Did you folks not do ANY saving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The loans are financial aid, but not part of the Cost of Attendance because you don't cough up the money until after attendance is done.

When I read this (re-) interpretation of COA to exclude financed costs (which I assume is not a slight of hand on the part of the helpful poster, but probably the official way of speech) it's difficult to not get annoyed. Usually, tricky and misleading interpretations of commonly understood terms like cost are the hallmark of a sleazy business.

On the flipside, do subsidized loans have prepayment penalties? If not, there doesn't seem to be any reason to not take them. You can always invest the money until interest becomes due. If you've saved, that is.

This is the poster's way of talking. Cost of attendance includes pretty much every thing students need: tuition, fees, room&board, books and supplies, transportation, and misc living expenses. There's a standardized formula for how these are figured. Some expenses are billed by the college, some are the discretion of students and thus are averages. This cost of attendance is helpful for families to figure out what college really costs, to establish what loans can be used for etc. Loans do not reduce what colleges list as the cost of attendance, but they reduce the cash you have to come up with in the moment of attendance.

Yes, subsidized loans are a great deal with no prepayment penalty. They have a slight origination cost (and there's a push to get rid of this actually) and there are limits on how much you are awarded --$3500 first year undergraduate, goes up slightly each year, and you have to financially qualify. There's no reason not to take these and bank it for future potential expenses and pay back before the 6 month grace period post graduation before you pay any interest at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The loans are financial aid, but not part of the Cost of Attendance because you don't cough up the money until after attendance is done.

When I read this (re-) interpretation of COA to exclude financed costs (which I assume is not a slight of hand on the part of the helpful poster, but probably the official way of speech) it's difficult to not get annoyed. Usually, tricky and misleading interpretations of commonly understood terms like cost are the hallmark of a sleazy business.

On the flipside, do subsidized loans have prepayment penalties? If not, there doesn't seem to be any reason to not take them. You can always invest the money until interest becomes due. If you've saved, that is.

Yes, feels like slight of hand, a little hard to get up to speed, but at least it is consistent across schools, so the sooner you figure it out the better. (But this is why the handful of top privates that offer packages without loans are offering a better deal, and schools that have an extra institutional loan are charging more.) The Federal loans are officially part of the aid package, if you decide not to take the loans there is paperwork, and a different award letter needs to be generated. So the schools are getting their terminology correct, even though the loans are above and beyond Cost of Attendance. There aren't prepayment penalties, but there are origination fees, so another point to consider beyond interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The loans are financial aid, but not part of the Cost of Attendance because you don't cough up the money until after attendance is done.

When I read this (re-) interpretation of COA to exclude financed costs (which I assume is not a slight of hand on the part of the helpful poster, but probably the official way of speech) it's difficult to not get annoyed. Usually, tricky and misleading interpretations of commonly understood terms like cost are the hallmark of a sleazy business.

On the flipside, do subsidized loans have prepayment penalties? If not, there doesn't seem to be any reason to not take them. You can always invest the money until interest becomes due. If you've saved, that is.

Yes, feels like slight of hand, a little hard to get up to speed, but at least it is consistent across schools, so the sooner you figure it out the better. (But this is why the handful of top privates that offer packages without loans are offering a better deal, and schools that have an extra institutional loan are charging more.) The Federal loans are officially part of the aid package, if you decide not to take the loans there is paperwork, and a different award letter needs to be generated. So the schools are getting their terminology correct, even though the loans are above and beyond Cost of Attendance. There aren't prepayment penalties, but there are origination fees, so another point to consider beyond interest.

Yes, I wouldn't call it sleight of hand because they list the real total cost of attendance on the same page and it IS important to know what you are actually going to have to come up in the fall with via cash flow/savings sans loans etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The loans are financial aid, but not part of the Cost of Attendance because you don't cough up the money until after attendance is done.

When I read this (re-) interpretation of COA to exclude financed costs (which I assume is not a slight of hand on the part of the helpful poster, but probably the official way of speech) it's difficult to not get annoyed. Usually, tricky and misleading interpretations of commonly understood terms like cost are the hallmark of a sleazy business.

On the flipside, do subsidized loans have prepayment penalties? If not, there doesn't seem to be any reason to not take them. You can always invest the money until interest becomes due. If you've saved, that is.

