Did you folks not do ANY saving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Why do you think it's your responsibility to pay for your kids' masters and law school? Serious question. I went to a T4 law school that was comically expensive but paid everything off pretty easily with a BigLaw job. Your kid is already starting with a leg up on the competition by having no undergrad debt and a connected parent. You don't have to hold their hand every step of the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Why do you think it's your responsibility to pay for your kids' masters and law school? Serious question. I went to a T4 law school that was comically expensive but paid everything off pretty easily with a BigLaw job. Your kid is already starting with a leg up on the competition by having no undergrad debt and a connected parent. You don't have to hold their hand every step of the way.

A very valid question and I hope you have some answers because I don't. I went to the T-1 law school It was 6K at the time (inclusive). I paid for it through work and associate-ships in law firms. Still, I had left student loans of only $35 a month for undergrad and $40 a month for law school until about age 36. To give you a sense of the change, my college tuition and boarding at the time I attended less than $5K a year. Allowing for inflation, that would be $26,000 a year in today's dollars, but my SLAC is now charging $80K per year. My law school was $6K went I went (inclusive) and is now $100K a year. So for donut hole families, the private schools have simply outpriced themselves for MC and UMC families. Financing my college and law school years was not the enormous burden it is today for parents. My modest family and I just managed it back then with merit grants and student loans. The type of merit loans I received back then have dried up and no longer exist.

Fast forward to today. Merit dollars have dried up at the elite schools for top scholars who don't have URM, low-income, first-generation, international, athletic or other hooks. Our legacy hooks have not worked because we cannot afford to give the six and seven digit grants that the elites want.

As to student loans, as you may remember from Maxine Water's most embarrassing moment, the private banks don't give student loans anymore. That leaves the federal government. According to our FAFSA submissions, we make too much money for any kind of student loan so the best we can provide for our children at the undergrad level is the $5500 unsubsidized student loans which we've have both children do but, of course, that's just a drop in the bucket.

Now many parents on this board are proud to say they don't want their kids to start off their careers with debt. That's all well and good. For me, the debt was minimal ($75 dollars a month) and a good reminder of what my education cost.

Flash forward to today, we are facing, as a family, enormous costs for education. My children understand this. My DD's Master's is actually an accelerated Master's at an in-state school. She was thrilled she got accepted because she will finish both undergrad and the Master's program in 5, not six years. We, as parents, pay only the in-state rate for the fourth (combined 4th year of college/first of Master's) year since we are instate and then the fee jumps to something like $45K for the final year of the Master's degree. Normally, that would be two years x $45K. That's a terrific value.

As to law school, the banks no longer provide private loans because the students attending law school have no collateral. You probably know this. FAFSA, however, thinks we are loaded and should be able to afford $100K a year in tuition in after tax dollars (meaning we have to go make $500k to afford the $300K for law school).

Can you tell me where a 22 year old can go and get a $300K loan for law school with no collateral today? If so, I would like to know.

[Anonymous]

Why is it a big deal to pay for graduate school? My parents paid for mine and we will pay for ours to the best of our ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Most of the publics in our area are fine. Reality is, it depends on the teacher you get that year vs. the actual school ratings. So, yes, it is selfish to at a minimum not have enough saved for a public university depending on your income. You can still work summers. It may not cover a lot but its a good life experience and good to learn about different jobs. Your husband was lucky he could do that. Mine did military. We want better for our kids (fine for them to join as officers with a degree but we don't want them enlisted in less its what they want).

[Anonymous]

OP we need your numbers
How much do you make a year?
How many children do you have?
How much is your college age child's tuition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
As to law school, the banks no longer provide private loans because the students attending law school have no collateral. You probably know this. FAFSA, however, thinks we are loaded and should be able to afford $100K a year in tuition in after tax dollars (meaning we have to go make $500k to afford the $300K for law school).

Can you tell me where a 22 year old can go and get a $300K loan for law school with no collateral today? If so, I would like to know.

Why not have your child get a job and go to law school when he's older and doesn't have to count his parents' income/assets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make about $225k. Combined with what we're willing to take out of cash flow, we saved enough for our kids to go to a state school or a private school with merit aid (so max of about $50K/year). Yeah we could've gone 20 years without vacationing or not updated our 80s kitchen or driven 2002 Honda Accords, and then we could've afforded to send our kid to any private school they wanted, but...meh. We (collective "we") put waaaay too much emphasis on "the dream school" and "THE IVIES!!!!!11!!!" as if they're somehow going to drastically alter the trajectory of your kid's life or provide some sort of incomparable experience that could never possibly offered elsewhere and I just SMH. Especially when we know that outcomes-wise, that extra ~100K is very unlikely to ever "pay off." I have no desire to deprive ourselves for 20+ years.

Nice excuses, Mom, but schools do matter for our kids and their futures. But enjoy your kitchen!

The stats don't bear this out.

