Should I Ruin My Retirement By Helping My Child Through College?

As a parent myself, I can understand why the parents in this story would do this. But from an outsider’s perspective its just not a smart move. Part of the whole college experience is getting a big dose of reality, and part of that comes financially when you realize that mom and dad aren’t there to be your walking ATM machine anymore. The parents have already sacrificed enough to help their child, not its up to the student to figure out the rest of the way to make it to the finish line.

Look I’m not judging, but if a child is saying they’ll hate their parents if they don’t get financed, well, the problems are not merely financial ones.

I have made it clear to my kids that I can NOT pay for their college. I will not go into debt for them to go. My junior has a clear idea of that but also wants to live away from home. I’m not sure that will work out for her. But I’ve made it clear that she is welcome to live here while she goes to one of the many, many excellent schools within commuting distance. She doesn’t want that ideally, however we’re early in the process and we’ll see how it goes 🙂

I will gladly help her as much as I can. I will gladly pay off anything I can later on. But my oxygen mask goes on first, and she has two siblings who deserve equal opportunities – so we’ll all do the best that we can – together, but honestly and with foreknowledge of the situation.

Parents should absolutely not risk their retirement! Their child will have greater earning potential once they graduate, but the parents will have aged even more, and their ability to earn will enough for retirement will be jeopardized. I say this because I know quite a few parents who lost jobs during the recession and have been struggling ever since. Plus, health is always a risk, so there’s no guarantee that a parent will be able to continue working if health issues arise.

No they shouldn’t take out the loan for their kids. There are tons of cheaper ways to send kids to college. Parents do not “owe” college tuition to their children. Instead, teach them about how not to take our more loans than they need, make sure they go to an inexpensive state school or a community college to start, etc. It’s not “glamorous” or the perfect idea of a 4 year college “experience” but it’s still an education!

We plan on helping our kids with college because we can afford to. In fact, we’re already saving for them. Since we save plenty of money, I can’t think of a single reason not to save for their future education.

I’ve seen those stats of parents taking out loans to help fund their childrens’ educations and its terrifying. It just shows that you’re combating financial irresponsibility (the failure to save) with more financial irresponsibility.

Your suggests of ways to help without giving cold hard cash are good — it is legit terrifying that parents with adult children are gambling their retirement this late in the game. They don’t have time to recovery from this idiocy.

Parents should over-extend themselves just to help their kids out with college. If they can financially swing it, great. If not, let it be. If parents help their kids but really can’t afford to, the kids will just end up helping them later.

It kinda falls along the same lines as ‘pay yourself first.’

We will help our three daughters with college expenses. To a certain point. If they end up with a small amount of student loan debt, that is ok. It will teach them that loans/debt are no fun. The key is to start early. Saving for college is very similar to saving for retirement. You should always prioritize paying off debt and saving for retirement ahead of college savings, but ignoring it won’t work.

There are countless stories about how not to do things. I know well to do people who won’t save a penny and people scraping by to pay for their kids education.

Ten or twenty years ago, I may have said “Yes”. Today..no WAY. There are TOO many scholarships and opportunities for someone who REALLY REALLY wants to go. I worked three jobs through college and am debt free. If they can convince other people that they should get funding via their work ethic and the market, etc (private investors, etc), then I guess you can chip in (spending money for books during the semester, a plane ticket home kind of thing every once in a while). But otherwise; NO!!!

I agree that it’s fine as long as parents have already put themselves first and know they can afford it. My parents helped me out with my first semester, and then my dad lost his job, so it was on me to take out loans for the rest of it. I’m not resentful at all, because I’d rather my parents be happy in retirement! I don’t want them worrying about me. I love that you pointed out there’s other ways to help, too. It’s great that you’ve been able to support your sister in other ways.

I think retirement definitely comes first. If you can do both, then that’s awesome. Prepare as early as possible for it and you probably can. However, I don’t think parents should pay 100% of the costs even if they can afford it. The kids need to contribute something – whether it be through scholarships, jobs, finding a cheaper alternative…something. They need to appreciate it and having skin in the game is the best way to make that happen.

So glad I found your blog! I need to save a few of these posts for later 🙂

Very interesting topic! In general I do not think parents should risk their retirement. That being said, my husband and I both grew up in very traditional Asian households. My parents paid for my college education, but I took out loans for grad school. My husband’s parents helped him through college and med school. In return it is pretty much expected that we will help them through retirement. Our parents do the same for our grandparents. I guess you can say it’s tradition!

Oh my gosh. The mad kid that said you were ruining his life? That’s awful!!!! (That the kid is that entitled and stupid; the fact he thinks you’re ruining his life is hilarious.)
You can’t pay for the education of your kids if you don’t have money for yourself. Sure, they may plan to provide for you in your old age, but a car accident can change all of that in an instant.

This is a touchy subject. For me, I would rather have retirement money than help my kids through college. My rationale is this: if I go into debt for helping my kids through college, chances are that I am going to need to rely on them for financial support. This will put more stress on them and their family than if they had taken out student loans and paid them off.

This is why i like Canada, You open up a savings account for your children and you start putting money every month. Every year government automatically doubles up the money that you have saved for your children . By the time your children is out of high school, you will have money to cover his-her educational expenses.

My mom paid for my books and my dad paid a couple thousand dollars that my student loans didn’t cover. my parents made it very clear to me in high school that I needed to get scholarships to go to college because they would not be paying all of it. I got a lot of scholarships, and I graduated college with $20,000 in student loan debt. I’ve noticed that when parents pay completely for their kids college, those are the students that end up dropping out of college. I think those kids have less ownership in their education, and it doesn’t matter as much to them.

ok here’s my two cents… Or adjusted for inflation $200?
Start early… And i dont mean a savings account for your child’s education. For us, and most people I know, we spent our childs early years trying to get out of debt and learn to live that way… All the while teaching them not to do as we did…AVOID DEBT!! We told our sons that they ate their college fund every night for supper and their means for going to college was academic scholarships and a well honed work ethic coupled by good ole common sense. You don’t go to a college you can’t afford, you focus on getting the act/sat scores that will get full ride scholarships, keep the grades up to maintain the scholarship and seek out any grants or outside scholarships they can. We currently have 3 sons in college, no debt and they have an ownership of their education that comes from having worked hard for it. They all live at home– we pay for food (from home, not eating out) charge no rent, cell phones, insurance, occasional gas money or textbook.over 90% college students take out loans and 40-60% never graduate—-sobering numbers. Think of how their life would be drastically different if they didnt start off with crippling debt and then have to help you after graduation because you spent all your money on the education they never finished. As Dave Ramsey says “live like no one else now so you can live and give like no one else later”

I have four kids, I helped under a few conditions. They went to Community College 1st, they finished in 2 years their CC ~ and they found a major at CC that they could work a viable job after. They paid for the last 2 years. My youngest two were homeschooled for High School and got their degrees within 2.5 yrs by doing CLEP, DSST, Straighterline, Study.com, overloaded courses with Universities that accepted their transfer credits from these sources and their degrees only cost me between $15K and $20K with them not taking out any loans. I believe people feel obligated to have the ‘dream college experience’ without realizing that isn’t a reality for most people. Many students start, get into a ton of debt without even finishing or working in the chosen field. My kids had to research their majors, validate that they could get a job after the investment, and if they wanted a major that wasn’t paying out, they had to minor in that subject and pay for it on their own.