It's tempting for parents whose savings and earnings have been wiped out by the economic downturn to tell their teens: "We love you. We want you to go to college, but we can't afford to pay tuition right now. You're on your own."
The immediate cash savings are certainly tempting, but the long-term impact on the children could be devastating, a new survey says.
Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research organization, surveyed hundreds of students, recent graduates and dropouts. It found that 63% of people who graduated from college said they had received some financial help from their families. Only 42% of those whose parents did not help them managed to graduate from college.
David Gelinas, the senior associate dean of admissions and financial aid at Davidson College in North Carolina, has seen plenty of students come into his office and declare that their parents are cutting them off because the students are partying, not studying.
Changing times
But Jean Johnson, the author of the new report, says many students who don't get help are spending so much time working to pay rent, utilities and other basic living costs that they don't have enough time to devote to their studies and end up having to drop out for scheduling or financial reasons.Part of the problem, she says, is that today's parents might not realize how much things have changed. Parents might have been able to work their own way through college, but tuition has risen much faster than wages and financial aid in the past 20 years.
Many states, in fact, are reducing the number and size of grants they hand out to students, even as they raise tuition at public universities. And it is harder for students to find jobs in the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Financial expectations remain high
Second, parents may not realize that, no matter how serious they are about cutting a student off financially, colleges and scholarship providers still expect parents to help pay tuition until a student qualifies as independent.Generally, the government and colleges expect parents to contribute to a student's education until the student turns 24, becomes a veteran, gets married or becomes a parent.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid requires students who don't qualify as independent to provide their parents' financial information. The federal government generally awards Pell grants, for example, to students whose entire family adjusted gross income as reported on the FAFSA is below about $50,000.