Yes, feels like slight of hand, a little hard to get up to speed, but at least it is consistent across schools, so the sooner you figure it out the better. (But this is why the handful of top privates that offer packages without loans are offering a better deal, and schools that have an extra institutional loan are charging more.) The Federal loans are officially part of the aid package, if you decide not to take the loans there is paperwork, and a different award letter needs to be generated. So the schools are getting their terminology correct, even though the loans are above and beyond Cost of Attendance. There aren't prepayment penalties, but there are origination fees, so another point to consider beyond interest.

Yes, I wouldn't call it sleight of hand because they list the real total cost of attendance on the same page and it IS important to know what you are actually going to have to come up in the fall with via cash flow/savings sans loans etc.

The thing is, if a school says they meet 100% of demonstrated need, they are saying they will provide enough aid *after loans*, such that their COA estimate matches their estimate of the family's ability to pay. There are lots of ifs there, but when my DC was comparing offers, the COAs came in remarkably similar. What varied was how the aid broke down merit/FA and how many loans were offered. It was also necessary to look at how expenses were estimated, to keep offers apples to apples and relevant to our situation, but there wasn't anything too unexpected there.

[Anonymous]

The smartest women I knew in college put herself through a couple of years at a good community college, then got ample aid so that she could graduate from a "good school."

When I got my FA award back in the olden days, they just took whatever combination of small scholarships I'd collected and the aid remained the same. I'm terrified that whatever I would save for them would be treated the same, and they would receive no additional benefit that would actually allow them to attend.

"Be interesting!" is what I chime to my children constantly, whenever college comes up. We are going to need the colleges to really want them and be willing to extend the aid necessary to get them.

And, yes, I am most certainly one of the Poors, by DCUM standards. Or, anyone who's not receiving government aid kinda really. Maybe this will be our saving grace?

[Anonymous]

Because we had $100k in medical bills that insurance didn’t cover due to “experimental treatment” because literally living was more important than money. Ate all savings for years.

DH was still paying off law school loans. He graduated during the recession and never got up to the $$ he thought he would in law school and hated being a lawyer in practice,

Because this area is expensive for housing, childcare, etc. we saved what we could but we knew it wasn’t going to be enough.

[Anonymous]

I have 550k saved and it is not much. One daughter is in a five year program in a state school that is 50k
A year in a best value school that is 250k. My other daughter is 40k a year and I still have daughter three.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had to choose between funding retirement or putting money away for college. We don't earn enough to do both after we pay our mortgage. We continue to only put money away for retirement. Our kids will have to get merit aid or go to a state school.
I don't understand how people can do both earning under 150k in a high cost of living area if they bought a house without help from their families and had to pay for daycare.

You only pay day care for a few years. You buy the cheapest house you can find. We don't get any help, have that kind of income and are fine. And, we save for college. You sound selfish. You bought too much of a house.

So you really think people should buy the cheapest house they can find and not pay attention to what school the house is zoned for even though their kids will spend 13 years in public school there? Just to sacrifice so their kids can go to a private college? So we are selfish for stretching to buy a house in a great school district? We are also selfish for making sure we can support ourselves in our old age so our kids don't have to help us?

It used to be that you could work in the summers and pay tuition at a state school. My husband went to UC Berkeley and was able to earn tuition/fees and some living expenses working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week in a salmon cannery in Alaska for two months in the summer.

[Anonymous]

No. we did not save. We are paying out of pocket. it's part of our monthly budget ... about the same as private, cheaper if they go instate.

[Anonymous]

