| When considering whether or not to finance your | | | | children bear a personal responsibility for using our |
| child's post-secondary education, you need to know - | | | | money wisely? Apparently, many do not - I hear |
| before you spend the big bucks - that your teen is | | | | students who fail courses say very often, "Oh, my |
| sufficiently committed to higher education so that your | | | | parents are paying, it's OK." I think to myself: |
| investment will yield valuable returns. | | | | Do these parents know their teen doesn't do |
| If your teen asked you for $200,000 to invest in a | | | | homework? |
| franchise, what would you do? Would you run for a | | | | Do they know he was frequently absent or late to |
| pen and your checkbook and quickly hand over | | | | class? |
| $200,000? Of course not. I think most parents would | | | | Did he tell them he was in academic difficulty and not |
| have a long list of questions prepared, such as:a) What | | | | seeking help? |
| about this business interests you?b) Is this something | | | | Do they know he uses the same study strategies all |
| you have the experience to run?c) What are the | | | | the time that yield the same poor results? |
| annual costs to maintain the business?d) How much | | | | There was NO WAY I was going to allow that to |
| income are you expecting to see? | | | | happen with either of my sons. |
| Yet, when it comes to college, many parents will write | | | | Whether parents pay outright for college or finance it, it |
| a check blindly. Shouldn't the same questions be asked | | | | is a HUGE financial commitment and it should come |
| of your teen? | | | | with strings attached. Not strings such as: "We want to |
| As parents, we all want to "invest" in our children. | | | | see all 'A's and B's," but strings such as - "We expect |
| Many of us feel we owe it to our children to provide a | | | | that you will give this your full effort, take as much |
| college education. Even immigrants working in | | | | advantage of the support services as you need, and |
| low-income positions sacrifice to see their offspring go | | | | leave partying for the nights you don't have school the |
| to college, so that they can lead better lives than their | | | | following day." If your teen can't look you in the eye |
| parents. | | | | and honestly agree to those conditions, then you |
| It continually amazes me that relatively smart people | | | | shouldn't be wasting your financial resources. Save it |
| who work hard to provide for their families blithely | | | | for when your teen is actually mature enough to want |
| hand over a tuition check without asking questions. As | | | | to succeed. |
| badly as we parents want to provide shouldn't our | | | | |