I genuinely don't get saving for college for kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We ended up declaring bankruptcy to get ours through college.

That is ridiculous and an awful financial mistake. Did your kids go to public universities and community college or did you waste your savings on private schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is ironic, that the people on this forum who are most able to save for college in a 529 (this is what DCUM means by "saving for college") could likely afford to cashflow college if they needed to, so probably don't need to amass a small fortune in 529 accounts. 529 accounts are tax friendly and people make so much money, so why not.

This might be the only take on this thread dumber that OP's.

You think the ability to save, over 18+ years, with all the help of compounding, for a six figure tuition bill means that you have the means to cash-flow that same tuition bill?

So if someone can afford to save $925 per month, they also are absolutely able to pay for $50k for each of four consecutive years?

[headdesk]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is ironic, that the people on this forum who are most able to save for college in a 529 (this is what DCUM means by "saving for college") could likely afford to cashflow college if they needed to, so probably don't need to amass a small fortune in 529 accounts. 529 accounts are tax friendly and people make so much money, so why not.

This might be the only take on this thread dumber that OP's.

You think the ability to save, over 18+ years, with all the help of compounding, for a six figure tuition bill means that you have the means to cash-flow that same tuition bill?

So if someone can afford to save $925 per month, they also are absolutely able to pay for $50k for each of four consecutive years?

[headdesk]

+100. I two kids who will be going trough college at roughly the same time, but will not totally overlap. We have a 250k HHI, and there is no way we could afford to cash flow 100k+ a year while they overlap. We can afford to save and hopefully have enough so that we don't have to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read the surely inane responses on this thread.

OP I AGREE WITH YOU.

You are not missing anything. I had the same experience as you and paid for law school myself as well. There was no huge crushing debt. I took out only as much money as I needed and aggressively paid it back. My siblings all did the same. My cousins all did the same. None of our families bankrolled our education and WE VALUED IT MORE.

I love my peers who take on insane jobs and hours to make money to help their kids. You know what helps kids? Prioritizing spending time with them, being a part of raising them and teaching them responsibility and to take ownership of their lives.

OP- listen to your own good common sense. Your kid is lucky to have you.

But the rules for student loans have changed. The only loans students can get in their own name (barring some unusual situation) is the federal loan, max $31k for undergrad (which is probably a reasonable limit for most students). If you need more from that you need a parent to co-sign so it is then as much the parent's loan as the students. Is this parent who refuses to save for college going to be willing to co-sign a loan they will then be responsible for? And, likely has a high interest rate? Why would you pay so much for a loan that you could have avoided by saving when you can afford it. If you want the student to have "skin in the game", then just tell them what you are paying is a loan and work out the terms for them to pay you back. Would be a lot cheaper.

It IS possible to get through college on your own with just the federal loan limits if you go to a CC, work FT all summer and PT all school year, transfer to a local public university and live at home (assuming parents are gracious enough to let you live at home and not charge you rent). We actually worked through this option with DS as an exercise in understanding college costs and tradeoffs. For families who can't afford to save or pay for a more expensive option via cash flow, then that's their best option. Unless your child gets one of the exceedingly rare full rides -- tuition + R&B. Which is great but not an expectation you should build your college planning around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is ironic, that the people on this forum who are most able to save for college in a 529 (this is what DCUM means by "saving for college") could likely afford to cashflow college if they needed to, so probably don't need to amass a small fortune in 529 accounts. 529 accounts are tax friendly and people make so much money, so why not.

This is why we save for college.

Our HHI is about $400k right now. If we could manage to "cashflow" daycare at $20k/yr when we had a HHI of $75k, then I think we can manage $60k when we are much more established in our careers. We save in a 529 because we make significantly more than we spend, and it's an easy, tax friendly place to put money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read the surely inane responses on this thread.

OP I AGREE WITH YOU.

