Parents of the High School Class of 2017/College 2021

[Southernmiss]

When my kids moved off campus, they start taking care of their own groceries and stuff. I really have no idea what they spend on food. I know the two in college right now are fairly frugal and I would say they spend $50 a week for groceries and a little eating off campus. One of our sons has apps for all the fast food places in his college town. There are a lot of fast food cheap meal specials run. So for instance he's told me about going to McDonald's and picking up 10 better than cheeseburger $1 Burgers that he would put in his refrigerator and eat a couple at a time for his meals for a few days. Then he goes back to his baked chicken and broccoli and Greek yogurt and blueberries.

As far as furniture, we bought them each a decent desk at Office Depot that we would put together when we got there with a decent chair. I bought one of those 9 Cube Storage things and added the folding storage cubes at Walmart for each of them. That became a TV stand and storage. And then the plastic drawers that you can get from Walmart left over from their dorm became their apartment dresser. As far as beds, Walmart has a box spring on a platform that we bought and we bought them a Mattress to go on top. Very simple, very cheap. Once they graduate of course, then we will need to upgrade their furniture. The apartments have been shared and so far the roommates have had couches that were hand-me-downs that they brought in. Kitchen supplies- my grandmother passed away and her dishes and silverware became my son's dishes and silverware.

 

[sksjasams]

Thanks for all the replies and sharing your experiences about the change to off campus! Very helpful and much appreciated!

 

[robinb]

Is anyone else's child thinking of transferring from one 4-year college to another? My DD is happy with her school, but now wants to get outta Dodge and leave the state. She and her BF are applying to schools in Colorado as they are very outdoorsy. I am torn on this. On one hand I want to support her and for her to be happy. We certainly would have encouraged her to look in Colorado 2 years ago when she was initially looking at schools. OTOH, her current college is #1 for her major and I'm not thrilled about wasting money on OOS tuition at a different school.

 

[sksjasams]

Is anyone else's child thinking of transferring from one 4-year college to another? My DD is happy with her school, but now wants to get outta Dodge and leave the state. She and her BF are applying to schools in Colorado as they are very outdoorsy. I am torn on this. On one hand I want to support her and for her to be happy. We certainly would have encouraged her to look in Colorado 2 years ago when she was initially looking at schools. OTOH, her current college is #1 for her major and I'm not thrilled about wasting money on OOS tuition at a different school.

Robin, I think the biggest worry would be how many credits wouldn’t transfer...how much longer would it take her to finish her degree? Any chance you can convince her to finish here and then they could move out to Colorado to work? Only two years to go. It will fly by...

 

[robinb]

Robin, I think the biggest worry would be how many credits wouldn’t transfer...how much longer would it take her to finish her degree? Any chance you can convince her to finish here and then they could move out to Colorado to work? Only two years to go. It will fly by...

She's going onto graduate/professional school and I'm trying to convince her that she should wait and pick another state for grad/professional school. So far, it's falling on deaf ears.

 

[sksjasams]

She's going onto graduate/professional school and I'm trying to convince her that she should wait and pick another state for grad/professional school. So far, it's falling on deaf ears.

Honestly, that sounds like a perfect compromise.

 

[clutter]

She's going onto graduate/professional school and I'm trying to convince her that she should wait and pick another state for grad/professional school. So far, it's falling on deaf ears.

My dd's friend (ironically also from Wisconsin, which is where some of the most outdoorsy people I know are from!) did that. After two years, she moved west with her bf. She returned a year later to finish up her degree. They are still together, but he stayed there. Now, she is fairly independent, paying for her education entirely on her own, so I think she realized the benefit of in-state v. out-of-state costs. But being totally independent, she was able to go wherever she had an inkling to go, with no one to advise her otherwise. So I think this ended up being an idealistic jaunt until reality set in.

I am paying for my dd's undergraduate degree. I'm happy to do so, and the more she makes friends struggling to come up with tuition money, the more invested she is in not wasting my funds. But.. if she had come to me with you dd's proposal, I'd probably have said that she should consider taking a year off from school - officially so as to not ruin her standing - and have fun. On her dime. Try it out before breaking ties with her current school. Take a summer job there. Find a winter semester internship. I'm not against spreading wings, but I would hesitate to break ties with a good program.

