S/O What is our obligation as parents regarding college $$$?

[Anonymous]

At 450k HHI, I would not feel comfortable telling my kid that there's any college, public or private, that I wouldn't pay for. For me it comes from my upbringing where my 100k HHI parents did everything they could to give me as much as they could to help me attend a top private school. (I still had work-study jobs, was a resident advisor, and took out loans.) I can't imagine being in the position where, unlike my parents, I could easily afford to pay for my kids' college of choice but choose not to. But that's anyone's right with their own money.

Grad school is trickier for me. We will have the resources to pay for our kids' grad school, but especially at the professional schools (law/business/medicine), the starting jobs upon graduation from good schools are so well compensated that it does give me pause to pay for it. (And I say this as someone who was 100% loan-funded through a full priced law school.) But if we can afford it, it would be hard for me to force a young person to take on debt instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At 450K, you will be expected to be full pay no matter where your child attends. You don’t determine your obligation. A combination of the federal government and college financial aid offices do. You can pay with cash, savings, or private loans, but you will be expected to pay. No emotions accepted.

Um, I absolutely get to determine how to spend my money. Sorry if the word "obligation" threw you off. We all place value on different things and to different degrees. Some parents do not feel obligated to pay for a secondary education...and they don't. Some parents feel like their greatest obligation as a parent is to provide the "best" education their child can get up to and including graduate school. And presumably many degrees in between (community college, in state, not room and board, not a liberal arts school, etc. etc.) I'm asking what this board thinks about that.

I think its sad at your income and your lifestyle, that this is even a question. We have 1/3 your income and will pay for a state school and graduate school, more if we can. If we had your income we'd fully pay for any school and the only catch is they need a major that will leave to a job, not a fun major. At a minimum we will pay tuition, room and board. I hope we can do a private if that's where they want to go but I see mine happy at our state school. Best is subjective as best isn't necessarily a private school. I went to both for college and much happier at the public school. But, at that income level why would you pay for a 4 year school and 2-3 years of graduate school. Is your million+ dollar house, fancy cars and vacations more important than making sure your kids get a good start to life?

Often, people like OP who take this "principled" stance only do so as a facade - they want to spend more, and this is their excuse to do so.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is 300k with 2 kids
We feel obligated for in state tuition + room & board
So 120k each
We could afford oos or partial private if we have only 1 kids to pay for
Our jobs are unstable though, forced early retirement expected

[Anonymous]

College is a rip off now days and killing ourselves to pay for it in addition to our own college debt is soul crushing.

[Anonymous]

We put 1250 per kid in their accounts each month. We can do this without feeling the stretch so we’ll continue to do this through their twenties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP's attitude makes no sense. If there is so much resentment for providing for the children so they become successful I wonder why even have biological children with easy availability of birth control options?

I think the minimum one can go with a $200 HHI per yr. would be to provide 4 years of in-state for undergrad (tuition and room & board) for the DCUM donut-hole families and maybe 2 more years of masters/grad school too.

We have $350K HHI, in our 50s. We did 4 yrs of in-state prepaid tuition, 4 yrs of room and board for undergrad and then $70k for 4 years for grad school (medical, law, mba, phd) - we have 2 kids. Thankfully, DC1 got full tuition so we saved some money. DC2 will probably go OOS with some merit aid and we allocate some of the post grad funds for undergrad. We will not end up using all the money. Kids are slogging their butts off and want to earn merit money. We also don't pay college counselors or people who write essays etc.

This donut hole stuff is a bunch of non-sense. On a good year we have 1/2 your income and we have a prepaid plan plus about twice as much in a 529. We could easily save more and probably will. You can veery comfortably pay and it shouldn't even be a discussion.

[Anonymous]

I think giving kids a debt free college education is probably the biggest gift you can give them. I have seen so many people saddled with crippling debt. I also think that there is a lot of value in determining if a private is worth the upsell, but that would be a conversation I had with my kids at the time. We make 250k and I intend to try to get them through with as little debt as I can manage. And yes like other posters, consider it similar to putting healthy food on the table.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The recent thread about paying for college has me wondering. What do you think is your obligation to your children regarding secondary education? How much does it depend on your income/wealth?

Personally, we are striving for four years of in state tuition/room/board for our two kids. We'll probably get there, but just barely. Our HHI is 450K, but we just got there and our oldest is four years from college. But I honestly think that is all I would pay regardless of my ability... I'm not sure I see a guaranteed difference in outcomes between say UMD and Vassar that would justify the experiences we would forfeit to get there...

Just wondering what others' perspectives are on this?

I think it is different for each family as everyone has different circumstances.

Our HHI was around $100k when our kids were born and rose to around $200k as it is today. We actually started saving before they were born. Both of us graduated from college without debt because our parents paid for a large portion of our college. So, we looked at is as a pay it forward thing for our children. We aimed to be able to send them to an out of state college, but had enough in other accounts to spend more, if needed.

