There’s this expectation that once you finish high school, you’re supposed to apply for a college or a university. Or in some cases, you might take a gap year to figure out what the heck you want from life, but eventually you’re supposed to go to get your higher education degree.
Well, with tuition prices not really getting any easier to overcome, and in a world where most think a degree isn’t all that important anymore because skills are king, you’d be surprised how many people still pursue college.
And that’s a good thing.
The not-so-good thing is the varying degrees of hurdles and challenges you need to overcome just to be in college. Like if your parents suddenly say that they no longer have a college fund for you. Why? Because you quit. But you never said you wouldn’t be coming back. Well, too late, the parents already blew it all away on a brand new kitchen.
More Info: Reddit
While it's good that a lot of folks want to pursue a higher education, tuition often becomes the main problem in this journey
Image credits: Jeffrey (not the actual image)
A husband and a father of 2 recently turned to Reddit for some perspective on a conflict he had with his daughter. You see, the daughter is 20 years old and has taken a year off from college. She dropped out saying that it just wasn’t for her. Instead, she went to work at her boyfriend’s family restaurant.
So, the parents now had an extra 30,000 plus US dollars on their hands, originally to be used for the daughter’s tuition. And since she wasn't going to college, hey, free money to be spent on other things, right?
Wrong.
And what makes it harder is when your parents decide to annul your college fund and reinvest all that money into... a kitchen
Image Credits: u/Particular-Bar9216
Image credits: Rafael Antonio (not the actual image)
The parents decided to go ahead and do some renovating in the kitchen. But then the daughter came back, having exhausted her work opportunities after her relationship did not work out well, and decided she could go back to college. Except there was no more college fund for that, leaving the daughter shocked.
In the parents’ defense, the dad claims they had a conversation with her about this very thing. The daughter did actually ask for access to her college fund, but it was a hard nope from the parents as it was to be used strictly for college. And if she were to leave college, the consequence of it was that she would lose it.
At that moment, the daughter thought it was a mere bluff. She still insisted her parents help her with the tuition fees, but between her brother, the already new kitchen, and the parents’ retirement fund, there wasn't much money left for her any more.
The daughter was surprised that her college fund had been repurposed and a conflict ensued between her and the parents
Image Credits: u/Particular-Bar9216
Image credits: Mario A.P. (not the actual image)
One attempt to convince her community college plus a job is a good alternative later, the daughter got upset, leading to the dad getting upset. The dad’s take on it is that she done goofed up and she was offered alternatives, and now she has to deal with it, whereas the daughter’s take seems to be that the parents should have kept the money for an occasion like this.
But unlike most stories that find themselves in the Am I The A-Hole community, folks were more polarized in their opinion on who really messed up in this situation. Folks were seemingly either siding with the parents, or with the daughter, but never defaulting to everyone being at fault.
On the one hand, folks blamed the parents for their lack of foresight as parents—she’s 20, relationships don’t last sometimes, and gap years are a thing. On the other hand, folks took into consideration the dad’s claim that they had communicated thoroughly about it, and she couldn’t have known what would happen.
And folks were torn about this: some sided with the parents, while others sided with the daughter and there seemed to be no in-between
None of this would have probably happened if not for the notoriously high cost of studying in the US. According to The Best Schools, a comprehensive resource to help students make informed and beneficial decisions regarding college and studies, it’s a long story why tuition fees are as high as they are.
The short version is increasing demand for education, decreasing state funding, growing cost of administration, logistics, and support of amenities, and increasing financial aid. What makes it worse is that there isn’t much that folks can do about these particular factors, but there are certainly some things that people can do.
Namely, government loans, scholarships, online studies, free education programs, studying abroad (preferably in a country with lesser or no tuition fees), and even small things like getting a part-time job and being responsible with your money can all work wonders in combination and moderation.
But, back to the topic at hand. The Reddit post got quite a bit of attention, garnering nearly 14,000 upvotes, 4,000 comments and making headlines on some online news outlets.
So, what are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with the parents and think the daughter now has to deal with the consequences of her own actions, or is it the daughter who had the right to take a break without the parents assimilating her study budget to fund a kitchen and then be protective of their retirement fund? Let us know in the comment section below!
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