Hi Scott,
My teenage daughter has had a private school education. This has cost my husband and I (average working-class people) upwards of $40,000 per year. Early on we saved hard to pay off our modest house and were pleased we could offer our only child a private education. We were looking forward to her finishing secondary school this year, going to the local uni, and thus giving us a break from the inexorable fees!
But now she wants to attend university in another city – at $40,000 per year for a live-in college – to get the ‘full city experience’. (I commute each day to the city but she insists it is too far for her to commute to a uni nearer to home.) She says she is desperate to leave home, and will move to the city with or without our help. She has no idea of how to be financially independent! Is this ‘normal’ privileged teenage behaviour or have we bred a monster?
Patty
Hi Patty,
You’ve bred a monster.
Look, even though 18 is the new 13 for COVID-kids, she’s biologically an adult, so you can have a grown-up conversation with her.
Here’s how:
Explain that you have already spent upwards of $500,000 (pre-tax) on her education … and now you have to focus on saving for your retirement.
However, there is absolutely no reason she should be deprived of what she calls the ‘big city experience’. In fact, part of that experience should involve working a minimum-wage job, occasionally drinking from a goon bag, and sometimes dining on two-minute noodles to make her money stretch.
In other words, I’d not only encourage her to move to the city, I’d help pack her bags. The education she’ll receive will make her a much more grounded human being. (And if she can’t hack it, then she can always go to the local uni!)
Scott.