I am trying to determine how best to get my DD (and siblings) to think about the dollars aspect of college choice without having it totally sway their decision making. I would be interested to get some other people’s perspectives.
Let’s say you have determined that you are comfortable funding College C for 4 years. You COULD pay for a more expensive school, if warranted, without suffering greatly.
Your kid has these college Choices (purposely made them generic so that this doesn't turn into a debate about specific schools) that they have been accepted into and are deciding between:
College A - $10,000 less/yr than College C
College B - $5,000 less/yr than College C
College C
College D - $15,000 more/yr than College C
You also have other younger sons/daughters so feel like you are “setting a precedent” with this decision. To make it a bit tougher, let's say College D might be considered a bit more prestigious (and maybe a better fit) than the others but not sure if it is necessarily worth another $60,000 (over 4 years) than College C or $100,000 more than College A. How to approach this?
I am leaning towards saying something along the lines of “We have budgeted enough money to pay for 4 years at College C for each of you. If you choose a less expensive college, you will get 50% of any leftover money when you graduate. If you choose a more expensive college (or it takes you longer than 4 years to graduate), you will need to cover 50% of any additional cost through loans, etc. and we will find a way to pay for the other 50% of that additional cost.”
In conjunction with that, obviously, we would help them think through which choice may be a good fit, earning potential, etc. But if they think that College D is their ideal they know that it will “cost” them an additional $30,000 (probably debt at graduation) so will need to weigh that as part of the decision. Conversely, if College A is slightly less of a desirable choice than College C but it is still a very good school then they benefit by getting a $20,000 check at graduation (or something equivalent?) if they go there and all goes as planned. Hopefully, this also motivates DD to graduate in 4 years.
What do you think? I think it is silly for kids not to have to balance the dollars in this decision but not sure how best to handle this.
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