Sure, acknowledging that "you're free to choose" doesn't always mean you're actually free to choose, and sometimes parents don't take rejection well and call their kids ungrateful (when they do have enough financial safety to choose). I've heard of many such cases. There's an obvious power imbalance. Maybe your kids are more or less on the same page as you anyway and it's all academic (heh), or maybe it escalates into bigger problems later. The relationship between money and family can be a delicate one.That’s a good point. For those who read my post and think we are too controlling, we always clearly stated that they had the option to take the money they had earned and go to a different school, study whatever they wanted, be free of our guidelines. But if we are spending money on their education, we have a say in how it is spent. It is still a formative age for most kids and parents still have a responsibility to help our children learn.
Good on ‘ya.
Of course you might not want to pay for a useless degree. At the other extreme, expecting an extremely narrow set of degrees or universities can become controlling behavior. There's a fine line. As a practical matter, I suppose there should also be clarity as to what happens if they switch majors a couple years down the line to one you don't approve of, or whether you're entitled to a refund for previous years' tuition if they switch to an unsuitable major (or how closely you're allowed to monitor their records).
Statistics: Posted by jovs — Tue Nov 18, 2025 11:23 pm — Replies 55 — Views 2758