Unfinished

[dfrecore]

So the whole "not much you can do about that" is just plain wrong.  There is a LOT you can do if you want to.

There's nothing you can do about it once that legal adult 18-year-old makes a decision what he/she wants to do.

Most parents of college kids hold the purse strings - they can tell their kids they won't support them in any way if they decide to take out loans (take the car, or stop paying for insurance, take the cell phone and not pay the monthly bills, not give them a cent, etc.).  They can not co-sign any loans, nor take out ParentPlus loans.  In essence, they can tell the kid their life will be pretty miserable with no help from mom & dad.  How is a kid who wants to go away for college going to pay for it, without any help from their parents?  The max you can take out for your freshman year is $3,500 subsidized and $2,000 unsubsidized.  $5,500 is not going to pay for tuition, room & board anywhere in the country (assuming they want to go away to school).  So I'm not sure where you think they're going to get the money to pay for this endeavor, but it's not going to be student loans.

The problem is that parents are as dumb about these things as the kids are.  They take out loans to "help" because there's no way the kid can do it themselves.  Take that off the table, and kids won't be able to get very far.

So again, sure, an 18-yo can "make a decision" but if the parents don't cooperate, there's not a lot that 18yo can do.  I know my almost 18yo wants to move out as soon as he graduates, and I'm like, "figure it out."  He's decided to live at home, work a FT and PT job over the summer, continue to stay home and work PT while he goes for his AAS at a local CC for 14 months, then he can move out.  He'll be 19 ½ and hopefully making good money with a bunch saved by then.  But once he sat down and crunched the numbers, he knew that he couldn't do anything on his own right away.  As long as we continue to say "we'll help pay for your education but not for a ridiculously overhyped 'college experience'" he's pretty much stuck here unless he wants to live in a cardboard box.