Were your parents ignorant about college expenses?

I really don't know if my parents were ignorant on the subject. Since I was a responsible young adult and insisted upon paying for my education myself, their knowledge of college expenses never came up.

You sound like an entitled, spoiled little brat to me.

You're going to get a lot of criticism on here but I feel for you. It is no longer possible for kids to go to college and work their way through on their own. It is basically impossible.

I come from a well-off family and both of my sisters had their school paid in full by my parents. I was on a full ride. For some reason, I get crap from my father all the time about how I didn't work in college. I did work during the summers, but I wasn't allowed to work while in competition. He worked construction and did work-study to pay for his college and grad school, so he thinks I was just freeloading (off of whom?). Never mind that my sisters both joined sororities and worked BS jobs like babysitting and admin for a friend's dad's company... My dad did pay for my apartment once I left the dorms for my junior year, but it was still way less than what my sisters paid in rent. One of my sisters didn't even stay in a dorm for a full year.

My father also loves to tell me that I wouldn't have gotten into my school without an athletic scholarship. I am not sure why he says this. I never bring it up.

Parents can be really frustrating, even when they love you and you love them. Just chalk it up to things you won't do to your kids and make the best of the situation. Call your grandfather and explain the situation to him. Take control of that situation.

So I get your frustration and I hate that you are dealing with it. But you have to admit that schools need to charge so much more now... what with their indoor football facilities and top-tier dining halls and dorm rooms that resemble the Ritz Carlton. All of that is absolutely necessary in 2016.

My parents are both full professors at division 1 research institutions, so they were pretty well aware of the costs of university.

That being said, college was much, much cheaper when they were in school in the early 70s, despite being Stanford and Duke PhDs. They weren't thrilled about how a mid-level private university can be 35-40,000 a year.

That being said, they weren't shocked about the price, but weren't happy about it. They certainly weren't happy about me getting no financial aid and having to pay it all out of pocket.

Step one: get a nice big loan

Step two: enroll in engineering program

Step three: study hard

Step four: forget you even have a loan payment as you set it up for auto monthly payment.

Step five: enjoy 65-90k salary

Step six: laugh at liberal arts grads

Grow up kid. No one paid for my college either. I had to earn it and pay for it all myself. Stop complaining. After 18 years old, anything your parents do for you is gravy and frankly, unnecessary. Damn millennials man. So damn entitled and spoiled.

I am the second youngest of 4 kids. All 4 of us went to top 20 universities and only 2 got partial scholarships. My parents started college funds for each child as they were born. That covered our full education and then some. My family isn't rich, but well off and forward thinking.

I know it seems hard to think of now, but if you hate what happened to you, make sure you establish college funds for your kids.

Why don't you go ahead and tell us that your parents do? Hint: they're rich, you're in denial.

Condamm wrote:

Step one: get a nice big loan

Step two: enroll in engineering program

Step three: study hard

Step four: forget you even have a loan payment as you set it up for auto monthly payment.

Step five: enjoy 65-90k salary

Step six: laugh at liberal arts grads

Step seven: become a better person

TL

Change @ Park wrote:

Condamm wrote:

Step one: get a nice big loan

Step two: enroll in engineering program

Step three: study hard

Step four: forget you even have a loan payment as you set it up for auto monthly payment.

Step five: enjoy 65-90k salary

Step six: laugh at liberal arts grads

Step seven: become a better person

Step eight: fail step seven, reflect, repeat step seven as long as needed.

I think now that unless you get a full scholarship, paying in full for 4 year university is almost a scam in the US. It really seems like it's meant to get as much money as possible out of upper middle class and rich people and foreign students.

Solution: Go to a community college and/or do a desk job with the Air Force or Coast Guard, take classes while you're in, get tuition paid for when you get out. In addition, in my state, high schoolers can do community college in their last two years of high school for free. So let's say you do that program for high schoolers. When you graduate from high school you're already two years into college. You join the Air Force and work as a plumber. Let's say you take one year worth of online classes during your four years, which the AF pays for with tuition assistance. All while saving money and having the chance to travel. Then you get out of the AF at 22. Then you have one or two years left at university. And you'll have it mostly paid for. You might even have enough money left over to do a master's.

Not all of us have your sense of entitlement. My parents never gave me a dollar for college and I never felt entitled to receive any money from them.

