Do most people pay for college out of pocket?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are millions of parents earning in the Top 3% and above. Millions. Executives, lawyers, SWE’s in the tech field, doctors, investment bankers.

or someone who may have been driving a beat up car just to save for ivy education for their kids

Like the rest of us are rolling around in 90k cars. Sticker price on my vehicle is less than one semester at ivy league.

But do you drive that $45K vehicle for 10-12 years? Or do you replace it every 5-6 years? For "donut hole families" that can make the difference in. what you can afford for your kid (that and other similar cost saving choices you make along the way)

Most people who claim donut hole are making $200-500K and its a joke as they could save and choose not to and then want to complain about the cost of college and expect others to pay.

$200K family of 4 living in a hcol hard pressed to spend $80K x 4 yrs x 2 kids = $640K without impacting retirement.

We could easily do it if we wanted to. It's all about lifestyle choices. When you upgraded your house, we stayed in ours. When you traveled, we didn't. When you buy fancy things, we don't. What does impacting retirement even mean? You want to save a ton for retirement that is ok but then don't scream poverty when it comes to paying for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are millions of parents earning in the Top 3% and above. Millions. Executives, lawyers, SWE’s in the tech field, doctors, investment bankers.

or someone who may have been driving a beat up car just to save for ivy education for their kids

Like the rest of us are rolling around in 90k cars. Sticker price on my vehicle is less than one semester at ivy league.

But do you drive that $45K vehicle for 10-12 years? Or do you replace it every 5-6 years? For "donut hole families" that can make the difference in. what you can afford for your kid (that and other similar cost saving choices you make along the way)

I have one 14 year old car and one newer 30k car (because our ancient car died) car and that's a drop in the ocean of college costs for two kids if we were to pay full pay for a private college. It's really not comparable at all in terms of cost.

It's comparable in terms of mindset for saving for college (and retirement and other aspects of life). Many buy new cars every 4-5 years and that mindset carries over to most other aspects of life---they spend money they dont' need to spend and then wonder why they haven't been able to save.

Us personally, our last car loan was when we were 26 (Honda Civic). Drove that car for 8 years, once it was paid off (in 3 years) kept saving the monthly payment so that we had over $26 K in the "auto savings". Then sold the car for $5K and had $31K to put towards a new vehicle. We added in 6K and paid cash for a luxury vehicle. And never looked back. Kept that car for 11 years before we gave it to a family member.

I have to laugh when you act like a car is 8 years old. We keep our cars 12-20 years (that one was totaled or we'd still have it). Norm for us is 16 years. We drive them till they are not safe or not worth fixing. And, then we buy new. However my last car was $50K as we could afford it in cash so I don't get how people scream poverty on more money. Our next car will be that much too but cash. I cannot even imagine keeping a car 8-11 years.

Totally your choice how long you keep your cars. Sure, 8yo is not "old". We got rid of it mainly because we could afford to and got a massive upgrade (luxury vehicle) with cash. But mainly a family member needed a new car and really wanted ours, so we sold it to them.
However, we paid cash, our kids college is fully funded (for $85K+/year and medical/law/professional school if so desired) and retirement is set as well, so we can spend our money however we want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We saved from birth as we are older parents and want to be retired by the time they start college. DH wanted to save everything in one bucket, but I wanted specific college funds for peace of mind. The tax savings have become meaningful, but it wasn't a primary motivating factor.

We saved a reasonable amount but we figure we can always pull from retirement if we need to.

That should never be a plan. Retirement should not be tapped for anything except retirement for you and your spouse/partner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are millions of parents earning in the Top 3% and above. Millions. Executives, lawyers, SWE’s in the tech field, doctors, investment bankers.

or someone who may have been driving a beat up car just to save for ivy education for their kids

Like the rest of us are rolling around in 90k cars. Sticker price on my vehicle is less than one semester at ivy league.

But do you drive that $45K vehicle for 10-12 years? Or do you replace it every 5-6 years? For "donut hole families" that can make the difference in. what you can afford for your kid (that and other similar cost saving choices you make along the way)

I have one 14 year old car and one newer 30k car (because our ancient car died) car and that's a drop in the ocean of college costs for two kids if we were to pay full pay for a private college. It's really not comparable at all in terms of cost.

It's comparable in terms of mindset for saving for college (and retirement and other aspects of life). Many buy new cars every 4-5 years and that mindset carries over to most other aspects of life---they spend money they dont' need to spend and then wonder why they haven't been able to save.

Us personally, our last car loan was when we were 26 (Honda Civic). Drove that car for 8 years, once it was paid off (in 3 years) kept saving the monthly payment so that we had over $26 K in the "auto savings". Then sold the car for $5K and had $31K to put towards a new vehicle. We added in 6K and paid cash for a luxury vehicle. And never looked back. Kept that car for 11 years before we gave it to a family member.

