We Are Not Paying For College.
Dylan spent most of Quarter 2 “on his own,” doing what he does best. Unfortunately for all of us, what he does best is not school work.
By the time I checked his grades more than halfway through the quarter, Dylan had so many E’s and Z’s for missing work, I briefly wondered if he had actually gone to school. He had more than a dozen missing assignments in his AP class, another ten or so in his math class, and he didn’t have anything turned in at all in his digital art class. He was even missing two assignments in English, which he’d kept current for the entire first quarter.
“Your dad and I have decided that we are not paying for college,” I said to Dylan one day. “Obviously, you can’t get your worked turned in at school. And college is school. So I hope you can understand that we are not going to be able to support you if you decide to go to college.”
“What do you mean?” Dylan asked, actually perplexed.
“I mean, we’re not giving you money for college. We’re not paying for you to go to college. We’re not giving you money. We’re not giving the college money. I mean, we’re not providing you with the deposit. This was your chance to show us you could do it, and you haven’t done anything at all.”
“I still have two weeks before the end of the quarter!” he wailed. “I can catch up! I got a 4.16 last quarter!”
“I don’t care about your GPA,” I told him. “We don’t need you to ‘catch up.’ We needed you to turn in your assignments on the days they were due. You didn’t do that, so we are not paying for college. Maybe you can afford community college, if you want a degree. But we’re not paying for you to keep doing what you’ve done all along. We just can’t afford it.”
I left the room.
About fifteen minutes later, Dylan found me folding laundry. “Question,” he said. “Is this like, the way it has to be no matter what? Or if I can show you that I can get everything in, is it possible that you can still help me with college?”
“I don’t know, Dylan,” I told him. “You haven’t been able to show us anything new in 12 years. If we’re going to change our minds about paying for college, we need to see some actual changes in your behavior. And right now, I’m not convinced that kind of change is possible. You’re waiting to hear from all of the colleges, which should be around March 1. I suppose if you get no missing assignments between now and then….”
“Well I can’t guarantee no missing assignments, I mean….”
“See, Dylan? It sounds like nothing is going to change,” I said. “In college, you need to have no missing assignments.”
“I will. I just haven’t been that motivated in high school. But I know I can get everything done on time,” he said.
“We’ll have to see some seriously noticeable improvement,” I said. “But I am not holding my breath. Your dad and I have waited years to see changes, and you’ve said all of this before. We just can’t afford to invest in someone who isn’t invested in himself.”
“Okay,” he said. “You will see.”
So far, I haven’t seen anything at all.