Tamar is being humble. :-)

By all accounts, she has raised frighteningly intelligent and responsible children. I'll listen to her child-rearing advice anytime.

>>>I've been trying to figure out the basis for this difference and am starting to believe that it's at least partly a religious difference. I don't think I know very many Jewish parents who wouldn't pay fully for college if they can afford it.
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>>I wonder if this can be explained by the mythological "Protestant Work Ethic?. I'm not protestant, but grew up in a protestant culture. This idea that you must work hard, not only for the gain but because hard work is virtuous or shows character. I and other parents that I know plan to put our children through university, but each of us worry that if we pay their way we will spoil them. I joke with my wife that we will let our daughter struggle through university, then pay off the student loans when she graduates.
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>Might be. FWIW, I had lots of loans in college. (My brother was in school part of the same time, and my father was in the midst of a career change.) The deal with my parents was that after I finished, we'd evaluated and whoever was in a better position to pay the loans would. Turned out I spent a lot of years in grad school deferring the loans, so by the time they came due, the payments were next to nothing.
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>For out kids, we're simply paying. We've worked hard to raise them to be responsible (and we seem to have succeeded). There's no way kids could pay for the type of education mine are getting. When Solomon started college in 2000, his tuition plus room and board ran about $35,000 a year. For Nathaniel now, it's over $40,000. Expecting a kid to pay that is ridiculous.
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>That said, my kids have been expected to do something productive with their summers. For Solomon, that was sometimes work and sometimes a mix of volunteer work plus study. Now, in grad school, his department provides him summer work.
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>Nathaniel expects to work summers; he likes a comfortable lifestyle, and knows he needs to earn some of the money that goes in his pocket. This summer, he'll be a counselor at the camp he went to for 6 years. He'll be teaching a capella singing, improv, and soccer. Perfect for him.
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>Tamar