How much do we need to save for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:are you willing to impose the rule "you have to stay in state or come up with the money?""?

R&B - can you afford that out of pocket?

OP here. We want to have enough saved to fund tuition, room & board, books and car insurance. Kid will have to work and pay for incidentals and spending money. We are looking at retiring before kid finishes college, so we are trying to prepare. We have a good chunk of money saved now, but want to be prepared. We can give DS enough for public in-state school OR the majority of out of state/private school. But if he wants school that is significantly more, he will have to help fund it. At some point in the next couple of years we want to stop saving for college and save more toward retirement.

always retirement first.

We have been saving for retirement for years. We just want to stop saving for college at some point and put that money into retirement. I'm basically looking for a number at which we have "enough" saved for college.

For my DS it will probably be about $70k, but won’t that figure vary widely depending on the school, aid, scholarships, etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only child entering high school. Realistically how much do we need to have saved for college? We currently have enough for four years of tuition at any in-state (VA) public school.

Seems reasonable. What is this number?

We prepaid 4 years of tuition through VAs prepaid college program

FYI, certain majors at some of the Virginia state schools have additional fees that are not covered by the prepaid tuition. If your child is intending to major in one of them, be prepared for s higher tuition bill.

[Anonymous]

The more you save, the less (potential) aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more you save, the less (potential) aid.

PP here. That wasn't meant to be snarky. That's was a piece of advice I heard from a NE SLAC financial aid director when she was touring our HS.

[Anonymous]

We only have one and have $210K saved so far. She is starting her SR year in college. I am figuring max $70k a year for tuition, room & board. My DH keeps talking about spending $ and I am like WHAT?!?

She is lucky we are giving her this ...

[Anonymous]

SR year in HS -- sorry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more you save, the less (potential) aid.

PP here. That wasn't meant to be snarky. That's was a piece of advice I heard from a NE SLAC financial aid director when she was touring our HS.

Depends on your HHI and other sources of funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We only have one and have $210K saved so far. She is starting her SR year in college. I am figuring max $70k a year for tuition, room & board. My DH keeps talking about spending $ and I am like WHAT?!?

She is lucky we are giving her this ...

She can earn her own spending money.

How are you going to cover the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We only have one and have $210K saved so far. She is starting her SR year in college. I am figuring max $70k a year for tuition, room & board. My DH keeps talking about spending $ and I am like WHAT?!?

She is lucky we are giving her this ...

She can earn her own spending money.

How are you going to cover the rest.

I think OP is frying his/her brain worrying too much. That kind of savings is a lot of money. Any shortfall, deal with it when it comes.

[Anonymous]

300k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We only have one and have $210K saved so far. She is starting her SR year in college. I am figuring max $70k a year for tuition, room & board. My DH keeps talking about spending $ and I am like WHAT?!?

She is lucky we are giving her this ...

She can earn her own spending money.

How are you going to cover the rest.

I think OP is frying his/her brain worrying too much. That kind of savings is a lot of money. Any shortfall, deal with it when it comes.

We are saving an additional 1K a month -- so that will add another 48K, leaving us short 22K. I am figuring either using inheritance or annual gift checks from my Dad (her grandfather) to make up that 22K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We only have one and have $210K saved so far. She is starting her SR year in college. I am figuring max $70k a year for tuition, room & board. My DH keeps talking about spending $ and I am like WHAT?!?

She is lucky we are giving her this ...

What school? $70k/year seems like an example on the high end.

[Anonymous]

You should use one of the on-line calculators for this rather than this forum Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, Motley Fool and other have these publicly available. If you use the for funds then it is a direct load and update from the financial information (Fidelity for example links internal and external accounts and buckets them for comprehensive planning of retirement AND college...it has been invaluable) Other tools are a really a matter of preference....YMMV

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We only have one and have $210K saved so far. She is starting her SR year in college. I am figuring max $70k a year for tuition, room & board. My DH keeps talking about spending $ and I am like WHAT?!?

She is lucky we are giving her this ...

Whatever you decide to do for spending money, you can do out of pocket.

Our kid got a job this past summer and earned about $1,600. That (plus some other earnings if he isn't careful) is going to cover his spending money. We don't want him working in the fall of his freshman year, but really, how much can there be to buy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We only have one and have $210K saved so far. She is starting her SR year in college. I am figuring max $70k a year for tuition, room & board. My DH keeps talking about spending $ and I am like WHAT?!?

She is lucky we are giving her this ...

What school? $70k/year seems like an example on the high end.

Well, clearly they are planning on private.