"Fully fund" college... how much?

[Anonymous]

How much are you assuming in annual tuition to fully fund college? How many years out are you from paying tuition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much are you assuming in annual tuition to fully fund college? How many years out are you from paying tuition?

Well, I've assumed the price of a private school will cost $75K per year and grow at 5% per year (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/paying-for-college-infographic). If you're trying to pay full tuition for four years, I think that's a more than reasonable starting point with some buffer built in. Of course, this doesn't include merit discounts, etc. For your situation, you can use whatever the current tuition is of a school that you'd like your DD to be able to attend and then apply a 5% growth rate to it until they would be projected to finish.

[Anonymous]

Tuition, room and board for my college student (out of state SEC school with in-state tuition and no aid) is about $30k a year. About $17k for tuition and $13k for room and board.

[Anonymous]

We plan on saving 500k. 12 years out from college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tuition, room and board for my college student (out of state SEC school with in-state tuition and no aid) is about $30k a year. About $17k for tuition and $13k for room and board.

How do you get in state tuition for an out of state school?

[Anonymous]

We're assuming the most expensive in-state public in VA (W&M or UVA) at currently roughly 40k/yr total cost of attendance. Instead of projecting tuition growth, we just assume our investments in current dollars will match cost of attendance (so growth in tuition=growth in investments). We did this with our eldest (who ended up going to W&M), our middle child in HS looks on track too and our youngest is in MS and it seems like tuition growth has slowed down. We figure in saving at a consistent rate until age 21 since the cost of college happens over 4 years.

Our policy with our kids is that we will fully fund total cost of attendance at any in-state public. If they want to go out of state or private that costs more, they will need to come up with the difference--either through loans, work or merit awards.

[Anonymous]

We saved half of what private college costs. We are paying the rest out of our income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much are you assuming in annual tuition to fully fund college? How many years out are you from paying tuition?

Well, I've assumed the price of a private school will cost $75K per year and grow at 5% per year (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/paying-for-college-infographic). If you're trying to pay full tuition for four years, I think that's a more than reasonable starting point with some buffer built in. Of course, this doesn't include merit discounts, etc. For your situation, you can use whatever the current tuition is of a school that you'd like your DD to be able to attend and then apply a 5% growth rate to it until they would be projected to finish.

This!

[Anonymous]

Use this calculator.

https://www.savingforcollege.com/calculators/college-savings-calculator

We’re in the top 5% of earners and have only saved for instate tuition for our two kids. Which is about $35k a year. We have about $170k for two high schoolers now, and will hope,to pay the rest as we go.

I don’t know how people save for private school amounts of room and board and tuition with no merit (70k a year plus) without some kind of weird sacrifice or serious help from grandparents. Or money is no object.

[Anonymous]

Certain schools like Alabama and South Carolina will give in state tuition rates for out of state students if they hit a certain gpa or Sat threshold.

A lot of well rated private schools are full pay though. Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Amherst, etc, will never give you non- need based aid.

Google the school you’re interested in and tuition and room and board and merit aid and see what comes up. Also collge vine and collge confidential have some good guidance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Certain schools like Alabama and South Carolina will give in state tuition rates for out of state students if they hit a certain gpa or Sat threshold.

A lot of well rated private schools are full pay though. Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Amherst, etc, will never give you non- need based aid.

Google the school you’re interested in and tuition and room and board and merit aid and see what comes up. Also collge vine and collge confidential have some good guidance.

Clemson does this also

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tuition, room and board for my college student (out of state SEC school with in-state tuition and no aid) is about $30k a year. About $17k for tuition and $13k for room and board.

How do you get in state tuition for an out of state school?

We went through the Academic Common Market. If your state doesn’t offer a specific major they may have an agreement with other states to allow a student in-state tuition to the out of state school. It’s a great program but the kids can’t change their major. I hadn’t heard of it until my son was in 9th or 10th grade.

Here’s the info for Virginia:

https://www.schev.edu/financial-aid/academic-common-market

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We saved half of what private college costs. We are paying the rest out of our income.

Same.

[Anonymous]

As someone who occasionally rubbernecks on the FB page for parents of students at a state school, I encourage everyone never to assume that there's going to be a way to get in-state tuition if you're not in state.

Does it happen? Sure! But assuming that current policies will be in effect when your kid gets to college and that your kid will qualify if they do -- that's a great way to hurt your own feelings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Use this calculator.

https://www.savingforcollege.com/calculators/college-savings-calculator

We’re in the top 5% of earners and have only saved for instate tuition for our two kids. Which is about $35k a year. We have about $170k for two high schoolers now, and will hope,to pay the rest as we go.

I don’t know how people save for private school amounts of room and board and tuition with no merit (70k a year plus) without some kind of weird sacrifice or serious help from grandparents. Or money is no object.

We had some help from grandparents but I guess mostly weird sacrifice. Probably still won't wind up quite covering full room and board at a 70k school but we'll come close. Our retirement savings are well on track, so it's really just a question of whether I'd rather save the money for college or spend it on something else.