My sister and brother-in-law had the "financial talk" with my nephew a couple of weeks ago. They have a complicated situation because my brother-in-law lost his job, and they used all of their savings to stay in their home and school district (always thinking the next job would be "around the corner"). He finally got a new job, so his income for this year is good, but they are in a fair amount of debt and have no savings left. Thus, their financial aid will be non-existent, yet they can't afford some of the colleges to which they were hoping to send their kids. My niece is currently at community college (which she is okay with, as she wants to be a nurse and they have some sort of pre-program there) and my nephew is in 11th grade.
My nephew is a very strong student who originally had hopes of attending a specific school that is just not going to be in their price range. So, they had this discussion with him.
After that, he suddenly stopped doing the level of work he has always done. For instance, he didn't take advantage of extra credit assignments that were handed out (really unlike him) and is talking about dropping some of his APs next year. He told them that he doesn't need to try as hard if he is just going to end up at Rutgers.
My nephew is a very bright, wonderful kid and my sister doesn't know what to do. Does she just let him slack a bit? Does she try to motivate him in some way? (She has explained to him that perhaps the higher the grades, the more scholarship money, but I don't know how much that matters at a public school. He does not want to go to an LAC, by the way. His dream school was on the large side, just very expensive.) What would you do?
Thanks.
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