I'm wondering whether my parents' attempt to write me a pretty large check (in the thousands, not hundreds) recently (the thing which prompted my post) is in part because Dad feels a little guilty at not being able to afford stuff like CTY when I was growing up. I wasn't eligible for financial aid because the money that could have sent me to CTY was instead being sent to some of Dad's incompetent siblings. So given how weird Mom sometimes was about money when I was growing up, I'm not sure if there are any strings attached. I really doubt there are, but even though there probably aren't, I sorta feel like there are. Does that make sense?

CTY's financial aid hasn't grown all that much lately, especially relative to administrative expenses- it's sorta pathetic these days. There are no longer CTY frisbees or class T-shirts, but back when there were, the one thing that they did right was tell the RA and Instructor of a scholarship student that there's included funding to get the kid one of whatever frisbee/T-shirt everybody else was getting, and that if we ordered out for pizza or something, a reasonable expense would be covered out of petty cash.

Also, akiko, they were probably already charging over $1000. I think you're about my age, and it was already about $1300 when I was in 7th grade.