Is it possible that she is trying to put a little more distance in her family relationship? It's totally appropriate for her age, but maybe she is struggling to separate herself and feels a need to do so with physical distance?

 

[bjscheel]

If you are paying then I say you have the right to tell her to stay where she is. If the costs were the same, that would be a different matter. Since she likes her school and it has a good program, sounds like the reason for transferring is outdoor fun. You don't have to spend more to indulge that. If your thoughts are falling on deaf ears, making her pay for it (or pay the difference) should have an effect. What outdoorsy things does she like? If they are summer activities, a summer job/internship sounds good.

DD17 would have loved to go to college in CO. She loves the mountain aethestic and wants to be more outdoorsy in such a locale (we've hiked little bits in RMNP but she's no wilderness survivalist and we don't camp). The cost wasn't worth it. We're not fully funding college so she knows keeping debt low will allow her to do more of what she wants after those college years.

 

[robinb]

We would have gladly paid for an OOS school. Her grandmother is helping a lot with tuition so cost is not an issue. It’s more moving from one really good program to a lesser program *and* paying more for it. Her program is not offered at many universities at the undergraduate level.

We would never ask her to pay for college so that’s out.

 

[laughinplace199]

Hope all your college kids are staying healthy. DD just texted that she has the flu.

 

[J'aime Paris]

Hope all your college kids are staying healthy. DD just texted that she has the flu.

Sorry to hear that! Hope she feels better quickly!

Fingers crossed, my DD is doing pretty well this winter.

She received an email yesterday that there is a confirmed case of the Mumps in her dorm.

 

[dreamin_disney]

Hope all your college kids are staying healthy. DD just texted that she has the flu.

I hope your dd feels better and has a speedy recovery.
My dd was sick a few days after New Years for 3-4 weeks. She went to the doctors the day before she left for college. She got antibiotics.

Sorry to hear that! Hope she feels better quickly!

Fingers crossed, my DD is doing pretty well this winter.

She received an email yesterday that there is a confirmed case of the Mumps in her dorm.

yikes!!!!!!! Praying it doesn’t spread and that your dd is safe from getting it.

I don’t even know how long mumps last

 

[J'aime Paris]

yikes!!!!!!! Praying it doesn’t spread and that your dd is safe from getting it.

I don’t even know how long mumps last

Thanks for your well wishes!
I don't know anything about mumps either. Maybe I'll read up a bit...

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

Hope all the sick kids feel better soon! Flu and norovirus are both running rampant on my 2 kids’ campuses. So far they have not been infected. I tried to get them to go for flu shots over Christmas break, but it never happened. I’ve been hounding them weekly about it since they got back to school. We’ll see.....

So far this semester is going well for DD. She changed her major and was able to change her schedule during add/drop. It was a little stressful because two of the prerequisite classes she needed were full. She wanted to give up and take them in summer school, but we said no. We’d already paid $8500 for 2 classes (yes 2) for 1st semester (she dropped a 3rd class and didn't get a high enough grade in the 4th class for it to count). We were not going to fork out more money for summer school when her 2nd semester schedule had room in it for the 2 classes. She stuck with it and got the two classes at the end of add/drop. She’s been studying every night in the library vs her apartment (part if the problem last semester) and already has a jump on two of her semester projects.

Socially she is happy. Sorority rush on the sister side was tiring but super fun. She’s bonded with several of her sisters now and has a nice friend group. Her boyfriend (first boyfriend ever for her) is still in the picture.
He’s a super nice, respectful kid with a great work ethic. He treats her very well! Her dad and I both like him a lot. She’s working 10 hours a week at the school gym and has finally figured out how to manage work/sorority conflicts so she won’t get fined for missing sorority functions. This was a huge problem last semester. She kept getting fined, and the bills were sent to US! We said no more! We put her on notice that only one bad semester is allowed. DH and I each had a bad semester before we got ourselves straight. Last semester was hers. She has to get good grades this semester and be responsible with money, or she will be sitting out next semester and working to pay us back for the wasted tuition/room/board money.

