When the topic of college education comes up, there are generally two issues that come up.  The parents will pay for their child’s college education, at the expense of their financial well-being and / or retirement fund.  The flip side is the child ( young adult ) who is going to college, without parental assistance, and has resentment about it.  Today I’m going to touch on the latter.  Over at A Penny Saved, Sally wrote a post yesterday that caught my attention.  It’s a great post actually, with her financial history / background.  The part that I strongly disagree with is Sally’s resentment towards her father for not paying for her college education.

Granted, her father sounds like, well, an asshole – for lack of a better word.  But he was ( by Sally’s own admission ) horrible with money, and had no skills in the way of money management.  Her parents also had a total of 4 children, and lived in one of the most expensive parts of the country.  If he had paid for her college, it likely would’ve put an insane amount of financial pressure on him.  After all, it’s hard to give one of your kids a free ride to college and bail out on the other three – it’s sort of an all-or-nothing deal.

Your parents don’t owe you college

I’m not sure where in the parenting manual it states that you absolutely, positively must pay for your child’s college education.  My manual did not come with that page.  I have an 8 ( almost 9 ) year old son at home, and he means the world to me.  When it’s time for him to go to college, I will provide free room & board.  I won’t give him the boot at 18; he’s welcome to live with us through his college years.  What I won’t do is jeopardize my financial health to pay for his college.  He will work hard in school for the chance at scholarships.  He will go to a two year community college at first, to reduce expenses.  At that point he’ll go to a full-fledged university to finish his degree.  How will it be paid for?  A combination of scholarships, good old fashioned hard work, and student loans.  My wife and I will impart as much financial wisdom as we can, so the student loan portion will hopefully be minimal.  However, unless we are extremely wealthy, we will not pay for his college.  The $40-$60 thousand ( ? ) that college could cost will be needed for our retirement funds.

Responsibility is a great teacher

If I write a tuition check every year, and send my child a check for expenses every month ( or worse yet give him a credit card ), I am not helping him.  In fact, I am doing him a disservice.  There is no better teacher in this world than responsibility.  By working to get good grades, and working through college, he will have an enormous amount of respect for money.  He will learn to keep expenses low, cut excess spending, and save where he can.  If I hand him everything, he will not no respect for, and no concept of money.  Once out of college, he will either linger at home on our dime ( without being motivated to set off on his own ), or he will go quickly into deep debt.  By teaching him the value of hard work and money management, he is likely to avoid further debt and financial mistakes.

My college choice

I did not demand a free ride to college from my parents.  Had I asked, they probably would have helped as they could.  I refused to ask though – I knew, even at a young age, that it would not be responsible of me to ask.  My folks are not wealthy people ( nor are they poor, just not well off enough to fund my college ).  Instead I set out on my own, made my own mistakes, and learned my own lessons.  I have not yet gone to college, but I may one day.  At some point I may go, but currently I make more than all of my college-educated friends from the old days.  If and when I do make the decision to pursue a higher education, it will be on my own dime, and no one else’s.  And that will be something to be proud of.