oberon

Same here. Mine gave me a break when I failed classes, as I honestly discussed the problems I had and came up with a good solution. It all worked out in the end: I went from a 1.0 semester GPA to >3.5 by the time I was a senior, and earned several awards in the process. Ended up with 2.77 overall. I still got myself a great job after I graduated. Now my parents don't pay a dime to support me. And like you, anything outside of school I had to pay for myself. So I had a part-time job for 3 full years out of the 4 1/2 I was in school. But there was no way it would have paid the cost of going to school or living. If it wasn't for my parents, I probably would have delayed going to college until I could pay for it.

I'll probably finance my own master's degree eventually, probably doing it part-time while I keep working. Hopefully, my employer will pay for it. After I've been working for them for 3 years or so.

EDIT:

I feel like I should embellish on this subject a little bit. Personally, I think parents are responsible for providing their kids with an education, as long as they do well, or are at least obviously making a serious effort to do well. I also believe kids should be required to live a considerable distance from home when they go to school. And they should be required to live alone for at least a year before they graduate. For me, that worked out pretty well: I do everything myself. I've seen far too many people who can't do their own budget, dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc. How are you supposed to make it for yourself if you don't have the right attitude to be able to learn new things when you need to?

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