No Bloodsuckers wrote:

I really don't know if my parents were ignorant on the subject. Since I was a responsible young adult and insisted upon paying for my education myself, their knowledge of college expenses never came up.

You sound like an entitled, spoiled little brat to me.

I agree.

My kids are both in college now and are paying their own way. They are doing so by earning generous scholarships because they worked hard in school and made the grades and got the ACT scores. They do not ask for much assistance from us because they do not need it. However, when they do, we help because both of us went to college and paid our own way and know how costly it is.

The OP sounds like a spoiled brat who partied all though school and wants to do the same now, all at his parents' expense.

Check your privilege, bro!

road to nowhere,

1) Your parents sound like a piece of work, but the onus HAS to be on you. You HAD to know how they were with regard to money and expectations before you went to college, so, if you picked a "better school" and more expensive school than the girl across the street, then you did so knowing it would be more expensive, and you should have accepted the financial consequences.

2) Why is Sallie Mae calling your grandfather? If it's because you are behind in your payments, pay up, brother. If it's for any other reason, he can request they take him off call list.

To Student Back in the Day, you are wrong about college kids not being able to go to college and work and pay for it. My niece graduated last winter from a state school in Ohio, paid her whole way by working and graduated a semester early with zero debt and a professional job waiting for her. She's just a hard-working kid. Can definitely be done.

I never asked or took a single cent from my parents for my college, graduate or post-graduate studies. It's called making your own way in this world. Try it.

That said, I plan on paying 100% of the bills for my own children's education assuming they work hard and perform well. As added incentive to encourage them to excel, they will be gifted the leftover money in cash when they reach their thirties. That will be quite a generous nest egg if you throw scholarships in the mix.

My situation was similar to yours, except I didn't expect much and didn't get anything. My pop was a decent high wage earner, but he was separated from my mom and paid no child support. But, since they were not divorced, his salary affected my financial aid. My mom worked, but probably could have done better on welfare. I made it through school on some athletic scholarship, loans, ROTC, but mostly I worked and 75% of what I earned went straight to the school. I attended graduation still owing the school money; I begged them to let me attend graduation. They let me attend graduation, but they did not give me my degree until they got all of their money. I recalled being told by professors on several occasions not to come back to class because my registration was dropped, sleeping on friend's couches, borrowing text books, sneaking into the cafeteria to eat, etc. I dumpster dived a couple of times, would conveniently stop by coaches home around diner time. I am not proud to say it, but I stole from a supermarket a couple times and got caught on one occasion. Luckily for me the check out girl was also a student, she made me aware that she caught me, but overlooked it. I did what I had to do; I had some fun times as well. I feel for you, but complaining won't help. Keep plugging away, do what you have to do and use your smarts and survival instincts to make it work. This too shall come to pass.

My children went to top tier private universities, all expenses paid (everything) and even got a bi-weekly allowance. They were exceptional students and athletes, they got some scholarship money and worked some, but you can't work too much when you have a challenging major and being an athlete. Paying for my kid's education was a major struggle, when I had two kids in school, their bills were way more than my mortgage. - When you have kids, remember your experiences and try to make things better for them.

Your parents do not owe you a free college education. I took care of my own through a combination of ROTC and National Merit Scholarships, plus summer jobs.

Go to your local community college for 2 years, and then go on to your state university for the final two years. Even if you have to take out loans, that should be on the order of $35K in total tuition, books, and fees. Go part time if you have to.

I think a lot of people were missing a major part of all of this.

As the OP stated, due to his household income, he couldn't really apply for any lower income type things. The whole system is setup so that if your PARENTS can afford to pay for your college, you can't get much (if any) help. So let's say we take 2 kids:

The first kid comes from an upper middle class family that makes a decent amount of money, but his parents refuse to pay for his school. Let's say his tuition is 20k a year (pretty low these days). This kid has to pay all of that 20k (plus living expenses and books) by himself, while trying to get through school.

The second kid comes from a lower income family that makes very little money, and while his parents WANT to pay for his school, they just simply cannot. His tuition is also 20k a year. Due to his parent's financial situation, his tuition is only 8k a year. This kid may have to pay his entire tuition, but it's so much less than the first kid that it's kind of ridiculous.

So you guys say that the OP should just suck it up and stop complaining, but the whole system is setup against students like this. Kids who have parents who pay for it all and kids who have parents who can't afford benefit much more than kids who have parents that can afford it, but refuse to.