How much influence did you have on your child’s college choice?

My daughter looked up colleges she was interested in, applied and when all the responses came in we laid them all out- talked about how much she would owe for each one and we were lucky enough that one in her top 3 gave her the most aid and she picked that. If I had any influence she would be going to Tampa and not Boston because I want to move to Florida- I hate going to Boston even to drop her off and pick her up each year!
 
When my kids were deciding where they'd go, my DH didn't participate much. Let's face it, golf is MUCH more fun on a Saturday than going on yet another college tour. lol He left it up to our kids and me to decide what was right and what we could afford. I guided them to what felt right and what we could afford.

When we went to drop off DD, I paid $7,000 to the school as a deposit on her first semester. My DH said, "is that for the whole year?" I laughed at him and told him that isn't even for the whole semester. We paid more per year than that for HS for our kids. He told me when we got to the car, "I hope she enjoys this semester because she's coming home for school next semester." I had to explain to him that she got the same package for the hometown school and the away school and with the away school, she got room, board and didn't need a car. He never questioned her education again. lol

She will graduate next month and was accepted to Drexel University in Philadelphia for her Master's Degree. She's on the Dean's List, studied abroad for a semester and has grown up so much because she was AWAY from us. She made the Drexel decision on her own, although she asked me to meet her at the open house. She knows that we pay up to Bachelor's Degree and she is responsible for anything after that. Now she just needs to find a job in Philadelphia so she can pay for the rest of her education.
 
We had prepaid her tuition so told her she need to look in state. That's it. She had in her mind by her junior year of HS where she wanted to go. We suggested she look at another school and apply. She did. She got the other school's acceptance first and was eh. When her first choice came in she was jumping up and down. She was right. The school she picked in HS was the right fit for her.
 
lifesavacation said:
Do you see this as more of a collective decision between parents and child or should the choice be solely made by the child?
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We were fully on board with the kids' goals, so there was no decision for us to make. We were fortunate enough to be able to afford paying tuition, so their goal was the highest ranked schools within their degree program that also fit their wants to maximize hiring opportunities. In their desired fields, the "good" companies recruited heavily at the top schools. Research showed them that going to an equally good school but without the reputation would cost them the opportunity to work for the cutting edge companies or at least make it much more difficult. They picked the top 10 ranked in their field and then looked at other criteria such as campus, location, etc.

The oldest picked the #5 in his degree program and the youngest graduating this year picked #3. It also helped that they were alumni kids, so it was easier for them to get into. Their plan seems to have worked since both walked out of school with 6 figure offers for jobs at their dream companies. Well, well worth the investment.
 


lifesavacation said:
We provided very little input with our oldest three. We supported their right to make the decision and kept what we thought to ourselves.

Our dd (15) is a high school sophomore and ready to verbally commit to a college. My husband and I and her coaches think it's too early to make a decision. Finances don't come into play because the school has offered her a full scholarship. The coach has given her only a day to decide, which is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on her. Initially, she wanted to keep her choice a secret from us and we'd find out when she signed her NLI in September. I was fine with this at first, but I'm really not happy with how this school is going about recruiting her. Lots of red flags. She's in way over her head (heck I feel like I'm in over my head too, thus the question) and now I'm questioning at what level we intervene. She's also got several other good colleges that were going to meet with her at the end of the month at her next tournament. I think the hard part is that the school is everything she wants, but again, she's only a sophomore and still has time to make thoughtful decisions. Any advice?
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I've had two close friends commit to colleges for sports - one a full ride. Both had coaching changes before they even got to the school. A third kid has been recruited since her freshman year (she's now a junior). In that time, she has done a total 180 on what she wanted to major in. She had a certain field she wanted to study since she had been a kid, but that just changed.

So although I have no true advice, I'd remind your dd that her purpose in going to school is to get the education that she wants. And that coaching staffs change.
 
lifesavacation said:
Do you see this as more of a collective decision between parents and child or should the choice be solely made by the child?
Click to expand...

