This is an interesting concept for me... I know this has become a bit of an expectation, or a norm - but I've never understood it. Why is it my parents' responsibility to pay for my education? And now that I have a teenager - why is it my responsibility to pay for his? Of all of the contributing factors to the cost of education... I think this is one. Why WOULDN'T a school charge more when they know Johnny's parents are paying instead of Johnny himself? I don't know... I'm weird about this topic... if a kid (I shouldn't' call him/her a kid...) - if a young adult wants more out of life than minimum wage, then he/she should get some valuable training. Take a forklift operator certification class. Become a plumbers apprentice. Shoot - my wife hated Uni. When she finished her Associates degree, she bailed and went to Medical Assistant school. She made a great career of that for a few years. You wanna be a tenured Anthropology professor at a quaint little liberal arts university? Heaven help you - it's gonna cost you, and you're gonna get paid peanuts.Just "middle class" people who's parents where never able to save for their education.
I'm not really sure what came first, the expectation that parents help out or the high price. My parents have helped out how they could but none of us actually went to University. That always makes things substantially less expensive and I don't know how much they would want to help out if they didn't think the programs would pay off either. I feel like that would result in a lengthy wtf is your actual plan discussion. I don't really know anybody who could completely finance their childs education. I still made minimum wage when I drove a forklift :( but I agree with your general sentiment because these things are really valuable. I could have got my certificate and worked somewhere that paid more but I wasn't in to that. I have a few friends who ended up as plumbers or ironworkers which are really smart careers. Most parents I know want to help because they know it will put their kids on the right track so they won't have to help out much later in life. Granted that backfires sometimes and a lot of people just really can't help. I think all in all parents are more likely to either help or want to help if they know the program will get their child somewhere.