I have to laugh when you act like a car is 8 years old. We keep our cars 12-20 years (that one was totaled or we'd still have it). Norm for us is 16 years. We drive them till they are not safe or not worth fixing. And, then we buy new. However my last car was $50K as we could afford it in cash so I don't get how people scream poverty on more money. Our next car will be that much too but cash. I cannot even imagine keeping a car 8-11 years.

Totally your choice how long you keep your cars. Sure, 8yo is not "old". We got rid of it mainly because we could afford to and got a massive upgrade (luxury vehicle) with cash. But mainly a family member needed a new car and really wanted ours, so we sold it to them.
However, we paid cash, our kids college is fully funded (for $85K+/year and medical/law/professional school if so desired) and retirement is set as well, so we can spend our money however we want.

Given you are incredibly wealthy, I don't get why you are even discussing it. But, you are being tone-death to lecture someone on flipping cars or buying a nicer car when that's exactly what you are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will feel markedly like a chump when I write the first check for $84k and change in the summer. Ugh. Full pay over here.

This will be us. Feel like a total sucker when you read 65-70% of the school is getting aid and you are full pay.

My kid got into 2 Ivies, Pomona and Georgetown. He will likely go to one of those over WM & UVA. We did all the tours and for us it’s worth it. UVA is the largest by about 10k more students than most on hiss list.

We have about $140k in 529 for each kid. So will be pulling the rest out of our @sses.

Unless you have a extremely HHI, why would you pay $85-90K/year when you can attend UVA for ~$40K? especially when you don't have the money saved for college?
Very different story if you have $350K+ saved for college

Great idea. Assuming your kid is accepted to UVa! Which is not guaranteed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We saved from birth as we are older parents and want to be retired by the time they start college. DH wanted to save everything in one bucket, but I wanted specific college funds for peace of mind. The tax savings have become meaningful, but it wasn't a primary motivating factor.

We saved a reasonable amount but we figure we can always pull from retirement if we need to.

That should never be a plan. Retirement should not be tapped for anything except retirement for you and your spouse/partner.

Why not? Does it matter if we save it in a college fund or retirement plan? Spouse will be retirement age at that point so they can take withdrawals. Assuming they are working we will pay the difference out of pocket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We saved from birth as we are older parents and want to be retired by the time they start college. DH wanted to save everything in one bucket, but I wanted specific college funds for peace of mind. The tax savings have become meaningful, but it wasn't a primary motivating factor.

We saved a reasonable amount, but we figure we can always pull from retirement if we need to.

That should never be a plan. Retirement should not be tapped for anything except retirement for you and your spouse/partner.

Why not? Does it matter if we save it in a college fund or retirement plan? Spouse will be retirement age at that point so they can take withdrawals. Assuming they are working we will pay the difference out of pocket.

There is no one right answer. I'm the PP. I'm the younger spouse. I want to save for college while we are both working. I don't want the timing or the quality of my retirement to be subject to college funding. If we get hit by a bus, I want a portion of my kids’ inheritance earmarked for college. I don't even care if it's entirely rational. It provides peace of mind that I’ve accomplished a specific parenting goal. Capping off the last of our kids’ 529 plans is one of the few reasons I work, as DH’s current income is enough to support current expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We saved from birth as we are older parents and want to be retired by the time they start college. DH wanted to save everything in one bucket, but I wanted specific college funds for peace of mind. The tax savings have become meaningful, but it wasn't a primary motivating factor.

We saved a reasonable amount, but we figure we can always pull from retirement if we need to.

That should never be a plan. Retirement should not be tapped for anything except retirement for you and your spouse/partner.

Why not? Does it matter if we save it in a college fund or retirement plan? Spouse will be retirement age at that point so they can take withdrawals. Assuming they are working we will pay the difference out of pocket.

There is no one right answer. I'm the PP. I'm the younger spouse. I want to save for college while we are both working. I don't want the timing or the quality of my retirement to be subject to college funding. If we get hit by a bus, I want a portion of my kids’ inheritance earmarked for college. I don't even care if it's entirely rational. It provides peace of mind that I’ve accomplished a specific parenting goal. Capping off the last of our kids’ 529 plans is one of the few reasons I work, as DH’s current income is enough to support current expenses.

I don't want to oversave for college when we have no idea where ours will go and with one parent being retirement age it really doesn't matter where you take the money from, you are still spending the same amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are millions of parents earning in the Top 3% and above. Millions. Executives, lawyers, SWE’s in the tech field, doctors, investment bankers.

or someone who may have been driving a beat up car just to save for ivy education for their kids

Like the rest of us are rolling around in 90k cars. Sticker price on my vehicle is less than one semester at ivy league.

