So how does a two-Fed family that gets fired send a kid to college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth is everyone assuming dual feds make $300-400k? I know tons who are not lawyers or financial regulators who make half that, and certainly don't live in million dollar houses. We still save for college, but we can't pay for it ALL from savings, and made plans based on the assumption that we'd be working and paying as much as we can from cash flow.

I am lucky enough not to have a kid starting college this fall, so if I lose my job I'll have time to look for another, but somebody in this situation is actually in a bad spot. It's completely absurd to say that people all make enough money that if they don't save enough to fully fund college WHILE UNEMPLOYED, they've been irresponsible. Listen to yourselves.

So if you have been only making $200K as a family, are you actually considering $90K+ universities for each of your kids? Serious question.

Because I cannot imagine doing that unless I had it already saved. Is that fair? No, but much of life isn't "fair". Nobody is saying the kids cannot attend college, just that they will have to attend one the family can afford. just like most responsible people do.

LOLOLOL NO. We are a fed/teacher family making less than $200k. We are not planning on $90k+ universities for each of our kids because there's NO WAY we could save and cash flow that on our salaries. The math doesn't math.

But something you may not have considered about living on normal people salaries is that most people aren't even able to save the ENTIRE cost of attendance at an in state school before any of their kids actually enter college. We have been saving what we can after retirement accounts since our kids were born, and we're still going to be paying plenty out of pocket. Plus if you have ZERO income, the amount of parental assets you can direct to college is obviously going to be smaller, because you still need food and shelter.

I'm sorry the imaginary people you're making up are so irresponsible, though.

When you start to see some of the Trumpy comments trickling in here just now, the rage against imaginary people goes from being bemusing to being par for the course.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:two fed families have had 18yesrs to save for college. This is what a 529 is for. I’m sorry for people who are well paid white collar workers too financially irresponsible to have planned for their kids education.

And we are sorry that your kids are not high achievers.

well i have one at UVA and he was. National Merit Scolar. He’s such an under achiever🤣. Despite all we were adult enough to start putting whatever could into the 529 from the time i found out i was pregnant.

I'm glad you're proud of your son - sounds like he's achieved a lot. I wonder if he's proud of you? Would he be proud of you spending your free time on a message board being cold and condescending to someone worried about losing their job? If so, then trust me when I say that something went wrong in parenting.

DP: once again, if you are a double fed, most likely making $300K+ for several years, the fact you don't have $$$ saved for college is a bit ridiculous. So yes, I have empathy for people, but not for people who choose to not plan and live within a reasonable budget (which should include college savings, retirement savings, and building a 12 month+ emergency fund).

Nowhere is it said that there is no money saved for college. That that’s your takeaway/assumption says a lot about your desire to be condescending.

Well if you have a fully funded 529 for college for your kids, then you use it for college, that's the purpose, even if you "don't have your fed job anymore". You fund college with the savings while you continue to search for a new job for yourself. THat's the entire point of saving, so that if an "emergency happens" you still can make life happen

Ah, okay, so people are only worthy if they have managed to save enough to fully fund college for all of their kids, including by having enough foresight to accurately predict the extent of real increases in tuition and fees over two decades. Any less and they are deserving of condescension. Got it, makes total sense.

WTH is your problem? What do you mean by "people are only worthy"?

For majority of the world, life happens, if you have planned you get to go ahead with what you want, if not, you adjust and that might mean CC and transfer, or live at home and attend a nearby university (thus saving R&B).
It has not been difficult to accurately predict the real increases and tuition over the last 2 decades. 20+ years ago we sat down with our financial advisor (we could have also just googled and found this information), we estimated what instate would be, what mid level (we used UVA OOS for this, as we were in MD) and what T20/top privates would be. Our estimates were within $5K for all of them. College costs did not just randomly shoot up 25% one year---they have been routinely increasing.

And yes, this is why you plan in life. You have an emergency fund, you save for college, so that if the unthinkable happens (someone is without a job for whatever reason), you can still manage. And if you didn't plan, then you scramble and make the best of what you can do. And that may be CC to a 4 year or picking an instate school that gives your kid good merit as well.
But if you were making $300-400K (which most dual feds would be who have college aged kids) yes, you should have been saving and not planning to "cash flow" college. For precisely this reason---you never know what curveball life throws you. So when you have it "good" it makes sense to save.
And if you don't, then you get to live with your life's choices.

Where are you getting this? Only 3.9% of all federal workers make $150,000 or more.

Yes, as others have said, many feds trade income for job security and the notion of contributing to society.

So much for that with this administration. Feds are a convenient patsy for the greedy power mongers in office.

Many people in the private sector do not believe Feds should have job security and do not believe they contribute meaningfully to society.

"I'm really sorry if anyone loses their job due to this stupid administration." -- 77 million people voted for this and are not sorry.

Many people are losers in life and just want to inflict pain on others.

Nothing being done will benefit them…they will continue to live hand-to-mouth while the world rubs them into an early death.

It’s bringing others to their level, not they achieving more than their shitty existence.

Sneering at working class Americans like this is why you have Trump now. Enjoy!

It’s not sneering…it’s a fact.

I have family members like this that voted for Trump. They know their lives will basically suck forever…misery loves company.

They aren’t happy that people with stock portfolios are raking in the $$$s while their lives continue to go nowhere.

They have exactly as much sympathy for laid-off Feds as the laid-off Feds had for them when their jobs got sent to China.

