Paying for college expenses

[Pettersson]

My wife's young brother is starting college in Cebu in couple of weeks and we have committed to funding all the expenses related to getting the degree.  The brother is just 18 years old and has never had much cash in his hands so probably has not developed very good handle on financial management yet.  His parents live in a different province so the brother will be on his own in Cebu, living in a boarding house managed by a family friend.  We will be paying his monthly rent directly to the landlady.  I'm guessing the only way to pay the tuition is to send the money to the brother and let him handle it.  My main question is about sending money for his other expenses like food, clothes, school supplies, etc.  We are estimating 1500 pesos per week and would like to "help" him with budgeting by actually sending that amount every week.  For the past random family help, larger amounts, we have used Remitly and Xoom.  Overall been very happy with Remitly's free transfers that are available in Philippines a few days later.  I have heard that some of these transfer companies can use a bit mysterious logic some times, so I wanted to ask for some experienced advice here. Would Remitly allow small amount like that sent on weekly basis?  Are there other comparable or better options for handling this?

[Heeb]

My wife and I have put several of her nieces and nephews through college over the years and we always end up sending more than we anticipated, I don't know whether the expenses were real or not but there was always something. Tuition itself wasn't bad but then there were fees for trips and extra courses and exams, plus once they graduate you have classes to study for board exams, if they fail there's more classes, we are just finishing up with the last two and there will be no more as we are retiring June 30th. On the subject of remittance companies...let's see, we started with Western Union and one day they just stopped sending money for us, I called them and asked an agent what was going on and she wouldn't say, ironically I could tell I was dealing with a Filipina at a call center, she wanted a bunch of information that I wasn't willing to give, like SSN number, where I worked, bank accounts etc. Then we tried Zillo which didn't work right off the bat, same thing, I called and they wanted too much information, so we moved on to MoneyGram which worked well for several years until it didn't, apparently these remittance companies use algorithms to detect fraudulent activity and if you get pinged for it they will just drop you. We have been using Remitly for about 5 months now and it's been good so far, it's not as convenient for the money receiver because there's not as many pickup establishment as western Union and MoneyGram.

[Jollygoodfellow]

There are many ways to send money, worldremit, Palawan Etc. I would use worldremit. 

[Pettersson]

On 6/1/2019 at 12:46 PM, Heeb said:

My wife and I have put several of her nieces and nephews through college over the years and we always end up sending more than we anticipated, I don't know whether the expenses were real or not but there was always something. Tuition itself wasn't bad but then there were fees for trips and extra courses and exams, plus once they graduate you have classes to study for board exams, if they fail there's more classes, we are just finishing up with the last two and there will be no more as we are retiring June 30th. On the subject of remittance companies...let's see, we started with Western Union and one day they just stopped sending money for us, I called them and asked an agent what was going on and she wouldn't say, ironically I could tell I was dealing with a Filipina at a call center, she wanted a bunch of information that I wasn't willing to give, like SSN number, where I worked, bank accounts etc. Then we tried Zillo which didn't work right off the bat, same thing, I called and they wanted too much information, so we moved on to MoneyGram which worked well for several years until it didn't, apparently these remittance companies use algorithms to detect fraudulent activity and if you get pinged for it they will just drop you. We have been using Remitly for about 5 months now and it's been good so far, it's not as convenient for the money receiver because there's not as many pickup establishment as western Union and MoneyGram.

I pretty much expected it will always be more than the firm itemized budget.  How much do you suggest we should expect for the miscellaneous expenses?  The tuition will be 45,000 per year. The boarding house is 2100 per month (on room mate, all basic utilities included, very conveniently located to the campus).  We have guessed that 1500 pesos per week should easily cover dining and miscellaneous living and school expenses, but it's just a guess.  He will have a rice cooker in the room but otherwise no kitchen access, but there are some very inexpensive food vendors in the area.  Based on your experience, does 1500 per week sound high or low?

On the original topic, I chatted with a person at Remitly and asked if I should expect any issues with a plan of sending 1500 weekly.  They told me that it should be fine.  Just need to remember to manually remember to do it as they don't have a way of automatic weekly transfers.

I will also look into Worldremit that JGF recommended.  Better have a secondary backup ready as well just in case.

[sonjack2847]

1 hour ago, Pettersson said:

I pretty much expected it will always be more than the firm itemized budget.  How much do you suggest we should expect for the miscellaneous expenses?  The tuition will be 45,000 per year. The boarding house is 2100 per month (on room mate, all basic utilities included, very conveniently located to the campus).  We have guessed that 1500 pesos per week should easily cover dining and miscellaneous living and school expenses, but it's just a guess.  He will have a rice cooker in the room but otherwise no kitchen access, but there are some very inexpensive food vendors in the area.  Based on your experience, does 1500 per week sound high or low?