You are not missing anything. I had the same experience as you and paid for law school myself as well. There was no huge crushing debt. I took out only as much money as I needed and aggressively paid it back. My siblings all did the same. My cousins all did the same. None of our families bankrolled our education and WE VALUED IT MORE.

I love my peers who take on insane jobs and hours to make money to help their kids. You know what helps kids? Prioritizing spending time with them, being a part of raising them and teaching them responsibility and to take ownership of their lives.

OP- listen to your own good common sense. Your kid is lucky to have you.

But the rules for student loans have changed. The only loans students can get in their own name (barring some unusual situation) is the federal loan, max $31k for undergrad (which is probably a reasonable limit for most students). If you need more from that you need a parent to co-sign so it is then as much the parent's loan as the students. Is this parent who refuses to save for college going to be willing to co-sign a loan they will then be responsible for? And, likely has a high interest rate? Why would you pay so much for a loan that you could have avoided by saving when you can afford it. If you want the student to have "skin in the game", then just tell them what you are paying is a loan and work out the terms for them to pay you back. Would be a lot cheaper.

It IS possible to get through college on your own with just the federal loan limits if you go to a CC, work FT all summer and PT all school year, transfer to a local public university and live at home (assuming parents are gracious enough to let you live at home and not charge you rent). We actually worked through this option with DS as an exercise in understanding college costs and tradeoffs. For families who can't afford to save or pay for a more expensive option via cash flow, then that's their best option. Unless your child gets one of the exceedingly rare full rides -- tuition + R&B. Which is great but not an expectation you should build your college planning around.

I am the PP and don't have any problem giving my kids an interest free loan to go to college on an aggressive repayment schedule. What I don't like is this attitude that parents are expected to sacrifice for decades so their kids can have four years of extravagant living. In my opinion, fully paid for college/room and board is beyond extravagant. Our family doesn't have a huge HHI but we are comfortable. If the markets work out well for us, I would absolutely want to be generous with my kids but I still would not pay their way through school. I think someone's point earlier about properly setting expectations is great. There is nothing wrong with going to CC and then transferring to a different school later. I had a full ride for college but would have done that otherwise. Many of my cousin's who have parents that work at McDonalds or factories have taken that route and are putting themselves through graduate school now. (I also graduated ten years ago so loans may be different but I don't know.) All of us got our last degree from really prestigious universities and all three of us paid off our grad school debt less than five years out of grad school. My little sister paid off 40k in less than two years... as a social worker.

My approach has been that if we stay financially comfortable, I plan to either buy each of my kids their first house or give them the down payment for it. (Obviously am not going to tell them this.) But I believe part of my job as their parent is to help them do hard things and figure out their way in the world. If that route is going to college, I want to know that they have a good enough head on their shoulders to figure it out. If that means being an artist or businessperson or whatever, they need to show me they are responsible adults before being handed tens of thousands dollars.

Higher education is not as attainable as it should be in this country but the idea that your kids are entitled to you paying for their college/grad school is terrible. If you are super wealthy and it is no skin off your back to pay for your kids' schooling, do it! But don't guilt other people who can't do that or don't want to do that and call them bad parents. That's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess, I was very lucky - as an immigrant from Europe, I went to community college first ( had to pay 3x more because I wasn't eligible for in-state tuition), I accumulated about 120 credits. Then I transferred to private university for nursing school ( I finished with an associate degree just to get RN License) for 2 years. I worked, then went part-time to public university to finish BSN degree in Nursing. I make over 100K gross as a staff nurse and have a government job. My parents never paid a dime for my school- heck, they still live in Europe. I just don't get why parents feel obligated to pay for colleges for kids here. Kids should have figure it out how to navigate their lives after high school.

No one hires community college RNs anymore. You were lucky, when did you graduate?