To answer OP's initial naive and rude question: yes, we did save. A lot. When both children were born I opened education trusts for both them back in the 1990s. Every single dollar/check that came in for the children went into the education trusts with thank you notes from the children (sometimes just tracing the palm of their hands because they couldn't yet write letters) writing thanks for each $25 check. There were no 529s then. So I get both trusts up each to at least $100K and then the 2007 great recession starts and both accounts for both children lost 1/3 of value overnight. So now we start rebuilding those accounts (yes professionally managed). Meanwhile, as parents who had their children "later in life", as in our late 30s and early 40s, we are also trying to sock away retirement money. There were a number of years where we just couldn't do that due to property taxes, mortgage, insurance, health and liability insurance, and other expenses. Then comes the prolonged illness of a parent which went on 8 years and cost 100s of thousands a year for uncovered medical care. Then came the diagnosis on one of the children of autism and subsequent uncovered medical expenses for shrinks, testing, meds, and special needs schools. My DW has to quit her lucractive career to take care of both SN children. Then the same occurred with the second child. Now we are paying for two separate SN schools, testing every 3 years, shrinks, psychs, and testers and tutoring. Fortunately, when I had written the trusts, I had specified that we could use the trusts for all educational expenses so - upon the advice of our CPA - we started to drain those trusts to pay for tutors pre-college and during college and to pay for SN special ed schools - because the trusts would hurt us when applying for financial aid. We get one child through university in five years which was extraordinary because he was autistic - but he did it with 100% financial support from us. Child no. 2 is still in college. When we went to apply for financial aid for both years ago we learned we were a donut hole family (i.e., no financial aid available) so our EFC was that we were to pay the full amount of any educational costs but we did take out the $5500 minimal loans but that meant we had to pay everything else for college (both instate) out of pocket. Then parent no. 2 goes bad and we are paying for residential care for that parent. Meanwhile, we are struggling to meet the college payments and our own mortgage and enormous property taxes. We can't afford to pay our life and disability insurance premiums so they lapse. Then Obamacare screws us. There is no ACA provider left in our zip code because all the providers pulled out so we have no healthcare options left (we are self-employed). We end up buying a corporate policy because both parents work from home at $35K a year because there are no alternatives and it is irresponsible to have no insurance, especially when the parents are on the older side and the children are young adults (one who, in the eyes of the insurance company, is impregnable). Then parent no. 3 becomes senile and needs expensive residential care. Now child no 1 has taken off academically and is going to grad school. To the extent we can afford it we will try to pay for it. He wants to do law school after that as I did. My law school is now approaching $100K a year. Meanwhile we make very good money even on D.C. scale but 40% of that is taken off the top in taxes, $29K in property taxes, another $35K in health care since we are self-employed, and then grad school tuition and the fourth parent's health care issues looming. So, like 14:07 above, we are now reduced to paying out of pocket for child no . 2's grad school and law school ALL THE WHILE unsuccessfully socking away retirement money. And before you say child no 2 should get student loans, go learn what kind of student loans are available when you are a donut hole family. The answer is zero because the lender wants to see collateral. And our children have none, of course.

So my answer to OP is to not judge unless they've been through the FAFSA, CSS and college application process. I wake up every morning grateful that we have wonderful in-state opportunities for education in Virginia.

And before the nasties come on this board and criticize, no we don't take nice vacations. We drive 15 year old cars. it's been so long that I've traveled anywhere that my passport expired years ago. And we've lived in the same house for 24 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's initial naive and rude question: yes, we did save. A lot. When both children were born I opened education trusts for both them back in the 1990s. Every single dollar/check that came in for the children went into the education trusts with thank you notes from the children (sometimes just tracing the palm of their hands because they couldn't yet write letters) writing thanks for each $25 check. There were no 529s then. So I get both trusts up each to at least $100K and then the 2007 great recession starts and both accounts for both children lost 1/3 of value overnight. So now we start rebuilding those accounts (yes professionally managed). Meanwhile, as parents who had their children "later in life", as in our late 30s and early 40s, we are also trying to sock away retirement money. There were a number of years where we just couldn't do that due to property taxes, mortgage, insurance, health and liability insurance, and other expenses. Then comes the prolonged illness of a parent which went on 8 years and cost 100s of thousands a year for uncovered medical care. Then came the diagnosis on one of the children of autism and subsequent uncovered medical expenses for shrinks, testing, meds, and special needs schools. My DW has to quit her lucractive career to take care of both SN children. Then the same occurred with the second child. Now we are paying for two separate SN schools, testing every 3 years, shrinks, psychs, and testers and tutoring. Fortunately, when I had written the trusts, I had specified that we could use the trusts for all educational expenses so - upon the advice of our CPA - we started to drain those trusts to pay for tutors pre-college and during college and to pay for SN special ed schools - because the trusts would hurt us when applying for financial aid. We get one child through university in five years which was extraordinary because he was autistic - but he did it with 100% financial support from us. Child no. 2 is still in college. When we went to apply for financial aid for both years ago we learned we were a donut hole family (i.e., no financial aid available) so our EFC was that we were to pay the full amount of any educational costs but we did take out the $5500 minimal loans but that meant we had to pay everything else for college (both instate) out of pocket. Then parent no. 2 goes bad and we are paying for residential care for that parent. Meanwhile, we are struggling to meet the college payments and our own mortgage and enormous property taxes. We can't afford to pay our life and disability insurance premiums so they lapse. Then Obamacare screws us. There is no ACA provider left in our zip code because all the providers pulled out so we have no healthcare options left (we are self-employed). We end up buying a corporate policy because both parents work from home at $35K a year because there are no alternatives and it is irresponsible to have no insurance, especially when the parents are on the older side and the children are young adults (one who, in the eyes of the insurance company, is impregnable). Then parent no. 3 becomes senile and needs expensive residential care. Now child no 1 has taken off academically and is going to grad school. To the extent we can afford it we will try to pay for it. He wants to do law school after that as I did. My law school is now approaching $100K a year. Meanwhile we make very good money even on D.C. scale but 40% of that is taken off the top in taxes, $29K in property taxes, another $35K in health care since we are self-employed, and then grad school tuition and the fourth parent's health care issues looming. So, like 14:07 above, we are now reduced to paying out of pocket for child no . 2's grad school and law school ALL THE WHILE unsuccessfully socking away retirement money. And before you say child no 2 should get student loans, go learn what kind of student loans are available when you are a donut hole family. The answer is zero because the lender wants to see collateral. And our children have none, of course.

