Re “Should You Pay for Your Child’s College Education?” (NBC News, April 3, 2016):

You make the point that it’s okay for parents to decide not to pay for their kids’ college when they don’t have the means. This is certainly true, but such parents are not addressed in the article. Your suggestion that parents make their financial support conditional on their children’s grades and have them take a gap year to work—at most likely a minimum-wage job—is not financially useful for parents who truly don’t have the means to pay. Parents who really can’t pay could decide not to send their child to college at all, but nowhere does the article suggest that this is an option. The parents the article actually addresses are those who don’t want to pay but still expect their children to find a way to go to college.

In case these parents feel a twinge of guilt about forcing their kids to take on massive debt to pay for college, the article soothes their concerns: “Not all high school seniors are academically or emotionally ready for college.” A year in the working world “gives them a sense of accountability,” says the article, so making your children work to pay for college is actually good for them. To judge from its title, the article is about the parents’ finances. However, a child’s emotional readiness has little to do with finances, except that it excuses parents’ unwillingness to pay.

Some parents have good reasons not to pay for college. Those addressed in the article do not. Parents who have the means to pay for college and expect their children to go to college should pay for their children’s college education.