Dad Wonders If He's Wrong To Sell His Daughter's Car To Pay His Other Daughter's Tuition — 'We've Done The Math, There's NO Other Solution'
He insists there is no other way to solve the problem.
Minerva Studio / Shutterstock Money problems and family drama seem to go hand in hand.
That’s certainly true for one family. They were left struggling to decide what to do after one daughter’s misfortune meant the other might have to give up something special.
A father wondered if it would be okay to sell one daughter’s car to pay the other’s tuition.
An anonymous father took to Reddit to ask for advice after he found himself in what seemed like an impossible predicament. The man explained that he had two daughters, ages 17 and 21.
“My oldest is finishing up her junior year of college at a very good school,” he said. “We are all very proud of her. She has a full-ride academic scholarship that is dependent on her GPA.”
Unfortunately, his daughter won’t be able to hold on to her scholarship for much longer. “Well, she says, based on her current grades, after this semester, her GPA will dip below the cutoff, and after extensive back-and-forth on the phone with the school, they say it is contractual, and we will be obligated to pay next year’s tuition.”
Now that the daughter is on the line for tuition, her family has tried to decide what they can do to help her.
“When I tell you we bent over backwards trying to find a solution before we came to the one we did … We’ve done the math, and she can’t get her grades up with how much of the semester is left,” he said. “She also can’t take enough credits during the summer based on how the summer classes are structured to raise her GPA high enough, even if she got As, and the school refuses to make any exceptions.”
The only solution the family could think of was something that would seriously hurt their younger daughter.
“For my youngest’s 17th birthday back in December, we got her a brand new Toyota Rav4,” the dad said. This was somewhat of a gift because she has also been working really hard in school and getting great grades.”
Photo: Antoni Shkraba / Pexels
The daughter clearly loves her car. “The car was a big deal,” he explained. She was very happy to have it and has been driving it nonstop.”
“Well, this week, her mom and I sat her down and told her that we’re very sorry, but if we can’t find another solution, we have to sell her car to help cover [our] oldest’s tuition,” the dad said regretfully.
“She became extremely upset, and told us that it was unfair we were ‘rewarding’ our oldest for failing and ‘punishing’ her for succeeding,” he continued. “But we never wanted her to feel punished or for our oldest to feel rewarded. It’s just the reality of what we need to do right now. If the same happened to her, we would do everything in our power to help.”
It was recommended that the oldest sibling be given the chance to figure things out for herself.
It’s best to give people the chance to be financially independent.
According to the Economic Times, “Paying college fees, sharing wedding expenses, and coming in to make the life of the other better seem like acts of love.”
However, that isn’t necessarily true. “Every unsolicited help is an insult to the independence of the person receiving it.”
Photo: Daniel Andraski / Pexels
This is something that Reddit commenters agreed with. As one person said, “Your eldest has to pay for her own mistake even if it means dropping out. If you can help her, great, but it’s not on your younger kid to provide the funds.”
Although this is a very difficult situation, it truly wouldn’t be fair to the younger daughter to take away something special from her.
It also wouldn’t be fair to smooth things over for the older daughter without giving her a chance to figure things out for herself.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.