My bio father was a raving abusive alcoholic, my mom grew tired of the abuse and left when I was three. By the time I was twenty-three I had a full-time job, two babies and was finishing my last year of college at the slow rate of six hours a semester.
Both my kids worked lots of hours and paid for most of their college themselves. My grandsons attend college at night and work two jobs, one during the normal work day and the other on the weekends.
Perhaps these are all isolated cases and examples of the rare minority. My grandsons both say that their college friends are incredibly lazy and don’t know how to do anything useful and/or productive.
Just think - this is the generation that is going to support those that are 50 something. Glad I won’t be around that long.
My story is similar. Luckily both of my Eagle Scouts know how to work, are aware of the world, and are conservative. I’m blessed.
I have told my kids since they were little, oldest is 19 now in his 4th year of college with double major,that we would not pay for college. We will help here and there with some things but tuition and room and board are your responsibility. They have worked and done tons of research to get scholarship and in true Trumpian fashion have learned that tuition and scholarships are negotiable if you go to the right people at the college and are persistent. I have two in college now and three more on the way in the next 5 years. They also have been brought up to know that going to school is not your full time existence. You can take classes and study 60 hours week but that still leaves time for not only play and rest but a substantial amount of job time. My son got a job at his college, really cool one, not washing dishes in the cafeteria or mowing the grass, but writing software for their radio telescopes. He got it because he excelled in classes and made really good connections with his profs. Another thing we have made clear to our kids is that if you have to take on any debt in college you better make sure your in a degree program that will get you a real degree and and a job, no social justice, sociology, or foo foo degrees.