Right now my wife will take the lead and I will say little for the sake of keeping the peace.
You need to say little because you are listening. Not because you are letting your wife take the lead or to keep the peace. You need to be actively involved with your daughter and respond with love and empathy rather than judgement and direction.
You still need to communicate with your daughter. You need to understand her.
Oh and I do understand the frustration of paying out the tuition fees and then her dropping out. I just didn't include that in my responses because, actually, I think that is part of the problem.
Of all the twentysomethings I know now (largely, but not entirely, through my son) there are some whose parents were able to fund their university fees upfront and supported them fully and others who took out full loans and worked throughout.
It's a bit of a broad brush but, in the main, the ones who have been most successful in their studies and the ones who didn't drop out and the ones who have 'grown up' more are the ones whose parents didn't pay for them (and also the ones who took a year out before going to university too tbf). It's part of the burgeoning adult experience.
Your daughter needs to make her own way and follow her own path in the world and you need to accept that the life she lives may look nothing like the life you saw for her when she was that tiny baby you brought home from hospital. That's because she's no longer than tiny baby but a fully functioning, independent human who has her own ideas about life - just as you do.
Reading between the lines of your response to me, I get the impression that you'd agree with my parents that I made 'wrong' choices. I'm actually pretty happy with the way my life turned out.
My parents didnt want what was best for me (me, the individual), they wanted what they thought would have been best for them if they had their time again. Much of their advice was driven by their own fears (much like yours is).
I'm not materialistic. My children and I have enough money for all the things we need and some of the things we want and that's all I've ever strived for financially. We spend time together, we laugh, we have fun, we are close and we love each other. I've never chased the ££££££.
It's not that you can't feel frustrated by your daughter's choices but you cannot expect her to live the life you want for her. She will make mistakes and she will fuck up. And sometimes, believe it or not, your advice won't always be either objectively right or right for her.
There is only really one decision in my life that I actually regret. One that has had a huge negative impact on my life and one that I will never be able to reverse and, interestingly, it was a decision of such significance that, on that occasion, I followed my parents advice to the letter. They believed they knew best; they believed their experience should provide the blueprint for my decision and they were wrong.