, but the $14,000/year tuition is about what our mortgage used to be, so it is not a stretch. Our DS has qualified for a $2000/year scholarship for the next 3 years which will reduce the expense further. He has applied for additional merit scholarships, but we have not hear about them yet. We have asked DS to pay for college from his savings next year so that we can focus all of ours on investments.

 

Our oldest DD has one more year of HS. She aced her PSAT, which has afforded her the opportunity to attend an out-of-state Christian school with full tuition paid. Our annual expenses should be about $7,000/year assuming she does not receive any further merit awards. DD will likely be studying biochemistry in a pre-med program, so we are having difficulty estimating expenses beyond the first four years. We are trusting God to lead us through the process (or not) of medical school, as we do not know what to expect.

 

While it all sounds pretty rosy, with the greater depression setting in and 5 more DC to follow, it is not clear that we will be able to afford college for all of them. As katemary63 has posted, I think it is *very* possible that our situation will be different for the next 5. Only God knows the truth and we will trust Him.

 

One final note: There is one drawback to not have cars for our DC in college: I end up using all my vacation shuttlings kids to/from school. There are a *lot* of such trips required for college, even with DS getting rides home with others as much as possible.

[AndyJoy]

I went to a private college in 2000, and my parents paid $5,000 and signed a $5,000 loan. Plus, they sent me $100 a month for personal expenses for the first 3 years (then I got married). I did not have a car, so I rode the bus, my bike, and shared rides with friends. They paid for me to fly home at Christmas and ove3r the summer, but I stayed with nearby friends for Thanksgiving and Spring Break. Dh's parents were able to provide nothing for him, but he had already worked hard and purchased his own car at age 14. We don't plan to save huge amounts for our children either. We both appreciate the fact that not having everything paid for made us self-sufficient and wise spenders. We both worked hard through college and examined whether our private school education was worth the cost of the loans. Had we needed to, we both could have chosen cheaper options, but we weighed the costs of spending our own money and decided it was still worth it. I knew several students who were horrible slackers (failing the same class 6 times, etc.) Not surprisingly, not a single one of them was paying for his/her own education. Believe me, when you're footing the bill yourself, you work a lot harder!

[HRAAB]

I have two in college. In both cases, we bought an older car which then our dd's bought from us when they had the money. We paid the first 6 mos. of car insurance; after that, they were responsible for their own insurance. They are also required to take care of gas and upkeep. Our oldest has had to borrow from us to repair her car but she has repaid the loan as promptly as possible. We had around $3,000. for each for college which paid for one semester plus some left over. They have chosen to go to school locally - much, much cheaper. Other than that, they are responsible for the rest. They have both had jobs since 14/15 years old and have been saving. They have our encouragement, emotional support and love. Financially, they are doing the rest.

 

Janet

[RegGuheert]

I knew several students who were horrible slackers (failing the same class 6 times, etc.)

IMO, that's a training issue, plain and simple. Our DS is maintaining much higher grades than DW or I, even though his college is fully paid and we both had to work to help pay for our educations.

Not surprisingly, not a single one of them was paying for his/her own education. Believe me, when you're footing the bill yourself, you work a lot harder!

Agreed that having to pay for college makes one appreciate the value of the education. However, the drawback to working during school is that it takes away time that could be used for studying.

 

As an aside, DS had one professor tell them that in this economy graduating engineering seniors with GPAs below 3.4 were NOT getting interviews. I have no way to verify this, but given the large number of ongoing layoffs, it seems possible.