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Parents saving for their kids college is considered to the thing to do, but if parents don't do you think that makes them automatically bad parents? In my case my parents never did. They both had the idea of making it your own way. Not that they were mean or abusive in any way, just how they felt, not that they ever made that much.
Parents have no obligation, moral or otherwise to pay for the kids' college. However if they can afford to, it would be nice to prevent their kids starting out their careers with college debt.
Then again, the kids could do well in High School and get scholarships. There are also college benefits for kids of career military.
My understanding is that in the US today, if your parents CAN afford to help pay for college (as determined by the government according to information provided on the FAFSA), then that will be taken into account when determining how much financial aid you qualify for, until you are age 24.
"Students who are unmarried and younger than 24 are categorized as Dependent Students, and the parents' income and assets are used in determining the EFC. Even if the parents have no intention of helping pay the student's college expenses, which legally they are not required to do, the student remains dependent and the parents' income and assets are used in determining the EFC and through it, the student's financial aid award. Put differently, if the parents are able but unwilling to help pay for the student's college, financial aid will not be increased because of it. This was determined by the United States Congress." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expe...y_Contribution
So if you can afford to save for college and you don't, you are giving your child a disadvantage. Other children with poor parents will qualify for more financial aid than your child. This financial aid includes both grants and federal student loans. In other words, if you are wealthy but refuse to pay anything, you can make it difficult to impossible for your child to attempt to pay their own way through grants and loans until they are 24.
I have a friend who could not go to college until she was 24 for exactly this reason. Her parents are wealthy but "disowned" her because of her sexual preferences. She qualified for no student aid whatsoever, even though she was kicked out of the house and homeless the day she turned 18.
So basically congress is saying "well if the parents won't pay for it, neither will we". So yeah, I think if you *can* afford to save and you don't, then you are being a bad parent. Because of how student aid works now. But if you can't afford to save, then you're good.
If your "friend" was kicked out of the house and homeless at 18 she was "independent" according to rules laid out clearly in the FAFSA and she absolutely would have qualified for financial aid with no need to consider or report parental income...
I don't think it can be considered "all good" if you couldn't afford to save and all "bad" if you chose/were unable to save though you had more money
If you couldn't afford to save because you made poor life choices is that somehow OK but someone else who worked harder and made better choices career wise/savings wise is a "bad" parent for not choosing to save?
It isn't that black and white...
Personally I think unless you neglect or beat your kids, there is very little that other people should be judging as "bad parenting"
Any parent who is trying to do the best for their family and children should be respected for the effort and not judged...
Not judged if they buy what you consider an expensive house or car
Not judged if they don't pay for their kid's college education
Not judged if they DO pay for their kid's college education
Not judged if they are struggling to get by and can't afford to save for college
Not judged if in YOUR eyes they could have saved for college and didn't (whatever the reasons if there were any you may not know the whole story)
My oldest is in college now and between what we have saved and merit aid she earned she won't owe a penny when she graduates, that is our choice and our gift to her. We don't worry about what others choose to do for their children and don't judge if they choose differently.
I don't believe they are bad parents. My parents didn't save for college, they wanted to pay and for a couple of quarters they did a payment plan until I failed out. Then the cost of college was on me.
I made it happen through working, grants and loans. Eventually the Army paid a large portion of it.
My daughter is 1 and I started a 529 when she was around 9 months old, that was 9 months later than I should've started it. My goal is that the money will be there to cover a lot of the schooling cost but all of it would be better. The option of using the 529 is there but I won't use it for bad grades.
I'm hoping she will go to a community college for at least a year, I can pay for that out of pocket. Then the 529, grants and loans as a final resort will be used to pay for university level schooling.
My idea is that I pay 100% for A's, 85% for B's, 70% for C's with D's and F's being on her own. It's amazing how much more serious people take things when it's not a total handout.
The average student loan debt for an undergraduate upon graduation is about $28K, about the price of a new car. I find it ironic that many parents think nothing of buying cars for their kids, but refuse to consider paying for college. At all, according to some on this thread.
How many parents do you know who buy brand new cars for their kids AND don't chip in for college? I strongly suspect it is different sets of parents taking these stances...
