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Subscribe to RSSJust because your parents are wealthy doesn't mean they will sign for all your college bills.
Nearly half of affluent parents did not or will not pay the full cost of their children's college education, according to Bank of America's latest Merrill Lynch Affluent Insights Survey.
The most commonly cited reason was not that they couldn't afford it but that their kids either got a grant or scholarship or were expected to. But many parents said they were making their children pay part of the cost to give them "a greater appreciation for their education" or "teach them about financial responsibility."
And 18 percent of affluent parents said they didn't or wouldn't have the money to pay the full freight. The Affluent Insights Survey reaches individuals with at least $250,000 in "investable assets," which these days might fund one student in a fancy private college, but not more than that.
Despite the stated desire to teach children financial wisdom, 82 percent said they would support their children financially during their early adult years by allowing them to move back home (with or without rent) or by subsidizing their living expenses.
The study also found that nearly half of affluent parents (48 percent) were more concerned about teaching their children financial responsibility than they were about their children finding the right spouse/partner, choosing the right career path or staying physically fit.
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Wow, sounds pretty grim in the USA, where 3 of my grandparents immigrated from.
Students in lower years don't have the same opportunities for co-op work term earnings as students in higher years, but between scholarships and co-op work terms my wife and I weren't out of pocket more than few thousand per year for our son and daughter doing 5 years multi-major honours undergraduate studies while living at home her in Victoria, BC.
Engineering Comp Sci + History for our son, Earth Science, Ocean Science, and Chemistry triple honours for our daughter.
Neither applied for government loans, which meant that they got no generic government student grants either. Not complaining or boasting, just saying.
My son had $3,000 left over in his bank account when he graduated. Worked 15 months for a local web company, while living at home, and has $40,000 in the bank after 2 years as a grad student (combination of departmental funding and SSHRC grants).
He got partial NSERC funding for his final Work co-op, updating and managing the Condor Grid Computing set up for the Physics Department. The department admin assistance showed up with the NSERC application forms pre-filled for him to sign, saying that with he C Sc marks he was a sure thing and that it would provide the Physics Department with more funding. Having both NSERC and SSHRC funding on a resume can't be very common.
Our daughter netted a loss for her final undergrad summer. She won a Summer Internship competition at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, but paying for her room and board and flights depleted her savings. Asked us for a $1.600 cheque for her tall tuition payment, but paid us back later the same week after winning a Bob Wright scholarship.
The summer internship seems to have paid off, MIT / WHOI flew her down there as part of a Doctoral Student Recruiting Pitch. It isn't just athletes, such as her Cousin who get full ticket recruiting pitches these days.
She also got flown to an Oceanographic Instituite in Hawaii, but chose MIT / WHOI.
MIT / WHOI pay for her full out of Country 12 month tuition, health care, $29,000 as a stipend. She asked us for $8,000 to subsidize buying a car, and returned $2,000 when she visited us in December. These winters she flies home, instead of her supervisors flying her to the AGU December meeting in San Francisco. Her main consideration in choosing the car was whether a Mass Spectrometer would fit in the back. Her auto broker found one for sale by a company trying to break into the MIT Mass Spectrometer market.
Her summer research at WHOI also put her at the top of Earth Science Division Applicants for 2012 NSERC Doctoral grant competition.