Tell that to the RN's who are signing crisis contracts for 6-7K PER WEEK. Believe me, no one gives a hoot whether they have their ADN or Ph.D. Do you have a valid license and are willing to work COVID units? That's about it. About half of all RN graduates are from 2 year programs and they get jobs without a problem. Look outside of your little DC bubble.

I'm RN - an immigrant from Europe. I agree, you have RN license. I graduated back in 2006 and never had a problem finding a job. I did BSN degree because I was ambitious, while most of my coworkers never bothered. I understand that now BSN degree is much more preferred or required. What I'm trying to say here, that I had no parents supporting me financially, I didn't even know English that well and had to work while going to college. To me it is a pure luxury for kids to be sent to college and just study and spending parents' money. I would rather help my child by paying a down payment for her house, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is ironic, that the people on this forum who are most able to save for college in a 529 (this is what DCUM means by "saving for college") could likely afford to cashflow college if they needed to, so probably don't need to amass a small fortune in 529 accounts. 529 accounts are tax friendly and people make so much money, so why not.

This might be the only take on this thread dumber that OP's.

You think the ability to save, over 18+ years, with all the help of compounding, for a six figure tuition bill means that you have the means to cash-flow that same tuition bill?

So if someone can afford to save $925 per month, they also are absolutely able to pay for $50k for each of four consecutive years?

[headdesk]

+100. I two kids who will be going trough college at roughly the same time, but will not totally overlap. We have a 250k HHI, and there is no way we could afford to cash flow 100k+ a year while they overlap. We can afford to save and hopefully have enough so that we don't have to.

There is no excuse on that income to at least save for a state college and pay in full. We make $150K max and in 10 years saved $10K. You need to change your lifestyle if you cannot afford college on that income.

[Anonymous]

I am not at all convinced that if you have 4-5 years and $250k to develop as a young adult and learn a marketable skill that college is the way to do it.

Has anyone considered giving their children the time and money without requiring that it be used for tuition?

[Anonymous]

We never saved any money for college. We survived because we were already paying $40k a year for HS. Going up to $70k a year for college didn’t seem that much more of a stretch. Was it smart? No. Would I recommend this approach? Never. If you know you have a looming large expense ahead of you, why would you not try to save?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read the surely inane responses on this thread.

OP I AGREE WITH YOU.

You are not missing anything. I had the same experience as you and paid for law school myself as well. There was no huge crushing debt. I took out only as much money as I needed and aggressively paid it back. My siblings all did the same. My cousins all did the same. None of our families bankrolled our education and WE VALUED IT MORE.

I love my peers who take on insane jobs and hours to make money to help their kids. You know what helps kids? Prioritizing spending time with them, being a part of raising them and teaching them responsibility and to take ownership of their lives.

OP- listen to your own good common sense. Your kid is lucky to have you.

But the rules for student loans have changed. The only loans students can get in their own name (barring some unusual situation) is the federal loan, max $31k for undergrad (which is probably a reasonable limit for most students). If you need more from that you need a parent to co-sign so it is then as much the parent's loan as the students. Is this parent who refuses to save for college going to be willing to co-sign a loan they will then be responsible for? And, likely has a high interest rate? Why would you pay so much for a loan that you could have avoided by saving when you can afford it. If you want the student to have "skin in the game", then just tell them what you are paying is a loan and work out the terms for them to pay you back. Would be a lot cheaper.

It IS possible to get through college on your own with just the federal loan limits if you go to a CC, work FT all summer and PT all school year, transfer to a local public university and live at home (assuming parents are gracious enough to let you live at home and not charge you rent). We actually worked through this option with DS as an exercise in understanding college costs and tradeoffs. For families who can't afford to save or pay for a more expensive option via cash flow, then that's their best option. Unless your child gets one of the exceedingly rare full rides -- tuition + R&B. Which is great but not an expectation you should build your college planning around.