So my answer to OP is to not judge unless they've been through the FAFSA, CSS and college application process. I wake up every morning grateful that we have wonderful in-state opportunities for education in Virginia.

And before the nasties come on this board and criticize, no we don't take nice vacations. We drive 15 year old cars. it's been so long that I've traveled anywhere that my passport expired years ago. And we've lived in the same house for 24 years.

Of course you can’t save a lot in 529s if your spending a large portion of your income on your own PARENTS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's initial naive and rude question: yes, we did save. A lot. When both children were born I opened education trusts for both them back in the 1990s. Every single dollar/check that came in for the children went into the education trusts with thank you notes from the children (sometimes just tracing the palm of their hands because they couldn't yet write letters) writing thanks for each $25 check. There were no 529s then. So I get both trusts up each to at least $100K and then the 2007 great recession starts and both accounts for both children lost 1/3 of value overnight. So now we start rebuilding those accounts (yes professionally managed). Meanwhile, as parents who had their children "later in life", as in our late 30s and early 40s, we are also trying to sock away retirement money. There were a number of years where we just couldn't do that due to property taxes, mortgage, insurance, health and liability insurance, and other expenses. Then comes the prolonged illness of a parent which went on 8 years and cost 100s of thousands a year for uncovered medical care. Then came the diagnosis on one of the children of autism and subsequent uncovered medical expenses for shrinks, testing, meds, and special needs schools. My DW has to quit her lucractive career to take care of both SN children. Then the same occurred with the second child. Now we are paying for two separate SN schools, testing every 3 years, shrinks, psychs, and testers and tutoring. Fortunately, when I had written the trusts, I had specified that we could use the trusts for all educational expenses so - upon the advice of our CPA - we started to drain those trusts to pay for tutors pre-college and during college and to pay for SN special ed schools - because the trusts would hurt us when applying for financial aid. We get one child through university in five years which was extraordinary because he was autistic - but he did it with 100% financial support from us. Child no. 2 is still in college. When we went to apply for financial aid for both years ago we learned we were a donut hole family (i.e., no financial aid available) so our EFC was that we were to pay the full amount of any educational costs but we did take out the $5500 minimal loans but that meant we had to pay everything else for college (both instate) out of pocket. Then parent no. 2 goes bad and we are paying for residential care for that parent. Meanwhile, we are struggling to meet the college payments and our own mortgage and enormous property taxes. We can't afford to pay our life and disability insurance premiums so they lapse. Then Obamacare screws us. There is no ACA provider left in our zip code because all the providers pulled out so we have no healthcare options left (we are self-employed). We end up buying a corporate policy because both parents work from home at $35K a year because there are no alternatives and it is irresponsible to have no insurance, especially when the parents are on the older side and the children are young adults (one who, in the eyes of the insurance company, is impregnable). Then parent no. 3 becomes senile and needs expensive residential care. Now child no 1 has taken off academically and is going to grad school. To the extent we can afford it we will try to pay for it. He wants to do law school after that as I did. My law school is now approaching $100K a year. Meanwhile we make very good money even on D.C. scale but 40% of that is taken off the top in taxes, $29K in property taxes, another $35K in health care since we are self-employed, and then grad school tuition and the fourth parent's health care issues looming. So, like 14:07 above, we are now reduced to paying out of pocket for child no . 2's grad school and law school ALL THE WHILE unsuccessfully socking away retirement money. And before you say child no 2 should get student loans, go learn what kind of student loans are available when you are a donut hole family. The answer is zero because the lender wants to see collateral. And our children have none, of course.

