Borrow money from your parents for college?

[hedgehog]

Borrow money from your parents for college? I' a mother of 6 kids. I have done my damnedest to limit the money my kids will owe on student loans by paying as much as I could, borrowing as much as I can. I drive a 12 year old used truck and I throw a cover over my couch with the large hole in the cushion. My care for my kids did not stop when they graduated high school.

[gopiscrap]

1. no but they housed me during one of the

four summers I was in college

[SheilaT]

2. Only if the parents can lend the money

without endangering their own financial future.

I think you people should borrow absolutely as little as possible for college. That might well mean starting out at the local community college, then transferring to a state university to finish up. It also can mean carefully weighing the costs of different schools, especially if the kid can get good scholarship aid from one. Scholarships, not loans.

I often advise young people to go ahead and major in what they love, just keep in mind that at the end they'll need to support themselves. My younger son majored in psych, minor in marketing. After he graduated -- cum laude I must brag -- he went back to delivering pizzas. That's how he's continuing to support himself, some three years after college. But he's not asking me for money (if he did I'd tell him to get a better job) and he's meanwhile doing a lot of open mike nights at comedy clubs, since he'd like to earn his living doing that.

To me, the essential part of this story is that he's supporting himself, and no, I don't think his time in college was wasted. If he decides he can't make it as a comic and gets tired of pizza delivery, he'll figure out some other way to earn a living.

[hedgehog]

3. Maybe some kids should have to borrow the money in order to focus them

on the costs as a way to ensure they attend classes more often than parties. But, given that some sort of secondary education is vital today, saddling kids with debt before they start out when the parents have the cash to pay for school seems rather nasty. I'm not talking about a parent looting a 401K, I'm talking about a Romney for whom college fees are pocket change.

Thinking about it, he figures kids should be able to pay for college themselves by selling the some of the stocks they've accumulated over the years!