I am the PP and don't have any problem giving my kids an interest free loan to go to college on an aggressive repayment schedule. What I don't like is this attitude that parents are expected to sacrifice for decades so their kids can have four years of extravagant living. In my opinion, fully paid for college/room and board is beyond extravagant. Our family doesn't have a huge HHI but we are comfortable. If the markets work out well for us, I would absolutely want to be generous with my kids but I still would not pay their way through school. I think someone's point earlier about properly setting expectations is great. There is nothing wrong with going to CC and then transferring to a different school later. I had a full ride for college but would have done that otherwise. Many of my cousin's who have parents that work at McDonalds or factories have taken that route and are putting themselves through graduate school now. (I also graduated ten years ago so loans may be different but I don't know.) All of us got our last degree from really prestigious universities and all three of us paid off our grad school debt less than five years out of grad school. My little sister paid off 40k in less than two years... as a social worker.

My approach has been that if we stay financially comfortable, I plan to either buy each of my kids their first house or give them the down payment for it. (Obviously am not going to tell them this.) But I believe part of my job as their parent is to help them do hard things and figure out their way in the world. If that route is going to college, I want to know that they have a good enough head on their shoulders to figure it out. If that means being an artist or businessperson or whatever, they need to show me they are responsible adults before being handed tens of thousands dollars.

Higher education is not as attainable as it should be in this country but the idea that your kids are entitled to you paying for their college/grad school is terrible. If you are super wealthy and it is no skin off your back to pay for your kids' schooling, do it! But don't guilt other people who can't do that or don't want to do that and call them bad parents. That's ridiculous.

That makes no sense to buy a house but not pay for college. They can be good kids and hard workers and have school paid for. There is no way to pay off $40K as a social worker making $40-50K in two years except if she lived at home/no expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We never saved any money for college. We survived because we were already paying $40k a year for HS. Going up to $70k a year for college didn’t seem that much more of a stretch. Was it smart? No. Would I recommend this approach? Never. If you know you have a looming large expense ahead of you, why would you not try to save?

You clearly have the income to do it so the situation is a bit different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP's plan might work because -- (a) she only has one child; (b) she does not seem super concerned about the prestige of the college; and (c) her daughter is a high achiever.

DH and I have 3 kids, and they do fine in school, but are not academic super stars by any means. My DS is a 12th grader, and we recently filled out the Common App that many colleges use. It asks if you plan to apply for financial aid. We figured it helped our DS that we were able to check "no" to that box because we have 529s for each of the 3 kids (thanks to my in-laws). It may help him a bit in the admissions process that he is full pay. That's not really fair to have "full pay" count toward admissions, but perhaps my DS would be subsidizing another student who is a better student but does not have the $$ to pay for this college.

Even my DS (with a 3.1 GPA and similar ACT score) is getting offered some merit aid from (not well known) colleges. So that suggests that, if you have a high-achieving child and are not too picky about the college, it might work out for OP.

You are talking about unfair when your in-laws are paying for college. Why didn't you save?

[Anonymous]

Probably been said already but college much more expensive now. If you are UMC you will not get need based aid or a Pell grant. Work will only amount to a few spending bucks, and bright kid doesn’t necessarily amount to top student. It’s what you do with your time, study habits etc. that results in top grades. You prob don’t need to put away $300k but $100K would at least partially cover you. Otherwise you may be writing a check for more than that AND saddling your kid with lots of loans.

Also everyone thinks their kid will get some kind of full ride, academic or athletic. They most likely will not. Unless they are very poor, an URM or some kind of extreme genius (like curing cancer in the kitchen smartJ.

Signed, mom of 2018 grad.

[Anonymous]

NP here. We're older parents. We started saving when our first of 3 was born. 19 years later, we have 3 generous 529s that enable all our kids to go to college more or less where they choose. The downside? Impossible to get financial aid. We also made a lot of sacrifices along the way, despite pretty well-paying jobs. We prioritized. We know we're outliers. No judgement of parents who do things differently... it's unfortunate higher education in this country comes with such a price tag.