But laid-off Feds didn't send their jobs to China. The government and/or the private sector did. Feds are mostly worker-bees - they don't make policy, political appointees do. And what is the evidence that the Feds didn't feel empathy (Empathy is our ability to understand how someone feels while sympathy is our relief in not having the same problems) for those people who lost their jobs that were moved to China. Honestly, I don't think there are many people in the US who are excited by the fact that we don't make anything in our country anymore, particularly given Trump's tariffs.

[Anonymous]

I paid my own way through college. Not that hard

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:two fed families have had 18yesrs to save for college. This is what a 529 is for. I’m sorry for people who are well paid white collar workers too financially irresponsible to have planned for their kids education.

And we are sorry that your kids are not high achievers.

well i have one at UVA and he was. National Merit Scolar. He’s such an under achiever🤣. Despite all we were adult enough to start putting whatever could into the 529 from the time i found out i was pregnant.

I'm glad you're proud of your son - sounds like he's achieved a lot. I wonder if he's proud of you? Would he be proud of you spending your free time on a message board being cold and condescending to someone worried about losing their job? If so, then trust me when I say that something went wrong in parenting.

DP: once again, if you are a double fed, most likely making $300K+ for several years, the fact you don't have $$$ saved for college is a bit ridiculous. So yes, I have empathy for people, but not for people who choose to not plan and live within a reasonable budget (which should include college savings, retirement savings, and building a 12 month+ emergency fund).

Nowhere is it said that there is no money saved for college. That that’s your takeaway/assumption says a lot about your desire to be condescending.

Well if you have a fully funded 529 for college for your kids, then you use it for college, that's the purpose, even if you "don't have your fed job anymore". You fund college with the savings while you continue to search for a new job for yourself. THat's the entire point of saving, so that if an "emergency happens" you still can make life happen

Ah, okay, so people are only worthy if they have managed to save enough to fully fund college for all of their kids, including by having enough foresight to accurately predict the extent of real increases in tuition and fees over two decades. Any less and they are deserving of condescension. Got it, makes total sense.

WTH is your problem? What do you mean by "people are only worthy"?

For majority of the world, life happens, if you have planned you get to go ahead with what you want, if not, you adjust and that might mean CC and transfer, or live at home and attend a nearby university (thus saving R&B).
It has not been difficult to accurately predict the real increases and tuition over the last 2 decades. 20+ years ago we sat down with our financial advisor (we could have also just googled and found this information), we estimated what instate would be, what mid level (we used UVA OOS for this, as we were in MD) and what T20/top privates would be. Our estimates were within $5K for all of them. College costs did not just randomly shoot up 25% one year---they have been routinely increasing.

And yes, this is why you plan in life. You have an emergency fund, you save for college, so that if the unthinkable happens (someone is without a job for whatever reason), you can still manage. And if you didn't plan, then you scramble and make the best of what you can do. And that may be CC to a 4 year or picking an instate school that gives your kid good merit as well.
But if you were making $300-400K (which most dual feds would be who have college aged kids) yes, you should have been saving and not planning to "cash flow" college. For precisely this reason---you never know what curveball life throws you. So when you have it "good" it makes sense to save.
And if you don't, then you get to live with your life's choices.

Where are you getting this? Only 3.9% of all federal workers make $150,000 or more.

Yes, as others have said, many feds trade income for job security and the notion of contributing to society.

So much for that with this administration. Feds are a convenient patsy for the greedy power mongers in office.

Many people in the private sector do not believe Feds should have job security and do not believe they contribute meaningfully to society.

"I'm really sorry if anyone loses their job due to this stupid administration." -- 77 million people voted for this and are not sorry.

Many people are losers in life and just want to inflict pain on others.

Nothing being done will benefit them…they will continue to live hand-to-mouth while the world rubs them into an early death.

It’s bringing others to their level, not they achieving more than their shitty existence.

Sneering at working class Americans like this is why you have Trump now. Enjoy!

It’s not sneering…it’s a fact.

I have family members like this that voted for Trump. They know their lives will basically suck forever…misery loves company.

They aren’t happy that people with stock portfolios are raking in the $$$s while their lives continue to go nowhere.

They have exactly as much sympathy for laid-off Feds as the laid-off Feds had for them when their jobs got sent to China.

But laid-off Feds didn't send their jobs to China. The government and/or the private sector did. Feds are mostly worker-bees - they don't make policy, political appointees do. And what is the evidence that the Feds didn't feel empathy (Empathy is our ability to understand how someone feels while sympathy is our relief in not having the same problems) for those people who lost their jobs that were moved to China. Honestly, I don't think there are many people in the US who are excited by the fact that we don't make anything in our country anymore, particularly given Trump's tariffs.

Pffft get real we know very well that Fed employees are overwhelmingly Democrats and have zero empathy or sympathy for working class Americans. The sheer contempt of UMC Democrats for the working class is glaringly obvious, don’t even bother pretending you care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I paid my own way through college. Not that hard

It is very hard to work part time & go to school full time. Saving the income from part time to full pay even for in state is a very high mountain to climb ! I did it 30 years ago 2 yrs cc & 2 yrs university. Today, it is harder than back then. If I can, I will help my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I paid my own way through college. Not that hard

It is very hard to work part time & go to school full time. Saving the income from part time to full pay even for in state is a very high mountain to climb ! I did it 30 years ago 2 yrs cc & 2 yrs university. Today, it is harder than back then. If I can, I will help my kids.

Did you mean to write full time? Some of us worked full time and took loans to go to community college and state schools. That was very hard. We will help our kids so they don’t have to do that.

But having a part time job is fine and we want our kids to do that. It’s good for them. And yes, they will still probably need to take some loans depending on where they go and if they don’t want to do CC. We saved what we could.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I paid my own way through college. Not that hard

College was so much cheaper 20 or 30 years ago.