Quintuplets Head to College

ByABC News
September 25, 2001, 7:04 PM

Aug. 30 -- Empty-nest syndrome hit Dan and Pam Pisner harder than most parents who send their children off to college. All five of their children quintuplets who made headlines when they were born in 1983 left for college last fall.

ABCNEWS' Barbara Walters first got to know the Pisner children Devin, Ian, Shira, Michael and Elliot when they were 14 months old. She revisited the quintuplets last year, as they prepared to leave their home in Olney, Md. and head off to college.

A Natural, But Difficult, Change

"It's just so hard to believe that 18 years have gone by so quickly," said Pam, a government worker who was 29 years old when she gave birth to the quintuplets after fertility treatments. "I am going to be crying my eyes out. They are going to leave this house as quickly as they entered all at once."

For Dan, a computer network consultant who works from home, it's a difficult transition as well.

"I thought we got to keep them forever," he said. But, he has realized, "You don't get to keep them forever and this is natural."

Four of the Pisners are at the University of Maryland, about 15 miles away. Elliot left the pack to attend Salisbury University in Salisbury, Md., which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive.

"I just loved their campus," said Elliot, who plans on focusing on management information systems. "I'll admit I'll probably miss them," he said of his siblings, adding with a laugh, "Maybe."

The Financial Burden

Aside from the emotional toll this latest milestone takes on the family of seven, there is also a hefty financial one. While finances have always been a challenge for the family, the cost of sending five kids to college for four years is staggering: It will be about $400,000.

"We can do the first year," said Dan, who estimates their family income to be between $60,000 and $70,000 a year. "But that pretty much wipes us out."

So the kids have applied for student loans, and they will also get jobs on their respective campuses.