For us it is a collective decision in our family. We are helping fund some of it and we don't want our kids in a load of debt like us with their education so we will make the decision together.
 
Zero input for our oldest. He applied where he wanted. I now realize how little I knew about the whole process. Thank goodness he was on top of things! He pays for it with scholarship money, his savings and 529 money. I give him the 529 money freely. I am the accout owner, but the money was from an aunt who passed away and left it to him and his brother.

Youngest won't be receiving scholarship money. He has wisely decided on community college to start. I didn't have to offer input because he is making a great decision. If he was thinking of going straight to a 4 year then I'd have to try to give more input. Mainly because of the money.
 


For our oldest, she did it all herself. We talked about costs--if she went with her first choice, she was getting loans--but she had valid reasons for going with her first choice, and it was the right decision for her.

Second kid--no issue. He's at the local community college. In time, he'll transfer to Local U., and live at home. He has many issues, and can't manage on his own at this time (here's hoping for the future, but it's a long slop).

Third kid is a sophomore in HS. Based on her personality, I think she'll do better if she can come home on the odd weekend. We're strongly encouraging her to take a good look at the state flagship university--it's a quality school and one of the biggest bargains for an education. In her case, she wants to go on to law school, so we pointed out that saving money on her undergraduate degree will let us help her pay for that.

Fourth kid will likely go the engineering route (chem. eng. looks possible). We'll deal with him down the line--he's in 7th grade now. We don't know our Southern engineering schools.
 
QueenIsabella said:
For our oldest, she did it all herself. We talked about costs--if she went with her first choice, she was getting loans--but she had valid reasons for going with her first choice, and it was the right decision for her.

Second kid--no issue. He's at the local community college. In time, he'll transfer to Local U., and live at home. He has many issues, and can't manage on his own at this time (here's hoping for the future, but it's a long slop).

Third kid is a sophomore in HS. Based on her personality, I think she'll do better if she can come home on the odd weekend. We're strongly encouraging her to take a good look at the state flagship university--it's a quality school and one of the biggest bargains for an education. In her case, she wants to go on to law school, so we pointed out that saving money on her undergraduate degree will let us help her pay for that.

Fourth kid will likely go the engineering route (chem. eng. looks possible). We'll deal with him down the line--he's in 7th grade now. We don't know our Southern engineering schools.
Click to expand...

In regard to ChemE, surprisingly it's not offered by all schools, even schools with engineering departments.
 
cabanafrau said:
In regard to ChemE, surprisingly it's not offered by all schools, even schools with engineering departments.
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I didn't realize that! DH is mechanical, I'm electrical, and we're from the Northeast--met in college (our college had chem eng--it never would have occurred to me that one wouldn't!). Fortunately, we have a little time with that one. Also, he may go CS/computer engineering, it's still a little early to tell. But, definitely the one engineer out of the four.
 
Joint decision in our house with no drama whatsoever luckily. My oldest knew she didn’t want to live in a dorm so she decided to commute and loved it. She will graduate in a few weeks with zero loans.

My youngest is a senior in high school and wants to live away. We toured a bunch of schools and she was accepted to all of them. In the end, it came down to program and finances. One school she loved was almost double the one she will be going to. It was just unrealistic for us to pay double the price for the same degree and for her to come out with a ton of loans when she doesn’t have to. The one she picked we will be able to pay as she goes so she won’t have loans to pay back. Although we are making her take out the $5500 she is allowed per year so she has some skin in the game. But if she does well we will pay them off before she graduates. But we haven’t told her that.

So in the end, she had about five schools that were all within a couple thousand dollars of each other. Those were the ones she picked from. The one that was double the cost we basically said to take it off the list. All of us are happy with her choice.
 
lifesavacation said:
We provided very little input with our oldest three. We supported their right to make the decision and kept what we thought to ourselves.