Results: One went to an out of state school that cost around $170k all in for the four years. He graduated a year ago December. One went to a private but with a large merit scholarship and cost around $180k all in for the four years, he graduated last month. Both were responsible for their personal spending money. We paid for room, board, books, computers, and school supplies.

[Anonymous]

I'm with OP. We chose to live in VA largely for the many options for good in-state schools, and are saving to cover in-state college for our kids. Most of the time, I don't think privates are worth the money. Both DH and I both went to in-state undergrads. HHI $180k. Several of our friends went to lower ranked schools and are making substantially more money than us too, so I don't think there is a strong school prestige-earnings link. Those friends were more ambitious and went for different careers than we did. If you're a go-getter, you'll get ahead even if you "only" have a degree from GMU or whatnot.

PPs have compared paying for college to eating healthy food. I would say private schools are like eating microgreens and endive, and in-state publics are like eating plain old spinach. It's not like you're just "feeding" your kids candy for dinner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm with OP. We chose to live in VA largely for the many options for good in-state schools, and are saving to cover in-state college for our kids. Most of the time, I don't think privates are worth the money. Both DH and I both went to in-state undergrads. HHI $180k. Several of our friends went to lower ranked schools and are making substantially more money than us too, so I don't think there is a strong school prestige-earnings link. Those friends were more ambitious and went for different careers than we did. If you're a go-getter, you'll get ahead even if you "only" have a degree from GMU or whatnot.

PPs have compared paying for college to eating healthy food. I would say private schools are like eating microgreens and endive, and in-state publics are like eating plain old spinach. It's not like you're just "feeding" your kids candy for dinner.

I love the bolded—thanks, PP!

I mean, the point of college isn’t solely about debt-free education to a fancy name. It’s about getting a good education, broadly. Part of what I want my kids to learn is that there are different ways to do that and they need to take into account what’s a good fit for them, what they’ll get out of the education, etc.

Neither DH nor I want our kids saddled with crippling debt. Part of that is raising them to have the good judgment not to prioritize an obscenely expensive private university over everything else. My parents paid for my undergraduate tuition, and for that I’m deeply grateful. As an adult, I learned that my father made terrible financial decisions in order to do so, and I really wish he hadn’t done that. We’re not bankrupting ourselves to pay for fancy private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At 450K, you will be expected to be full pay no matter where your child attends. You don’t determine your obligation. A combination of the federal government and college financial aid offices do. You can pay with cash, savings, or private loans, but you will be expected to pay. No emotions accepted.

Um, I absolutely get to determine how to spend my money. Sorry if the word "obligation" threw you off. We all place value on different things and to different degrees. Some parents do not feel obligated to pay for a secondary education...and they don't. Some parents feel like their greatest obligation as a parent is to provide the "best" education their child can get up to and including graduate school. And presumably many degrees in between (community college, in state, not room and board, not a liberal arts school, etc. etc.) I'm asking what this board thinks about that.

oh sweetie. wait until your kids get there. it's not that simple

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At 450K, you will be expected to be full pay no matter where your child attends. You don’t determine your obligation. A combination of the federal government and college financial aid offices do. You can pay with cash, savings, or private loans, but you will be expected to pay. No emotions accepted.

Um, I absolutely get to determine how to spend my money. Sorry if the word "obligation" threw you off. We all place value on different things and to different degrees. Some parents do not feel obligated to pay for a secondary education...and they don't. Some parents feel like their greatest obligation as a parent is to provide the "best" education their child can get up to and including graduate school. And presumably many degrees in between (community college, in state, not room and board, not a liberal arts school, etc. etc.) I'm asking what this board thinks about that.

I think its sad at your income and your lifestyle, that this is even a question. We have 1/3 your income and will pay for a state school and graduate school, more if we can. If we had your income we'd fully pay for any school and the only catch is they need a major that will leave to a job, not a fun major. At a minimum we will pay tuition, room and board. I hope we can do a private if that's where they want to go but I see mine happy at our state school. Best is subjective as best isn't necessarily a private school. I went to both for college and much happier at the public school. But, at that income level why would you pay for a 4 year school and 2-3 years of graduate school. Is your million+ dollar house, fancy cars and vacations more important than making sure your kids get a good start to life?

Often, people like OP who take this "principled" stance only do so as a facade - they want to spend more, and this is their excuse to do so.

You need to read the OP again. She just started earning $450k. A public university for 4 years costs about $120k for one child so $240k for two kids. That is an enormous amount of money and OP is giving her kids a great gift.

[Anonymous]

450K? Even if you were earning 300K HHI till now, you are a truly incompetent human being as is your DH.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is around 170K, and we are paying the full cost of in-state tuition and room for two kids. You guys are pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Private college for four years is less than your HHI for a year.