If your "friend" was kicked out of the house and homeless at 18 she was "independent" according to rules laid out clearly in the FAFSA and she absolutely would have qualified for financial aid with no need to consider or report parental income...
This is not true. Homelessness can impart independent status only if it happens before a student graduates high school and this is true only for students since 7/2015. If you were homeless before that than you could not be an independent student.
"Not living with parents or not being claimed by them on tax forms does not make you an independent student for purposes of applying for federal student aid."
As an aside, the legality of parents obligation to contribute to college is being called into question by a multitude of court cases as we speak. For a number of years now child support orders have included paying for college of students over the age of 18. And now there are a number of cases where still married parents are being sued by their children to pay for or at least participate in the college financial aid process.
I do know a small handful of parents (and step parents) who won't even participate in the financial aid/FASFA process and have made it impossible for their children to attend college with any financial aid at all, including most loans.
This is not true. Homelessness can impart independent status only if it happens before a student graduates high school and this is true only for students since 7/2015. If you were homeless before that than you could not be an independent student.
"Not living with parents or not being claimed by them on tax forms does not make you an independent student for purposes of applying for federal student aid."
Yup exactly. She just turned 30, so it was a bit before 2015 lol. The only thing that would have granted her independence earlier was marriage, and her type of marriage wasn't legal back then either.
If your "friend" was kicked out of the house and homeless at 18 she was "independent" according to rules laid out clearly in the FAFSA and she absolutely would have qualified for financial aid with no need to consider or report parental income...
I don't think it can be considered "all good" if you couldn't afford to save and all "bad" if you chose/were unable to save though you had more money
If you couldn't afford to save because you made poor life choices is that somehow OK but someone else who worked harder and made better choices career wise/savings wise is a "bad" parent for not choosing to save?
It isn't that black and white...
Personally I think unless you neglect or beat your kids, there is very little that other people should be judging as "bad parenting"
Any parent who is trying to do the best for their family and children should be respected for the effort and not judged...
Not judged if they buy what you consider an expensive house or car
Not judged if they don't pay for their kid's college education
Not judged if they DO pay for their kid's college education
Not judged if they are struggling to get by and can't afford to save for college
Not judged if in YOUR eyes they could have saved for college and didn't (whatever the reasons if there were any you may not know the whole story)
My oldest is in college now and between what we have saved and merit aid she earned she won't owe a penny when she graduates, that is our choice and our gift to her. We don't worry about what others choose to do for their children and don't judge if they choose differently.
You're right it isn't quite that black and white. I could see a case where the parents realized that their child refused to take their educations seriously and just felt entitled to a free ride, and the parents refusing. That wouldn't necessarily be "bad parenting".
But I do think that if a child is taking their education seriously, putting in effort in high school, and wants to go on to college and has the potential to do well, and their parents could easily afford to contribute a reasonable amount, but refuse to because they prefer to spend it on luxuries for themselves, and cause a situation where they cause their child to either not be able to go to college, or make it very hard for them to do so, because they just don't care... I think that's bad parenting. Yeah it's not beating your kids, but it is taking away valuable opportunities from your children for no good reason. It is stunting them.
How many parents do you know who buy brand new cars for their kids AND don't chip in for college? I strongly suspect it is different sets of parents taking these stances...
I think it's often the same parents who buy the car but won't pay for the education, based on personal experiences. YMMV.
Until recently I deemed parents who don't save for the kids' schooling bad parents (including myself, alas.) Then it slowly dawned on my that moving the family to the New World (which is where most of my resources went) might have helped my offsprings' future far more than any college I could have paid for them in the old place.
My parents were excellent by any yardstick, I have a university degree. It took quite some hard study. How much it helped me in life? Exactly zip, 0, nada, zero. In fact, anything I achieved in that field so far only cost money, a smaller house's worth. Perhaps the posterity will raise me to fame 100 years from now for the things I accomplished, but right now, strictly speaking had I stayed uneducated and just washed cars, I'd be financially ahead.
So I felt sure about the answer before, now I just don't know. The more time goes on, the less sure I am about anything.
Last edited by hapci534; 08-02-2016 at 09:26 PM..
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