Our dd (15) is a high school sophomore and ready to verbally commit to a college. My husband and I and her coaches think it's too early to make a decision. Finances don't come into play because the school has offered her a full scholarship. The coach has given her only a day to decide, which is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on her. Initially, she wanted to keep her choice a secret from us and we'd find out when she signed her NLI in September. I was fine with this at first, but I'm really not happy with how this school is going about recruiting her. Lots of red flags. She's in way over her head (heck I feel like I'm in over my head too, thus the question) and now I'm questioning at what level we intervene. She's also got several other good colleges that were going to meet with her at the end of the month at her next tournament. I think the hard part is that the school is everything she wants, but again, she's only a sophomore and still has time to make thoughtful decisions. Any advice?
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You know, I think I'd let her be the "know it all" right now, but I'd make sure she knows this isn't REALLY binding - she can change her mind at any point. I would also tell her that she needs to make sure that any verbal commitment is "pending firm financial offers."
 
We spent a long time talking about it in the years leading up to it. A lot of the young people I worked with were saying they'd regretted some of their choices about where they went and/or how they did it because of costs and their taking on lots of debt, so I passed that along to my kids. Mine chose schools which made sense for our finances and their majors, and they mostly commuted to save costs. They're on the home stretch and are thankful they haven't had to take on any debt yet. This has involved some sacrifices but we think that that's as much a part of growing up as anything else is, and that the "college experience" isn't worth taking on ten or more years worth of debt for, but others may see it differently, of course.

Many colleges are closing their doors at the same time that tuition costs are rising and our nation's student debt load is up from $850 billion to $1.5 trillion just since 2006! So something's got to give! Cost of living doesn't seem to be going down, that's for certain. So each family has to decide what works for them, and I think keeping an eye on the "big picture" helps students keep things realistic.

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/01/29/college-problem/
 
We couldn't afford 65k a year for his top two choices. He knew he could stay in state and have zero college debt, or go out of state and have to foot part of the bill himself. I guess you could say that was the extent of our influence.
 
JustCallMeMommy said:
You know, I think I'd let her be the "know it all" right now, but I'd make sure she knows this isn't REALLY binding - she can change her mind at any point. I would also tell her that she needs to make sure that any verbal commitment is "pending firm financial offers."
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That's one of the options we talked about. Committing and then de-committing since it's non-binding (on both ends). My husband feels it is morally wrong. I don't necessarily agree with him.

My daughter did surprise us last night. She called the coach and told him it was too early for her to commit. She asked he hold the scholarship offer open until the end of the month. He said they'd call her if they decide to fill the spot. The assistant coach posted a pic on instagram today welcoming the new commits for class 2021. That was hard for her to see.
 
I'd say I had the initial input. Meaning I told my daughter she needed to go to the local community college for the first two years and get a transfer degree before going on the university. She changed her mind on exactly what she wanted half way through her third semester and decided to change her plan and ended up in a different 2-year program and a JC about an hour away.
 
RUDisney said:
She will graduate next month and was accepted to Drexel University in Philadelphia for her Master's Degree. She's on the Dean's List, studied abroad for a semester and has grown up so much because she was AWAY from us. She made the Drexel decision on her own, although she asked me to meet her at the open house. She knows that we pay up to Bachelor's Degree and she is responsible for anything after that. Now she just needs to find a job in Philadelphia so she can pay for the rest of her education.
Click to expand...

Congratulations to your daughter from a Drexel alumni. Both bachelor's and MBA. I hope she likes it and wish her well.
 
I thought my DS had committed to an affordable in-state college, now he's backing out, and wants to go to a different college, at three times more the expense. I"m guessing, because his friends are influencing him. They equate more expensive college to better education - he did just receive a 20,000 scholarship from that college, but it's still a significant amount more. He's driving me crazy - every day he changes his mind, throwing military and tech school in there about every third day. I'm TRYING to say nothing - but May 1st is looming in the very near future!!! The problem is, he doesn't want to go to college, but he doesn't want to work full-time either. NO GO KIDDO!! Where did I go wrong???
 
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