So my answer to OP is to not judge unless they've been through the FAFSA, CSS and college application process. I wake up every morning grateful that we have wonderful in-state opportunities for education in Virginia.

And before the nasties come on this board and criticize, no we don't take nice vacations. We drive 15 year old cars. it's been so long that I've traveled anywhere that my passport expired years ago. And we've lived in the same house for 24 years.

Of course you can’t save a lot in 529s if your spending a large portion of your income on your own PARENTS!

That's your erudite takeaway from that situational? A LOT of us are taking care of our parents - in one way or another. Are you not?

[Anonymous]

WTF does saving for retirement have to do with college. There is something called power of compounding. Pretty much over 40 very hard to save for retirement. You start the 401K at 21 and pretty much by 46 and 25 years in you let compounding take over.

My wife quit work for good at the age of 36. She is currently 54. She has $500,000 in her 401k from old company. At 11 years to retirement that number may double without reinvesting at all.

Bascially you snorted coke and partied all your 20s and 30s and did to save for retirement and now in your 50s want your kids to pay for it by robbing their college funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's initial naive and rude question: yes, we did save. A lot. When both children were born I opened education trusts for both them back in the 1990s. Every single dollar/check that came in for the children went into the education trusts with thank you notes from the children (sometimes just tracing the palm of their hands because they couldn't yet write letters) writing thanks for each $25 check. There were no 529s then. So I get both trusts up each to at least $100K and then the 2007 great recession starts and both accounts for both children lost 1/3 of value overnight. So now we start rebuilding those accounts (yes professionally managed). Meanwhile, as parents who had their children "later in life", as in our late 30s and early 40s, we are also trying to sock away retirement money. There were a number of years where we just couldn't do that due to property taxes, mortgage, insurance, health and liability insurance, and other expenses. Then comes the prolonged illness of a parent which went on 8 years and cost 100s of thousands a year for uncovered medical care. Then came the diagnosis on one of the children of autism and subsequent uncovered medical expenses for shrinks, testing, meds, and special needs schools. My DW has to quit her lucractive career to take care of both SN children. Then the same occurred with the second child. Now we are paying for two separate SN schools, testing every 3 years, shrinks, psychs, and testers and tutoring. Fortunately, when I had written the trusts, I had specified that we could use the trusts for all educational expenses so - upon the advice of our CPA - we started to drain those trusts to pay for tutors pre-college and during college and to pay for SN special ed schools - because the trusts would hurt us when applying for financial aid. We get one child through university in five years which was extraordinary because he was autistic - but he did it with 100% financial support from us. Child no. 2 is still in college. When we went to apply for financial aid for both years ago we learned we were a donut hole family (i.e., no financial aid available) so our EFC was that we were to pay the full amount of any educational costs but we did take out the $5500 minimal loans but that meant we had to pay everything else for college (both instate) out of pocket. Then parent no. 2 goes bad and we are paying for residential care for that parent. Meanwhile, we are struggling to meet the college payments and our own mortgage and enormous property taxes. We can't afford to pay our life and disability insurance premiums so they lapse. Then Obamacare screws us. There is no ACA provider left in our zip code because all the providers pulled out so we have no healthcare options left (we are self-employed). We end up buying a corporate policy because both parents work from home at $35K a year because there are no alternatives and it is irresponsible to have no insurance, especially when the parents are on the older side and the children are young adults (one who, in the eyes of the insurance company, is impregnable). Then parent no. 3 becomes senile and needs expensive residential care. Now child no 1 has taken off academically and is going to grad school. To the extent we can afford it we will try to pay for it. He wants to do law school after that as I did. My law school is now approaching $100K a year. Meanwhile we make very good money even on D.C. scale but 40% of that is taken off the top in taxes, $29K in property taxes, another $35K in health care since we are self-employed, and then grad school tuition and the fourth parent's health care issues looming. So, like 14:07 above, we are now reduced to paying out of pocket for child no . 2's grad school and law school ALL THE WHILE unsuccessfully socking away retirement money. And before you say child no 2 should get student loans, go learn what kind of student loans are available when you are a donut hole family. The answer is zero because the lender wants to see collateral. And our children have none, of course.

