How much money did your parents give you for college?

Mine paid for everything minus the $10k or so I got in academic money. My school was low $30s at the time and I went for 5 years, so I guess they gave me a little over $100k. Did the same for my brothers. I'm guessing they dropped around $400k between the 3 of us. Wasted their money really.

Flagpole,

Wheredjugotoschool? $22k a year was a LOT when we were young.

I remember not being able to go out of state because it was going to be $15k a year instead of $7000. It was a lot more by the end of my career, but I remember pleading with my Mom for $1000 a year (which would have been 2.5% of her net income) and her refusing.

Keep in mind Min. wage was $3.10 an hour back then.

Currently in college and they don't pay for anything. I have no reason to complain because I have a full ride (minus books) if you count academic, athletic, and other scholarships at a $39,000/yr school.

I got about $40k from inheritance recently. I'd taken out a zero interest loan (for 18 months) previously and set aside that money to pay it off when i have to. I put the other $20k aside in savings for my kid's college fund, who is about 18 months old.

what should i do with it? If people here say they're getting $40k from their parents to pay for school, what can I do to make sure that my kid doesn't have to pay a dime? I'm hoping for public, in-state tuition 18 years from now. That, or an awesome athlete.

Someone posted, if you are poor, its the best situation and frankly that is true. The college financial aid scheme is basically set up to take as much of a family's assets as possible and then hand out the rest in high interest loans. and loans that compound interest (assuming someone isn't poor). So if you are from a middle class family (less than 100k a year) and your parents did not actively save for your education, you WILL have enormous debt upon graduation.

In my situation that would have been very true, starting college in 2009, student loan interest rates were very high! My parents' EFC was about $16K, and they had about $0 saved for my college. So my dad took a parent plus loan at 8.5% for $10k, I got about $5k in scholarships, and took about $5k in federal loans, for my first year..That is all the loans I took, because after getting a 4.0 in a tough engineering program my first semester I applied for a full ride and got it, and worked the next summers to pay for expenses (fees and books) and was an RA for two years during school for room and board.

Again I studied engineering, so while these loans and their pay offs are not all that difficult for me to manage, at all, it does annoy me, the amount of interest I am paying, when my parents could have just save for a few years, to cover some of these costs...

So in that regard, I am paying for all these loans, my parents did front some money during the school year for gas, food, and books, I would say in total $1500. They also helped repair my car, put tires on it, register it, and insure it (about $25 a month) for all four years, the last two years I had good paying internships and a lot of the costs shifted to me.

I do blame my parents for some of the interest I have to pay, because their ECF was high, yet they did not save for my education...kind of sucks.

It is not their job to pay for your college education. It's nice if they can and will, but they should save for their own retirement first. You're not entitled to it. I received some help, but I don't blame my parents for not saving enough to pay for the school I wanted to attend. You could have always started at acommunity college and worked your way through it. I'm going to try to help my kids with college, but if times are tough, they can get jobs and pay for community college while living at home for a while, until such time they believe the payoff from student loans is greater than the cost.

undergraduate.

4x30,000=120,000

- 90.000 (athletic scholarships)

+ ca. avg. 600/month (stipend, travel, sports etc.) x 48=28.800

+ ca. 300/month for insurance=14.400

- ca. 5.000 working part-time

= $68.200 (best guess), but probably an extra 10.000-15.000 that I didn't account for, so more like in the $80.000 range

They liked to help, however, my dad loves to remind me about it everytiem e talk.

Wait.

Didn't everyone here get full track scholarships to go to college?

$500 graduation gift

groceries when they visited once/year

Place to stay (their house) & food the summer after freshman year

My state has a tuition scholarship (for state schools) based on grades, test scores and community service. I ended up going to a less prestigious school because they offered me an additional honors scholarship that included a small stipend.

Looking back (after taking graduate courses at my 1st choice college (in a similar subject area)), I think it would have been nice to have my parents step in with some money for me to go to my first choice for undergrad. Instead, I ended getting a fairly worthless BS where most of the faculty (of which, about half were just grad students) just wanted to keep the students 'happy' by making everything easy. I'd encourage parents to get their kids to think of it as an 'investment' that should provide some concrete job skills...and if you have the means to provide the financial incentive/support to your kid to go to a better school, do it. In my case, the incentive was only $1000 a semester.

My tuition and room/board was about $8k a year. So, about $36k total when you add in books and a few other expenses. I went to grad school for free and paid for my own law school (@70k for everything).

My sister went to an ivy league school. It cost @16k a year back then. My dad paid for it. My sister only worked for one year and has been a stay at home mom ever since. She has two kids ages 16 and 19. My sister and my father do not speak.

$0.

Partial track scholarship, summer jobs, worked during school. Took out the minimum student loan and paid it off in

~100k from my parents, I think 10k from my grandparents. Still wound up with 20k in loans. If I had to do it again, I might go to the flagship state university (Rutgers) for about $60k all in. At the time I just wanted to get the hell out of New Jersey.

My parents saved ~70k for for me and were able to front another ~7k in "loans" (they offered me a deal like a federal subsidized loan, as long as I am still in grad school there will be no interest but I still will pay them back).

I have an additional 8.5k in subsidized government loans, and paid ~11k of my own savings from work and internships. I also had an RA position worth around 8k and roughly 66k in academic scholarship. Also, I worked hard enough to graduate in three years to prevent having to take any real loans.

So depending on if you consider scholarship as me supporting myself, my parents paid either 70% or 40% of my education - either way I am extremely grateful and agree with xenonscreams in that I hope one day to pass the favor along.

waste of appropriations wrote:

I received $0 from my parents for a university education. I applied for student loans and worked part time to cover those costs.

Exactly. I hold no grudge on those that had their tuition paid by their parents. It's those that EXPECT it, that are annoying.

I worked two jobs, ran xc, made MVP for my team, and was teaching FT while I got my graduate degree at PC.

I don't hold it against people who's parents tell them they will pay for their school. But, when I hear people saying things about the car their parents gave them is too crappy, or how they didn't get enough cash for Christmas or graduation. SHUT UP!!

My parents are paying for tuition, housing, and an allowance for all four years. That works out to be about $140,000 for four years at a California public university. They would be willing to pay for graduate school too, as there is additional money in the college savings they started for me when I was born, but I think I should help pay for that. I'm really fortunate as money has never been an issue in my life.

asian guy can't get scholarshi wrote:

coreyRI wrote:

My parents are paying max 120k undergrad. We are upper middle class. Dental School will be payed by me for the majority. It's gonna run me around 300-400k. Probably more on the upper end of that range. (and that's not even specializing :o)

Your dental tuition is most likely 35-45k a year. You can live very comfortably on 15k a year in average priced town. 55k total a year.

220k total base.

Add 40 k for interest.

260k total.

Dentists don't have to do residency, make money right after dental school. Specialize for mad money though.

I wish it was as cheap as 55k total a year. Just to give you an idea, UCONN dental tuition + 20k living expenses = mid 90k per year

Tufts = 100k per year

UPENN = 105k per year

UCLA is one of the cheapest, at roughly 80k per year.

You're right about specializing though, that's where the money is.

UVA, '72. Parents paid all. That's what parents did back then. Something has changed the last 30-40 years.

Im in my first year at college in Canada. They paid 5k and I live at home. Feel terrible about it. Would rather take out a loan.

Good for you. As a parent, my hubby and I are paying nothing towards our children's education. We told the kids from a very early age that they were expected to go to college. However, mom and dad were not going to pay.

Both kids are 4.0 and have full scholarship. They are thriving.

However, we do give them a small allowance of fifty dollars a month and send care packages.