Stats show that attending "elite" colleges makes a difference for URM and first generation college students. It makes no difference for middle and UMC+ students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As to law school, the banks no longer provide private loans because the students attending law school have no collateral. You probably know this. FAFSA, however, thinks we are loaded and should be able to afford $100K a year in tuition in after tax dollars (meaning we have to go make $500k to afford the $300K for law school).

Can you tell me where a 22 year old can go and get a $300K loan for law school with no collateral today? If so, I would like to know.

W[b]hy not have your child get a job and go to law school when he's older and doesn't have to count his parents' income/assets?

[/b]


Because he's at Oxford right now racking up As in courses hoping that will give him an edge when he applies to law school. Then he returns to work in a Senate internship that very few students get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make about $225k. Combined with what we're willing to take out of cash flow, we saved enough for our kids to go to a state school or a private school with merit aid (so max of about $50K/year). Yeah we could've gone 20 years without vacationing or not updated our 80s kitchen or driven 2002 Honda Accords, and then we could've afforded to send our kid to any private school they wanted, but...meh. We (collective "we") put waaaay too much emphasis on "the dream school" and "THE IVIES!!!!!11!!!" as if they're somehow going to drastically alter the trajectory of your kid's life or provide some sort of incomparable experience that could never possibly offered elsewhere and I just SMH. Especially when we know that outcomes-wise, that extra ~100K is very unlikely to ever "pay off." I have no desire to deprive ourselves for 20+ years.

Nice excuses, Mom, but schools do matter for our kids and their futures. But enjoy your kitchen!

The stats don't bear this out.

Stats show that attending "elite" colleges makes a difference for URM and first generation college students. It makes no difference for middle and UMC+ students.

That's probably true but I'd like to see a link. At least for law school admissions it's all about the GPA and LSAT score and quality of ECs (but to a lesser extent than for college apps).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As to law school, the banks no longer provide private loans because the students attending law school have no collateral. You probably know this. FAFSA, however, thinks we are loaded and should be able to afford $100K a year in tuition in after tax dollars (meaning we have to go make $500k to afford the $300K for law school).

Can you tell me where a 22 year old can go and get a $300K loan for law school with no collateral today? If so, I would like to know.

Why not have your child get a job and go to law school when he's older and doesn't have to count his parents' income/assets?

Why do you think a minimum wage job during the 10 weeks of summer is going to make a dent in $100K a year grad school bills?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it a big deal to pay for graduate school? My parents paid for mine and we will pay for ours to the best of our ability.

Please read 18:05. Because grad/law school was a lot less expensive re our parents' income back then than today. Harvard was $7K inclusive (dorm, food) when I attended for a total of $27K. I paid for as much of it as I could being a summer associate and the rest was federal student loans, which ran only $40 a month until about age 36. Today Harvard is $100K a year for a total of $300K. All the summer associateships in the world isn't going to make a dent in that fee. Even the public law schools are about $86K a year. I understand med school is much the same.

[Anonymous]

NP. When we got to the point of wondering if our child would even have the opportunity to go to college because of her early dyslexia struggles, we started pulling money out of college savings to pay for a private dyslexia school for her beginning in fourth grade. It is making a world of difference for her. But when it comes time for college, will it mean it will look like, to people like OP, that we “did not plan?” What a luxury, OP, to have the public school system be able to educate your child. You should thank your lucky stars everyday for this.

[Anonymous]

No, we haven't saved enough. Five years ago, our HHI was $150,000. We lived in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath 1280 square foot house in Silver Spring for 10 years, which we bought in 2007 - right before the recession. We were underwater for much of that time. Both sets of parents died many years ago (before we were married) so we never had any help along the way. We've had both cars for more than 10 years, and take only one week vacation in Bethany each year. We are very lucky that our HHI has doubled in the past five years, but much of the extra money went to paying off loans and paying for repairs on the house. So no, we haven't had enough time with enough income to save enough money for college for our kids, who will overlap for three years. On paper, we look flush and will not qualify for financial aid. We can probably pay for one out of pocket but not two.

[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.

The fact hat you think you would be paying less for health insurance without the ACA is laughable. You can thank the Republicans for not implementing all of it, sabotaging it and not making the need tweaks once it was up and running. What do you think you would have had to pay if the ACA never came into being? You are now in the age range where your costs would have been skyrocketing anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As to law school, the banks no longer provide private loans because the students attending law school have no collateral. You probably know this. FAFSA, however, thinks we are loaded and should be able to afford $100K a year in tuition in after tax dollars (meaning we have to go make $500k to afford the $300K for law school).

Can you tell me where a 22 year old can go and get a $300K loan for law school with no collateral today? If so, I would like to know.

Why not have your child get a job and go to law school when he's older and doesn't have to count his parents' income/assets?

Why do you think a minimum wage job during the 10 weeks of summer is going to make a dent in $100K a year grad school bills?

Everyone in my law school class that worked before school was in a real job: engineer, chemist, political operative. Law school isn't when you're 16. You're not making minimum wage.