“What is he even thinking?”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve uttered this question since our son, Asher, left for college. Asher is responsible for my new meditation practice and at least half of my gray hairs. But I’ve been told over and over by trusted friends he is a normal college kid having a normal college experience.
Asher’s college life is an alien world compared to the university experiences his father and I had in the mid-1990s. I attended a conservative college where a good percentage of the students were married before they could legally drink.
My husband balanced work and academics in college
My husband was a first generation college student from an immigrant family. He balanced rigorous academics at his elite university and a staff position on the school newspaper with a part time job serving up campus pizza to former child actors and Olympic-caliber athletes.
Asher sports shaggy hair and earrings, plays drums in a local band, runs a popular pop-up thrift shop on campus called Mingo’s Market, and on the rare weekends that his band hasn’t booked shows, he is forest bathing with friends. He is more likely to head to the library to browse the extensive music collection than to sit down and study.
Soon after my son was born we set up a 529 account for him
Soon after Asher was born, his father and I made a pledge to save enough money to get him through college without debt. Between his 529 account and contributions from a grandparent, we are on track for meeting this goal and he should enter post-college life debt free.
When I pull up that 529 savings, I see our blood and sweat through the years as we struggled to grow that account. We made good but not great salaries while living in HCOL cities. We shouldered a lot of extra expenses related to the special needs of our eldest son.
We were firmly in a position of privilege to be able to contribute to that account, but we also made a hundred tiny sacrifices – cooking at home on busy nights instead of ordering takeout, shopping Goodwill instead of retail, and juggling one car, in order to meet our college savings goal while still investing for our retirement.
For the first couple years of my son’s college career I kept a tight rein on his money
And so, for the first couple years of Asher’s college career, I clung onto that account and wouldn’t let go. During this time, I questioned every decision Asher made, from his major to his grocery shopping habits. I wanted to get the most possible value from our investment. I could not tolerate waste or poor decision making. I knew better than to call or text him with my concerns, but I silently stewed.
In reality, Asher was doing everything we asked of him. He had kept his partial-tuition scholarship, he lived in a modest apartment off-campus that didn’t require a car, and he worked for his own spending money during the summers. Yet, I could not keep my hands out of his 529 cookie jar.
One day I realized that the money in the 529 belonged to my son
One day, while fretting once again over the depleting balance of the account, I had a moment of realization. I was trying to control money that was no longer mine, money earmarked for him during this very time and place – his college years.
I immediately sat down and wrote an email to Asher outlining the details of his 529 account. Using charts and graphs, I showed how his decisions, everything from losing his scholarship, to graduating in three years versus four, would affect the balance of the account. I outlined what he needed to do to avoid running out of money.
I explained how he could end up with money remaining at graduation to put towards more schooling or to contribute to his Roth IRA. I wished him luck and pressed send. (Then I texted to alert him of the email because like a true Gen Zer, Asher barely checks his email). As I sent that email, I released the money and the college experience to its rightful owner.
I released the money we saved for him to my son
I think back to my own college experience and lessons learned in money and life. It’s easy to employ some revisionist history and think you were more responsible, you worked harder, you made less mistakes than your child did at the same age.
The reality is, I made plenty of money blunders during my college years. Reeling from a breakup my sophomore year, I signed up for a credit card from a sketchy on-campus booth with a free t-shirt promotion and purchased a high-end mountain bike and a new wardrobe from the GAP that far surpassed my college campus job budget. It wasn’t the worst financial sin ever committed by a 19 year old, but it did take me a summer working two jobs to pay off that balance.
That summer spent digging out of my financial hole was a gift. It was a hard and effective lesson on what happens when you can’t pay your debts, but without any long-term consequences. At the end of that summer, I ripped up that credit card and I haven’t carried credit card debt since. I wish that buying a mountain bike on credit was the most boneheaded thing I did in college, but it wasn’t.
I learned from those mistakes. Cumulatively, these low-stakes college lessons helped pave my way towards a relatively smooth and drama-free adult life.
College is a testing ground and a learning experience
College is as much a testing ground for adulthood as it is a place to pursue academic study (maybe, even more so). If Asher burns through his 529 before graduation or picks the wrong major, he’ll have to deal with the consequences and figure a way out, just like I did. And he’ll be more prepared to navigate challenges in the future.
His college experience is his to live, his mistakes are his to make, and his 529 account is our gift to him. I’m glad I realized this before I hoarded his college years away from him.
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