Remember the Staples back to school commercials? You know the one that played the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” where parents were gleefully buying school supplies and preparing to get their kids on their way. Well sadly, as we parents know way too well, that wonderful time has turned into outright chaos.
Regardless of your child’s age, parents are all sharing in our own personal struggle and have huge choices to make. Sadly we are left with more questions than answers.
Is it safe? Can my kid learn without constant human interaction? How will this affect them socially, mentally, and physically? How will their school schedule affect my work schedule? These are a just few questions that COVID has thrust upon us.
On top of all of the physical, mental, educational and social issues that our kids have to deal with are the financial ramifications and dilemmas thrust upon us parents that have been planning our entire adult lives trying to fund this college path. Now I question just WTF am I paying for?
Thus, the crux of this writing. I feel sharing the financial side here on FinTwit, among this community, would provide an outlet and a place to share concerns we have. Don’t get me wrong, my top concerns are and will always be the health and safety of my kids. However, now I am questioning if it is fiscally responsible to pay for this new and hopefully very temporary normal.
As a parent of three kids—ages 15, 17, and 19—I made it my goal early on to pay for as much of their education as possible. I didn’t want them to be saddled with any debt. It would be my greatest gift to them. I started saving early. I opened a 529 plan, invested in stocks, and saved regularly. Ironically, I blogged here about how saving made this process less stressful and now I question if virtual college classes and minimal campus interaction are worth the heavy price tag.
Is a diluted version of the college experience worth the cost?
In my case, three kids, three different schools, and three very different plans of attack.
First, my sophomore in college—he was lucky. He had a graduation, a prom, and parties to end his high school career. The transition to college was just as planned too. He enjoyed orientation events, joining clubs, making friends, and parties all while living on his own. He also got to do things we now take for granted—meeting friends in the cafeteria, hitting the gym, studying in a crowded library, and in-person classes. Now he’s saddled with the decision to go back under severe and necessary social distant guidelines where he will take most of his classes remotely anyway—or just stay home with mom and dad until all is clear.
To me, the decision is easy. Stay home, take your remote classes and save the old man a semester of room and board (well at least room—the kid eats everything in sight). However, when I was that age and got a taste of independence, I don’t know if I could’ve turned back either. He wants to return to campus, as do most of his peers—but at what cost?
Then there is the historic class of 2020. Imagine having your senior year of high school stopped and taken from you. No last day of school, no pomp and circumstance, no parties and no proper good-byes. Now they must transition into college in a world that no one seems to have any consistent plan of attack. The good news though, by time the pandemic hit, they already knew what colleges they were attending. So if you thought that class had it rough, the Class of 2021 has a message for the Class of 2020—“Hold my beer.”
This brings me to child number two—the high school senior, Class of 2021. No in-person classes to start senior year, no games to go to, no events to partake in and the longer it continues the more they miss out on—they will be the class of 2020 on steroids.
To prepare for college and senior year she took all her college SAT prep classes and scored well. Now those scores are “optional” to apply to the schools on her list. So I’ve already thrown all that money out the window. This summer we were supposed to go on a college road trip to explore all her top options. I was looking forward to this, but no, everything was virtual. So while I saved some money there, it’s tough to get a feel for your future home without talking to people and walking the school grounds. By the way, each campus was perfect on the online tour—shocking!
As for the schools she likes—all city schools. She wants to be able to intern or co-op and find a career working in a big office in either NYC or Philly. Do I dare try to talk her out of it because that world has been turned upside-down? Or like everything else, do I hope things get better? Either way, a big part of the price tag of these city schools is the location and advantages they offer with access to influential professors, alumni, and jobs. Will attending “virtual” college in cities that are being abandoned be a wise investment?
Finally, my youngest. He’s a happy high school sophomore who knows how to hustle and make a buck without studying or reading. He’s the kid that doesn’t need to go to college to be successful. He needs to go to college to learn to be social, grow his friends circle, and gain independence. Remote learning was built for him and his generation. He loved it. Somehow he got straight A’s and also simultaneously traded stocks, sold things on-line, and took up golf. Now I wonder if a traditional way of learning may only hold him back. By the time he gets to the college process who knows what to expect?
So as you see each situation in my family is very different. Now extrapolate that over millions of parents having to make the best decisions for their kids, their finances, and getting the best bang for their buck for their children. Each situation leads to more questions than answers.
Kids currently in college are trying to navigate the disease while paying for services that aren’t what they signed up for. They are competing for jobs that may be reluctant to hire, let alone, exist in their “normal” forms.
Those applying for college have no idea what waits for them. How can they? They don’t even know how they will navigate senior year and the college selection process.
Then there are the young high school and grade school kids, whose parents are hopeful that things will magically return to normal. They are starting to navigate this new normal. They are making adjustments that could make the current college experience unnecessary or just an unnecessary expense.
Maybe it’s too late for me and that could be a good thing. I’ve saved and prepared to send my kids off to college. I just never imagined the game could change so much and that I’d question is it all worth it?