Financial radio host Dave Ramsey recently had a caller describe a messy situation. The caller says that her father blames his three daughters for being broke. Shortly after this admission, she shared the details.
Ramsey took some time toward the end of the show to encourage parents to set realistic boundaries for their children. College is expensive, and if you can’t cover your kid’s tuition, you should set the record straight.
“No student loans,” Ramsey said near the end of the show when explaining what you can say to your kids if you can’t afford their college education. The caller’s situation is pretty detailed, and Ramsey left no room for doubt on whose fault it is.
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The Situation
The tension mainly stems from a Parent PLUS loan that the father took out to pay for the three children’s college educations. The father said that he could cover the loan payments until the children graduated from college, and then they would have to help out.
However, that plan went off the rails when the oldest daughter got married shortly after graduating from college, and the parents decided she wouldn’t have to make the payments. Then, since one daughter didn’t have to make the payments, the other two daughters wouldn’t have to make payments either. The caller was the youngest of the three daughters, so by the time she graduated, she didn’t have to make any payments toward the Parent PLUS loan.
The father constantly guilt-trips the three daughters since he believes this loan has set him back on retirement. The caller believes there is about $40,000 left on the loan.
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Who’s To Blame?
Ramsey wanted to know all of the facts before assigning blame. Basically, if the daughters agreed to pay off the loan and failed to do so, it would be their fault. However, the father let the first daughter off the hook when she started a family, and that resulted in the other two daughters not paying it back.
Ramsey proceeded to use a lot of words to basically tell the father to man up instead of dumping his shortcomings on his kids. He also bemoaned the masculinity crisis that has gripped America.
“He’s playing victim for a trip he signed up for,” Ramsey said during the rant.
The daughter isn’t in a financial position to help her father. She’s married and earns $50,000 per year working at two jobs. She also has a mortgage, owes money on her car, and has a third baby on the way. She only has $3,000 in savings.
Ramsey said that she does not have a legal or moral obligation to pay the Parent PLUS loan. It’s more important for the daughter to address her money needs first before she even considers paying the father for something she’s not obligated to cover.
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Get Honest About What You Can Afford
Ramsey said that if he were the father in this scenario, he would have sat his 17-year-old daughters down and told them that they can’t afford college. He would have advocated that the daughters go to a community college and then enroll in a state university after completing community college.
Ramsey went further, saying that he’d tell the daughters to apply for scholarships in high school and get jobs while they are in college to make ends meet. He would have steered the daughters away from student loans and not taken out the Parent PLUS loan.
It’s a better alternative than taking out the Parent PLUS loan and blaming your kids for it for the rest of your life. This situation would be different if the father said each of the kids had to repay the loan and didn’t back away from that commitment. Ramsey also alluded that there were likely other mistakes the father made along the way that resulted in this financial situation, and that he’s likely blaming everyone but himself.
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