But do you drive that $45K vehicle for 10-12 years? Or do you replace it every 5-6 years? For "donut hole families" that can make the difference in. what you can afford for your kid (that and other similar cost saving choices you make along the way)

Most people who claim donut hole are making $200-500K and its a joke as they could save and choose not to and then want to complain about the cost of college and expect others to pay.

$200K family of 4 living in a hcol hard pressed to spend $80K x 4 yrs x 2 kids = $640K without impacting retirement.

We could easily do it if we wanted to. It's all about lifestyle choices. When you upgraded your house, we stayed in ours. When you traveled, we didn't. When you buy fancy things, we don't. What does impacting retirement even mean? You want to save a ton for retirement that is ok but then don't scream poverty when it comes to paying for college.

No fancy vacays or upgrading a house. Still don’t have 640k. Can you run the math for me?

[Anonymous]

We do monthly payment in full. We saved enough in the 529 for about half. My entire after tax salary pays the other half. We lived off my husband paycheck alone for about 5 yrs when the kids were young. I went back to work and my salary was used, but not lived off of if that makes sense. We used it to take fancier vacations, put on a new roof, remodel our kitchen, etc. now it just goes to college and we don’t have any big expenses aside from that for the next few years hopefully.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will feel markedly like a chump when I write the first check for $84k and change in the summer. Ugh. Full pay over here.

This will be us. Feel like a total sucker when you read 65-70% of the school is getting aid and you are full pay.

My kid got into 2 Ivies, Pomona and Georgetown. He will likely go to one of those over WM & UVA. We did all the tours and for us it’s worth it. UVA is the largest by about 10k more students than most on hiss list.

We have about $140k in 529 for each kid. So will be pulling the rest out of our @sses.

Unless you have a extremely HHI, why would you pay $85-90K/year when you can attend UVA for ~$40K? especially when you don't have the money saved for college?
Very different story if you have $350K+ saved for college

Great idea. Assuming your kid is accepted to UVa! Which is not guaranteed.

DP here. Okay I agree with you on this one. But also the reason you need to save since birth, no matter how little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will feel markedly like a chump when I write the first check for $84k and change in the summer. Ugh. Full pay over here.

This will be us. Feel like a total sucker when you read 65-70% of the school is getting aid and you are full pay.

My kid got into 2 Ivies, Pomona and Georgetown. He will likely go to one of those over WM & UVA. We did all the tours and for us it’s worth it. UVA is the largest by about 10k more students than most on hiss list.

We have about $140k in 529 for each kid. So will be pulling the rest out of our @sses.

Unless you have a extremely HHI, why would you pay $85-90K/year when you can attend UVA for ~$40K? especially when you don't have the money saved for college?
Very different story if you have $350K+ saved for college

It sucks for very high star kids of donut hole families. They get effed over. This kid busted @ss most likely and yet if his parents made slightly less he’d get almost a free ride, but since they likely both work their kid can’t go whole a family making $150k can go for free or a $200k family will get $30k knocked off— but live in a high COL area and make $50k more and be on the hook for the full $90k.

It’s just rich and poor at these expensive schools now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are millions of parents earning in the Top 3% and above. Millions. Executives, lawyers, SWE’s in the tech field, doctors, investment bankers.

or someone who may have been driving a beat up car just to save for ivy education for their kids

Like the rest of us are rolling around in 90k cars. Sticker price on my vehicle is less than one semester at ivy league.

But do you drive that $45K vehicle for 10-12 years? Or do you replace it every 5-6 years? For "donut hole families" that can make the difference in. what you can afford for your kid (that and other similar cost saving choices you make along the way)

I have one 14 year old car and one newer 30k car (because our ancient car died) car and that's a drop in the ocean of college costs for two kids if we were to pay full pay for a private college. It's really not comparable at all in terms of cost.

It's comparable in terms of mindset for saving for college (and retirement and other aspects of life). Many buy new cars every 4-5 years and that mindset carries over to most other aspects of life---they spend money they dont' need to spend and then wonder why they haven't been able to save.

Us personally, our last car loan was when we were 26 (Honda Civic). Drove that car for 8 years, once it was paid off (in 3 years) kept saving the monthly payment so that we had over $26 K in the "auto savings". Then sold the car for $5K and had $31K to put towards a new vehicle. We added in 6K and paid cash for a luxury vehicle. And never looked back. Kept that car for 11 years before we gave it to a family member.

