re: The wife and I made a difficult decision this weekend

quote:

---

Poster says retirement should always be a priority another poster chimes in with “yes and no” and proceeds to throw out irrelevant points.

---

If you could cut out the troll schtick for just a second and use your brain, you'd realize the point I was making. And you have the nerve to call me stupid. But then again, I'm explaining to a troll.

And the points are very relevant to the discussion. In fact, they are the discussion: retirement vs spending on college

College is only relevant for a few general fields anyway. Trade school + experience are a much more efficient way to spend those 4 years.

quote:

---

Personal responsibility is a much bigger contribution.

---

Your argument is based on a false premise that kids who don't pay for college on their own don't learn personal responsibility. If that's what it takes for your kid to learn personal responsibility, you failed as a parent from age 3-18.

quote:

---

My plan is to move somewhere where he can get a good public school education and then the money I would have spent on private school in BR can be put aside for college tuition.

---

that is one of the ultimate hidden taxes of living in BR/Nola

the fact that it's spun into such a social positive among the local cultures is just fascinating to me. it's a celebration of societal/government failure (and, to be honest, burning money)

quote:

---

I think I got the point just fine.

---

quote:

---

So, you can't have responsible children and pay their tuition?

---

Doesn't appear that you got the point.

quote:

---

We crunched numbers all day Saturday and it would just eat too much of our retirement. Luckily she is on the same page as me on this: we don't have to sacrifice our future for something adults can obtain on their own. We will do all we can to help with scholarships, trade schools, loans if they want to go down that road, etc.

---

Are your kids young?

You can't put away $200-400 per month into a fund? It may not pay full tuition 18 years from now, but it would be a start and help them out.

quote:

---

Doesn't appear that you got the point.

---

No...he got it. Your point is that *on the whole* kids are better off if they have to pay for their own college than if their parents paid for college. He disagrees. So, do I.

I didn’t argue that as a reason to give them more money, and I’m honestly not sure why you pull arguments nobody stated out of their posts on a regular basis.

Making the claim that kids who are not helped end up more financially responsible, which happens every time this topic comes up, is a bold and presumptuous claim. There are a lot of kids who received zero help in college because their own parents were financially retarded. Plenty of people out there struggling due to a repeating cycle. There are also a lot of kids who did receive help because their parents felt it was important to save for their children and help them, but they are also financially smart in their own lives and passed that onto their own children. And while we are at it, there are also people whose parents paid for their college and that are financial idiots and there are people whose parents did not help them and they learned it on their own. Now we’ve covered all kinds.

So Back to my point: not helping your children financially doesn’t magically or automatically make them financially responsible. If anything, kids who start off in life immediately in debt and ALSO weren’t taught shite about being responsible are pretty fricked.

It’s not one or the other. There’s a lot of different scenarios. But people only ever argue 2.

quote:

---

Your point is that *on the whole* kids are better off if they have to pay for their own college than if their parents paid for college.

---

If that's what you took out of it, that's on you. My actual point was that deciding on a good career that allows them to take care of themselves even if they have some student debt is more important than just paying for whatever degree they get.