While we were trying to make a decision on private college for our child, I talked to one parent who told me that they had worked out an agreement with their daughter that as long as she did well in school ( A's and B's) they would pick up the tab for private school (i.e they would fund the education fully).
If their daughter went crazy (I think this school has a reputation for being a greek dominated party school) while at college and started earning C and D's then they would make her pay a sliding scale of the costs they were incurring. They said this was an incentive for their daughter to focus on being a good student. She could graduate without debt and loans if she focused on being a good student. If she however decided that she wanted to "find herself" or "party till the wee hours of the morning" she could do that too, but on her own dime and would graduate with a lot of debt, since her parents would withdraw their support.
They did not expect problems, but since it was such a significant investment, they wanted their daughter to know what was at stake.
At first I thought this was kind of strange, but I have been mulling over this for a bit and I can "kind of" see the logic. Establish some boundaries and principles and then let the kid play within the boundaries, kind of thing.
Have any of the parents here tried this or some other incentives to encourage their kids to pay attention to their academics in college?
Please don't come back with comments like "if they can't trust their kid, woe on them" or "such a kid should not be going to private school" or some such thing.
Chime in with any ideas you might have.
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