I have to laugh when you act like a car is 8 years old. We keep our cars 12-20 years (that one was totaled or we'd still have it). Norm for us is 16 years. We drive them till they are not safe or not worth fixing. And, then we buy new. However my last car was $50K as we could afford it in cash so I don't get how people scream poverty on more money. Our next car will be that much too but cash. I cannot even imagine keeping a car 8-11 years.

I cannot imagine driving around a pos 11 year old car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are millions of parents earning in the Top 3% and above. Millions. Executives, lawyers, SWE’s in the tech field, doctors, investment bankers.

or someone who may have been driving a beat up car just to save for ivy education for their kids

Like the rest of us are rolling around in 90k cars. Sticker price on my vehicle is less than one semester at ivy league.

But do you drive that $45K vehicle for 10-12 years? Or do you replace it every 5-6 years? For "donut hole families" that can make the difference in. what you can afford for your kid (that and other similar cost saving choices you make along the way)

I have one 14 year old car and one newer 30k car (because our ancient car died) car and that's a drop in the ocean of college costs for two kids if we were to pay full pay for a private college. It's really not comparable at all in terms of cost.

It's comparable in terms of mindset for saving for college (and retirement and other aspects of life). Many buy new cars every 4-5 years and that mindset carries over to most other aspects of life---they spend money they dont' need to spend and then wonder why they haven't been able to save.

Us personally, our last car loan was when we were 26 (Honda Civic). Drove that car for 8 years, once it was paid off (in 3 years) kept saving the monthly payment so that we had over $26 K in the "auto savings". Then sold the car for $5K and had $31K to put towards a new vehicle. We added in 6K and paid cash for a luxury vehicle. And never looked back. Kept that car for 11 years before we gave it to a family member.

I have to laugh when you act like a car is 8 years old. We keep our cars 12-20 years (that one was totaled or we'd still have it). Norm for us is 16 years. We drive them till they are not safe or not worth fixing. And, then we buy new. However my last car was $50K as we could afford it in cash so I don't get how people scream poverty on more money. Our next car will be that much too but cash. I cannot even imagine keeping a car 8-11 years.

Totally your choice how long you keep your cars. Sure, 8yo is not "old". We got rid of it mainly because we could afford to and got a massive upgrade (luxury vehicle) with cash. But mainly a family member needed a new car and really wanted ours, so we sold it to them.
However, we paid cash, our kids college is fully funded (for $85K+/year and medical/law/professional school if so desired) and retirement is set as well, so we can spend our money however we want.

Given you are incredibly wealthy, I don't get why you are even discussing it. But, you are being tone-death to lecture someone on flipping cars or buying a nicer car when that's exactly what you are doing.

I didn't "do that" until we had our finances in order. I grew up poor and had student loans to pay off along with my spouses when we graduated college. We had to work for everything we got and paid off almost $100K in student loans (30+ years ago).
I drove a $5K beater car without AC (on the east coast, hot and humid) during college and for 6 years later. We paid those off and saved for a house before having any kids. We bought a "nice home" but not nearly as nice as we could have. Instead we chose to save money for retirement and emergency fund. As soon as first kid was born, I stayed home and our salary was cut in half. Hence why we bought "less of a house"---bought that we could easily afford on only 1 salary if needed. We still scrimpted and saved. Started saving immediately for college. Put any bonuses directly into college savings as well. By time oldest was 12 we were able to stop saving for them as we had enough. By time youngest was 12 they also had enough.
That meant other than our honeymoon, we didn't take a vacation we flew on until we were 32.
We could have technically afforded it but we chose to save and live modestly during that time.

Sure we now have more than enough money, but we got to having enough for college well before we were "incredibly wealthy". Came from making a concerted effort to save save save. We lived beneath our means (but still nicely) and made choices to do that. Our kids would still be well set for college even if we didn't greatly increase our income after they were teens. Simply because we laid the financial foundation for that beforehand and made fiscally sound choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will feel markedly like a chump when I write the first check for $84k and change in the summer. Ugh. Full pay over here.

This will be us. Feel like a total sucker when you read 65-70% of the school is getting aid and you are full pay.

My kid got into 2 Ivies, Pomona and Georgetown. He will likely go to one of those over WM & UVA. We did all the tours and for us it’s worth it. UVA is the largest by about 10k more students than most on hiss list.

We have about $140k in 529 for each kid. So will be pulling the rest out of our @sses.

Unless you have a extremely HHI, why would you pay $85-90K/year when you can attend UVA for ~$40K? especially when you don't have the money saved for college?
Very different story if you have $350K+ saved for college

Great idea. Assuming your kid is accepted to UVa! Which is not guaranteed.

The PP I was responding to stated their kid "got into 2 ivies, Pomona and Georgetown" " and will likely go to one of those over UVA and WM" That kind of implies that their kid DID get into UVA. Reading comprehension is key.