So all in all I felt like she was off to a good start this semester and was taking responsibility for her success. Then yesterday we got a text. She wanted to talk to us about going to a 3 day music festival in Miami Fl with 2 high school girlfriends in May. We had lots of questions: date, location, exam conflicts, how she’d pay for it, travel plans. Turns out she is flat broke and wanted us to pay for it for her 20th birthday, also in May. The ticket was $400, and then they wanted to fly to Miami ($200+). And the 3 day festival is in the middle of her exam week!!! The 2 other girls go to different schools; their exams are a week earlier. DH told her that after last semester’s grades, she needed to focus on her exams - no festival. She wanted us to buy the ticket; then she’d talk to her profs about moving her exams. I explained she was going about it backwards - she would have had to get exams moved before buying any ticket, which probably would NOT happen. I know from the university parents page that it is very difficult to move exams. Other kids have missed sibling graduations and had to move internship start dates because they couldn’t get exams moved. I think the festival sold out within a few hours, so now we are the super mean parents that ruined her life. DH said to me this morning that he really hoped she didn’t convince one of the other parents to front her the money for the ticket and buy it anyway. This is so something we can see her doing. (ETA-she didn’t). So yeah - just when I think she finally had her priorities straight, we get this.

 

[bethbuchall]

I hope that all the sickness goes away soon. So far, ds is healthy and happy, though he just started the semester last Monday. He then almost immediately had two days of no classes on Wednesday and Thursday due to weather conditions. That doesn't happen often at his school. He's also looking into internships for the summer. I'm hopeful that he'll find one that works out for him.

He's much happier with his roommate situation this year even though they were forced into a dorm that they didn't really want because they all had bad lottery numbers. They are hoping to get an on-campus apartment together for next year. He's already paid the housing deposit, but I think that they don't get their numbers/start selecting until the beginning of March. Fingers crossed at least one of them gets a good number because that gets them all in together.

 

[yeahdisney]

DD got her first work check $87 for 12 hours. Her BF laughed with her in a good way. Her jobs have always been private pay no taxes; prior jobs bbsitting, mowing, neighbors chicken farm, painting ect. She picked for 8pm to 11pm tonight, they are only 3 hours shifts that are offered. She did not volunteer for the 8a to 11a offered to anyone tomorrow, she said she'd rather sleep.
She has a tiny social life, going to her GF dorm for a net flick movie this afternoon.
And tomorrow her roommate organized a couple girls to watch the Super Bowl using DD tv and they are ordering pizza and splurging for breadsticks.

 

[laughinplace199]

I talked to DD today and she's already feeling better. The dr at the campus health center prescribed Tamiflu and it seems to be helping. I was initially very worried because DD has asthma, which can make things worse, but she's not having any breathing issues so far.

 

[aprilgail]

Sunday night my daughter was in a 4 car uber accident in Boston- the university police took her to the hospital to get checked out-her back and neck still hurt from it and she sees another Dr on Monday. On a positive note her boyfriend accepted a job over and is starting at over 90,000 a year- they are going to Disney in July for a week together and then his parents are taking them to Saint Tropez for 2 weeks- kids got some life LOL.

 

[robinb]

Sunday night my daughter was in a 4 car uber accident in Boston- the university police took her to the hospital to get checked out-her back and neck still hurt from it and she sees another Dr on Monday. On a positive note her boyfriend accepted a job over and is starting at over 90,000 a year- they are going to Disney in July for a week together and then his parents are taking them to Saint Tropez for 2 weeks- kids got some life LOL.

Oh no! I hope she's OK. I'll be interested in how the insurance works with an accident of an Uber driver.

Yowsa! That's an amazing starting salary. What does the BF do?

 

[J'aime Paris]

Sunday night my daughter was in a 4 car uber accident in Boston- the university police took her to the hospital to get checked out-her back and neck still hurt from it and she sees another Dr on Monday. On a positive note her boyfriend accepted a job over and is starting at over 90,000 a year- they are going to Disney in July for a week together and then his parents are taking them to Saint Tropez for 2 weeks- kids got some life LOL.

Hope your DD is ok.
Great news about the BF's job!