On the original topic, I chatted with a person at Remitly and asked if I should expect any issues with a plan of sending 1500 weekly.  They told me that it should be fine.  Just need to remember to manually remember to do it as they don't have a way of automatic weekly transfers.

I will also look into Worldremit that JGF recommended.  Better have a secondary backup ready as well just in case.

There Philippine banks in the US, so why don`t you open an account and let him have a card and put the money in each week for him to withdraw here. I have heard of other people doing a similar thing.

[Pettersson]

49 minutes ago, sonjack2847 said:

There Philippine banks in the US, so why don`t you open an account and let him have a card and put the money in each week for him to withdraw here. I have heard of other people doing a similar thing.

That would probably be a good option if it was a bit easier to open an account in one of those banks.  Last when I checked they only had offices in New York and LA areas and required a personal visit to open an account.  We live pretty much in the center of the continent, so making a trip just to open an account is not in the cards just now.  Thanks for the idea though, as it might eventually be a possibility if we have other needs to go to NY or LA in the future.

[Heeb]

4 hours ago, Pettersson said:

I pretty much expected it will always be more than the firm itemized budget.  How much do you suggest we should expect for the miscellaneous expenses?  The tuition will be 45,000 per year. The boarding house is 2100 per month (on room mate, all basic utilities included, very conveniently located to the campus).  We have guessed that 1500 pesos per week should easily cover dining and miscellaneous living and school expenses, but it's just a guess.  He will have a rice cooker in the room but otherwise no kitchen access, but there are some very inexpensive food vendors in the area.  Based on your experience, does 1500 per week sound high or low?

On the original topic, I chatted with a person at Remitly and asked if I should expect any issues with a plan of sending 1500 weekly.  They told me that it should be fine.  Just need to remember to manually remember to do it as they don't have a way of automatic weekly transfers.

I will also look into Worldremit that JGF recommended.  Better have a secondary backup ready as well just in case.

It's hard to say, it's seems like it depends on the school and the student, it would be nice if the school website would list the miscellaneous expenses. It's hard to say whether or not we were being used as a piggy bank by the students we put through or possibly the family. Ask for receipts for everything, they can take a photo of them and send via messenger or email. You may be asked to buy a laptop depending on their needs to help them study, we bought cheapo laptops at bestbuy and mailed them with balikbayan boxes, they probably didn't absolutely need them.

[Heeb]

BTW what will be his major? We payed for nursing school twice, one never passed the boarding exam but married some rich Korean dude and move there so it turned out okay, one was a tourism major, that was a waste of money, the current two that just graduated and are studying for their board exams are civil engineer and maritime engineer. I'm not sure the maritime student will even find any work since it's saturated right now. There are websites that you can find that give the percentage of students at each university that pass the boarding exam listed by major. The school makes a big difference, some schools have a horrible success rate, without passing the exam it's almost a waste of time and money.

[Pettersson]

1 hour ago, Heeb said:

BTW what will be his major? We payed for nursing school twice, one never passed the boarding exam but married some rich Korean dude and move there so it turned out okay, one was a tourism major, that was a waste of money, the current two that just graduated and are studying for their board exams are civil engineer and maritime engineer. I'm not sure the maritime student will even find any work since it's saturated right now. There are websites that you can find that give the percentage of students at each university that pass the boarding exam listed by major. The school makes a big difference, some schools have a horrible success rate, without passing the exam it's almost a waste of time and money.

He will be majoring in marine engineering in University of Cebu.  It should be one of the very top schools for that major.  So the school should be good enough.  I am a bit more concerned about what kind of science and math background he got from a rural Leyte high school.  I hope he can find a good tutor if he needs one to pass the engineering math classes etc.  I would be happy to pay for reasonable cost associated with that.

1 hour ago, Heeb said:

It's hard to say, it's seems like it depends on the school and the student, it would be nice if the school website would list the miscellaneous expenses. It's hard to say whether or not we were being used as a piggy bank by the students we put through or possibly the family. Ask for receipts for everything, they can take a photo of them and send via messenger or email. You may be asked to buy a laptop depending on their needs to help them study, we bought cheapo laptops at bestbuy and mailed them with balikbayan boxes, they probably didn't absolutely need them.

Good point about the laptop. Did not even think about that yet and I would be surprised if it is not a requirement for an engineering student.  We better find out pretty quickly as it the balikbayan box will take weeks.  I do trust the family (parents) though.  I have known them for six years now and they have never asked for anything that was not truly needed and easy to justify.  The 18 year old brother, of course, will be on his own in Cebu trying to figure out the weekly finances and budgeting.

[Jollygoodfellow]

Don't forget that the new law passed only last week require all graduates to plant 10 trees. If not they dont graduate. I am guessing they pay for the trees.

https://www.asianjournal.com/philippines/across-the-islands/to-graduate-in-the-philippines-students-have-to-plant-10-trees/