Girl drops out of college, so parents spend college fund; she's furious.

Our daughter is 20F and she recently decided to go back to college after taking a year off. She dropped out of college a few months saying it wasn’t for her. We adamantly advised against it but she ended up moving in with her boyfriend and started working in his family’s restaurant business.

There was still a little north of 30k set aside in the account I set aside for her tuition money. My wife and I had been wanting to remodel our kitchen for a while so decided to go ahead with that money. Well now my daughter has decided to go back to college because it didn’t work out with her boyfriend and she didn’t like any of the jobs she had following that.

She was shocked that we had used her college money towards the house even though we had this conversation before she left. She asked if she could have access to her college tuition account before she moved in with her boyfriend to which we explicitly said no and said that was saved for her tuition only and nothing else and that if she left we’d use it for something else.

She said she thought we were bluffing and didn’t actually mean it and that we need to help her pay for college since we are still paying for her younger brother’s yearly tuition. I told her she needs to work part time and go to a cheaper place like community college rather than a state school.

She’s been angry over this and ignoring her mother’s phone calls. Her mother has said maybe we can still help her out financially but we’re nearing our retirement age and a little behind our retirement goals so I don’t want to take away from our savings just because my daughter made some bad choices.

I feel like I have given her good alternatives and even offered to let her stay at our house free of rent so she can just focus on paying for college. AITA?

From the comments:

tofu_deluxe says:

This situation is harsh on your daughter, but NTA. 'But I thought you were bluffing' is a feeble response. You don't get to use that line when you're making a life changing decision and are given conditions by the people financing you. She just learned a very expensive lesson.

oaktreegardener says:

If I were in OP’s place, and if I wanted my daughter to reconsider her life choices, I’d keep that money set aside for at least a few more years - only for school - and try to encourage her to go back. And I would be more worried about her being in a potentially bad relationship, rather than just saying, “eh, fine, whatever, we’re keeping the money now.”

Legal-Ad7793 says:

I tell my kids college, trade school, or a house. That's what they can use their savings (that I'm paying into) for. I totally agree that they were very quick to use the money elsewhere and assure that their daughter would be out of luck.

raesayshey says:

Yeah. I'm having trouble reconciling the mentality of a person who has dutifully saved money from paycheck after paycheck, year after year to provide an education for their kid, so their kid can have their best shot...and then after a single year going 'eh well, no take-backsies. Hon call the decorator!'

MudLOA says:

She tried to f**k around and she found out. I mean as a parent myself this is a painful thing to say. But NTA OP.