People of non-rich circumstances and middle class beliefs know what the choice is. Face a very low-income, not so golden retirement or put the kids through college.
College tuition is rising faster than incomes and has been for some time. Only the very nicely fixed can pay for their children’s college and put away enough money to retire on. For most of us college for the kids means working until they tell you that you can’t cut the mustard any more and then hoping the kids you sacrificed so much for will return the favor.
Damon Darlin in the New York Times business section says the smart move is to tell the kids they are going to have to get through college by working, negotiating with the bursar’s office on price and taking out loans. Young people can borrow money on their futures. Older people cannot do the same for their retirement.
Love of offspring aside, putting a kid through college is something you do if you want to hold your head up in your circle. People who don’t pay for their kids’ college education live in trailers and spend their Saturday nights consuming alcoholic beverages with outrageous NASCAR sounding brand names.
Modern middle incomers do not have it in them to remind their whelps every day that it is up to them to find a college and get through it. Such behavior is more embarrassing than admitting that we didn’t go on a vacation this year because we couldn’t afford it.
Otherwise stable, job holding semi-professionals will choose a mate but not have kids. They may not know the precise numbers as Mr. Darlin does but they have the general idea and their answer is no kids. Or kid. The people who have kids in America are the people who never went to college themselves and don’t worry about it.
There are a dozen ways college could be made affordable again, but we live in a time when university presidents get paid upward of a million bucks a year, not counting the car and driver. The basketball coach gets twice that and the upshot is that the families with the socially most valuable traits to pass on to the next generation are virtually childless. Sterilization by economics.