Mormon parents have been known to tell their offspring that they will only pay tuition for BYU or BYUI.

Seems Glenn Beck is fond of this idea, as are some christian fundamentalists of other persuasions. That is, they all want to find ways to force young adults to attend conservative, religiously-based institutions.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/group-aims-to-help-conservative-parents-counter-pc-indoctrination-at-colleges/43005

Glenn Beck's website is now onboard with helping parents to force their kids to attend universities that cover topics like global warming as being a hoax, and like evolutionary biology as being not real.

Looking back, going to BYU was a big mistake. I got a scholarship to UTx. I got a good education at BYU, but socially I was pretty miserable.

I think I would have enjoyed my 20s a lot more and gotten my life straightened out quicker if I had gone to UT instead of BYU. I spent my last year at BYU just eager to get out of that stifling environment.

Are you me? Exact same experience, bitter regrets over not going to UT once I visited th campus while checking out grad schools. What an idiot I was. I can't even blame my folks. They wanted me nearby but didn't insist on BYU. It just happened to have a good program in what I originally wanted for a major.

I must be your long lost triplet. I got a good education at BYU, but mentally it took years to recover. Even my TBM parents say they made a mistake allowing me to go to BYU. I would have come out of the closets (ex-mo closet and gay closet) 20 years earlier if I went to a real university.

This is less forcing and more coercion. If a student wants to go to whatever university they choose then they should probably cut the cord and pay for it themselves.

If they can't make that choice, then maybe they aren't ready for real life and will have to make that decision a bit later in life. I know that seems harsh, but it is the reality of being an adult.

True, you can get a job,a scholarship or other financial aid and go.where you like.Parents do have rights even if they are sometimes misguided. it is their money after all and no kid isbguaranteed an all expense paid college education from their parents.

We treat 17 year olds like children and then at 18 they are magically supposed to know what college they want to go to they first day they leave home in their lives.

College is stressful enough without swimming upstream against your parents' advice and then you want them to pay for the entire $100k venture themselves?

Life is tough. Oh well. I think we do them a disservice if we don't treat them like adults and empower them to make their own life decisions.

I teach 18-19 year old undergrads occasionally, treat them like adults and I have high expectations for them. When I taught High School, I treated them like adults as well.

Also, yes, I advocate that college students get a job and pay for their own schooling.

I would give a choice within reason. However,if the parents are footing the bill, they do have the right to some input. Problem is it may well backfire to force a kid to go somewhere he doesn't want to go. On the other side of the coin, if I had a kid who wanted to go to BYU or Liberty University,I would not bencomfortable payingnfor it.Not sure what I would do.

My parents wouldn't even help pay for any of my schooling but are willing to help my younger bro. In my family it's favoritism. I can't wait to move out and be free. Spring 2014 can't come soon enough

This is funny to me, I wanted to attend a small Lutheran college and my parents (not paying) said NO WAY. They wanted me to attend a public institution free of any religious influence. These were the same people who required me to be confirmed in the Lutheran Church as a teen.

Now 40 years later I can see the reasons for their demands in both cases. Confirmation led to me asking questions. Much to the dismay of the Pastor The public university did not indoctrinate me, but instead taught me to think.

Goes without saying I am a never Mo.

My mom recently told me that she believes our public state university turned all 3 of us kids into atheists and liberals (we went to college about 20 years ago). She was pretty upset about it.

After my older son dropped out of state university (too big, couldn't get classes, etc) He was at loose ends.

We decided to offer him a full ride to any private college he chose. He ended up choosing a small Christian school and he loves it.

When my younger son was ready for college, we went right to our list of private schools, because we were so done with state college. After looking at many, he also chose a "Christian" school, not as conservative as my older son's school.

We like to say that our pre-retirement hobby is paying private college tuition!

I was one of those kids. It didn't quite turn out the way they hoped

I was given free choice and my parents paid. I went to a very non-religious institution and remained religious (non-mo). I was totally outnumbered by non-believers - maybe 1% of the student body were believers.

What makes me angry is when students earn scholarships to secular schools, & their parents force them to go to religious schools instead, with the parents paying.

Categorize this under "First World Problems."

I got no assistance paying for college. I went to BYU because the tuition was cheap (still is, relatively speaking) and they offered me a half-ride scholarship. California offered me a good-anywhere tuition voucher to any school in the UC system i got accepted to (part of their Golden State Scholarship program), but BYU still was cheaper in the long run.

Telling your kids you'll only pay for a defined set of schools is generally not considered 'forcing' under any definition I'm aware of. Incentivizing, sure. But not force.

I won't pay for my kids (when I have them) to go to University of Phoenix, Neumont, ITT Tech, or a for-profit college. I probably also won't pay for them to attend a religiously-affiliated institution. I imagine many of you are the same way. How is what you're castigating really any different?

You have no idea.

A number of years ago, my inactive non-father told me he would pay for my entire education if he got to pick my course of study & where I went. He picked some nonsense at Heald College of all places. The truth is that he doesn't want me to have a degree or an education or a career. He says that it's all garbage & worthless. Simply because of his white male privilege that was able to get him through life without ever being unemployed.

I had practically no choice. I went to high school in Orem, Utah, where most of my classmates were Mormons. My school was heavily recruited by BYU. I got a Trustees Scholarship, so my tuition was free for four years. No other university tried to recruit me or give me a scholarship. Being "smart" was central to my identity, and a scholarship and college went along with being "smart".

My father was a professor at BYU, which entitled me to half tuition. I actually got paid for going to BYU because my scholarship gave me enough money for full tuition, and I only had to spend half of that money on tuition.

Not going to college was unthinkable. Going to BYU was as natural as breathing. I never considered going anywhere else.

Tragically, I eventually went to the University of Utah, but at the wrong time. I went there for an MBA. Now the University of Utah does not have the greatest MBA program, but BYU does have a great MBA program. It would have been better to go to the U for my undergraduate degree and then to BYU for my MBA. An undergraduate at the U would have been more fulfilling than my undergraduate at the Y was. That would have given me greater insight into whether or not I should pursue an MBA. Some people thought my pursuing an MBA was a mistake, but I didn't feel I had much choice, given the low quality undergraduate education I had at BYU.

Going to BYU was my choice as a TBM and my non-Mormon father was actually okay with it as the tuition was lower than the public university he and my mother attended. I enjoyed the mountains, the outdoors, and feel I got a good education. The part I did not like was the lack of stimulating conversation with other students. I had hoped for fascinating political and philosophical discussions with my fellow students at the student union. Instead I got three topics: marriage, missions, babies being born. I couldn't even go to the movies without some baby starting to cry in the middle of the film. I'd never seen anyone take a baby to the movies until I went to BYU.

The lack of stimulating conversation is probably why I turned down all the marriage proposals I got at BYU. I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life talking to guys who had no recognizable opinions outside what LDS, Inc. taught them to believe. I would have transfered to another school but all the religion credits would have not transfered. So I took a lot of summer school and graduated as soon as possible.

I did do a semester at BYU Hawaii and that was a real blast but there wasn't a good reason to transfer there academically.

This is exactly what my idiot father did when I finished high school. He said he would help me go to Rick's (BYUI) or nothing. I couldn't qualify for student loans, because his income was too high. He said I could choose a mission instead.

I joined the Army out of desperation. My father was an asshole.