Unfinished

[LevelUP]

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.

Take away the Cell Phone?  Oh please. They can buy a new Cell Phone for under $100 and an unlimited talk/text + data plan for $15 a month.

Take the car away?  Well, they can buy a beater car for $1000.

Insurance? Who needs insurance? They got nothing to lose.

Room and Board?  Kids can live with roommates to save on rent.  Hardly a cardboard box.

Money?  $15 an hour jobs are everywhere now.  Even a part-time 30hr a week job would be paying $23,400 a year.  $23,400 + $5500 is a lot of money.

Kids could take 1-4 classes in college instead of the 5 classes and spend extra time doing all the CLEP's/DSSTs the college allows.  Kids could go around parents and create a GoFundMe page on Facebook asking other relatives for help explaining the situation their parents put them in.

Parents can try all they want, but determined kids will find a way to follow their hearts and dreams.

Slow them down?  Maybe

Stop them?  NOPE!!!