The minute the kid finishes his birthday cake at 18 he/she should be thrown out of the house, after all they’re legal adults now and you don’t owe them anything. Yeah, that’s a great attitude.
Did I say that? No. I said, “An 18 year old does not require emancipation.” I said, “Nobody owes a legal adult a college education.” I said, “There are alternatives to FAFSA and federal and state loans.”
And I listed examples of parents who did not go the FAFSA route, and found alternatives to the situation.
Oh yeah, the great option of private loans. …All those great options out there, it’s a wonder that anyone could possibly think that placing your own interest at the price of your children’s futures might be wrong in any way.
It can be wrong for adult children to assume their parents can afford to give them a free ride through college, or that Mom and Dad owe them anything.
I have mentioned the people I thought took sensible approaches to their adult children’s educations. I think these people took sensible approaches to a situation that has grown out of proportion in our country. Did you even read those first?
I will now mention people who have been guilted, lied to, and in general, made to feel that they owed their adult children entire college educations. **NOTE: It is an extreme, but not unheard, scenario. **
Some (
not all) guidance counselors, admissions officers, financial aid officers and the adult children themselves can be very manipulative when it comes to college finances. They will drain Mom and Dad’s 401(k) and Roth IRAs needed for retirement, second-mortgage the family house, and co-sign away Mom and Dad’s life, all to get Junior and Janie into college.
Junior and Janie, as “adults” have no responsibility to give Mom and Dad a copy of their grades- in fact, the school can’t send it to the parents without the “adults’” permission. Junior and Janie goof off, sleep in, party all weekend, spend money on weekend trips, while Mom and Dad work their bottomsides to keep them in school. Junior skates by with a 2.0 GPA, and barely finishes college in 6 years. Janie gets pregnant and ends up in need of more help- although she now qualifies for her own FAFSA, as she is about to have a dependent. If she’s smart, she’ll stay in school. But that’s doubtful.
Mom and Dad are left hustling to get money for their retirement. They can’t depend on Junior, who claims he can’t afford to live out there on his own. Yet, Junior has a very late-model car, goes out every night, and barely helps around the house. He is often too broke to pay rent. Janie has returned, with her child, and barely makes it off the couch to change the TV channel or the child. It strains the family relationship to the point where Mom and Dad are either doormats, or end up throwing out the whole lot of them.
Your last scenario and mine are
extremes. There is a lot in the middle that can be done without using FAFSA, without public money. And no, not every private funding apparatus uses the same criteria as public money.
My opinion: The public community colleges in this country are some of our best assets. They are inexpensive when compared to 4-year schools of any variety. Most offer competitive, transferable classes (they have to do so to stay in business). They also offer vocational and technical training for jobs. Most use instructors from other, big name schools in the area looking to pick up extra bucks as adjuncts. Adult children can live at home or share apartments with roommates, making living conditions cheaper than expensive dorms (and dorms after often more expensive than living locally). Once the adult child has an associates’ degree, 4-year schools are eager to pick them up, esp. if they have maintained good GPAs. At least 8 in our area give a form of scholarship to AA/ AS holders, because they have already proven they can do the work required.
HOWEVER- The main focus of this thread is to help Joe, the OP, who wants to marry, but has a sister who thinks he should not, to put his kids through college at a cheaper rate. His sister is living in sin, allegedly to put her children through college. There are alternatives to Joe and his fiancee foregoing marriage, or worse, living in sin. One of those is the realization that at 18, no matter how much a parent loves a child, that child is now an adult, legally. It certainly does not mean the newly-minted adult’s suitcases are placed on the doorstep right after the birthday cake. It does call for serious consideration of other alternatives, such as the ones I mentioned in my first post.
I think you should get married. The extra income (even though it is your family’s money, could go to college education, and hopefully, you will still have some financial Aid.) YAY for marriage