So my answer to OP is to not judge unless they've been through the FAFSA, CSS and college application process. I wake up every morning grateful that we have wonderful in-state opportunities for education in Virginia.

And before the nasties come on this board and criticize, no we don't take nice vacations. We drive 15 year old cars. it's been so long that I've traveled anywhere that my passport expired years ago. And we've lived in the same house for 24 years.

Looks like that house is now worth close to $3M, so maybe take out a HELOC to send the kids to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer OP's initial naive and rude question: yes, we did save. A lot. When both children were born I opened education trusts for both them back in the 1990s. Every single dollar/check that came in for the children went into the education trusts with thank you notes from the children (sometimes just tracing the palm of their hands because they couldn't yet write letters) writing thanks for each $25 check. There were no 529s then. So I get both trusts up each to at least $100K and then the 2007 great recession starts and both accounts for both children lost 1/3 of value overnight. So now we start rebuilding those accounts (yes professionally managed). Meanwhile, as parents who had their children "later in life", as in our late 30s and early 40s, we are also trying to sock away retirement money. There were a number of years where we just couldn't do that due to property taxes, mortgage, insurance, health and liability insurance, and other expenses. Then comes the prolonged illness of a parent which went on 8 years and cost 100s of thousands a year for uncovered medical care. Then came the diagnosis on one of the children of autism and subsequent uncovered medical expenses for shrinks, testing, meds, and special needs schools. My DW has to quit her lucractive career to take care of both SN children. Then the same occurred with the second child. Now we are paying for two separate SN schools, testing every 3 years, shrinks, psychs, and testers and tutoring. Fortunately, when I had written the trusts, I had specified that we could use the trusts for all educational expenses so - upon the advice of our CPA - we started to drain those trusts to pay for tutors pre-college and during college and to pay for SN special ed schools - because the trusts would hurt us when applying for financial aid. We get one child through university in five years which was extraordinary because he was autistic - but he did it with 100% financial support from us. Child no. 2 is still in college. When we went to apply for financial aid for both years ago we learned we were a donut hole family (i.e., no financial aid available) so our EFC was that we were to pay the full amount of any educational costs but we did take out the $5500 minimal loans but that meant we had to pay everything else for college (both instate) out of pocket. Then parent no. 2 goes bad and we are paying for residential care for that parent. Meanwhile, we are struggling to meet the college payments and our own mortgage and enormous property taxes. We can't afford to pay our life and disability insurance premiums so they lapse. Then Obamacare screws us. There is no ACA provider left in our zip code because all the providers pulled out so we have no healthcare options left (we are self-employed). We end up buying a corporate policy because both parents work from home at $35K a year because there are no alternatives and it is irresponsible to have no insurance, especially when the parents are on the older side and the children are young adults (one who, in the eyes of the insurance company, is impregnable). Then parent no. 3 becomes senile and needs expensive residential care. Now child no 1 has taken off academically and is going to grad school. To the extent we can afford it we will try to pay for it. He wants to do law school after that as I did. My law school is now approaching $100K a year. Meanwhile we make very good money even on D.C. scale but 40% of that is taken off the top in taxes, $29K in property taxes, another $35K in health care since we are self-employed, and then grad school tuition and the fourth parent's health care issues looming. So, like 14:07 above, we are now reduced to paying out of pocket for child no . 2's grad school and law school ALL THE WHILE unsuccessfully socking away retirement money. And before you say child no 2 should get student loans, go learn what kind of student loans are available when you are a donut hole family. The answer is zero because the lender wants to see collateral. And our children have none, of course.

So my answer to OP is to not judge unless they've been through the FAFSA, CSS and college application process. I wake up every morning grateful that we have wonderful in-state opportunities for education in Virginia.

And before the nasties come on this board and criticize, no we don't take nice vacations. We drive 15 year old cars. it's been so long that I've traveled anywhere that my passport expired years ago. And we've lived in the same house for 24 years.

Looks like that house is now worth close to $3M, so maybe take out a HELOC to send the kids to school.

And you would be wrong. Our home is worth only $1.4 to $1.6 (but needs a lot of cosmetic work) and we still owe on the mortgage. And we already have a an old HELOC that we took out to take care of parents) that we are paying down. And HELOCs are capped at $125K. Law school tuition is now $100K a year at my old law school. That $300K a year on top of undergrad fees for child no. 2 and expenses for last three remaining parents alive. Want to try again?