Anonymous wrote:
What I'm getting out of this is that you don't have to put $20k a year away in a 529 or even $10k.
You don't have to have the kids in some elite summer camp or live in a multi-million dollar mansion.
Of course, you can, they're all personal choices but don't feel bad if you can't, your kids will be fine.
I don't think the poster disagreeing with OP think anyone should feel bad if they can't save for college.
What they believe is that if you CAN save for college, thus, giving your kids more options, you SHOULD. There's a big difference.
People who agree with OP think that the only point of a college education is to get a better job. To them it's purely vocation training. If that's your attitude, then the CC path may well be a good plan. But some of us think college is about more than that. I attended an elite college after attending a mediocre public high school. That year was an amazing experience and a lot of what made it wonderful happened outside the classroom.
I took a CC course about 10 years ago. (I took it because I was getting a master's degree in a different field and didn't feel equipped to take some of the courses without learning some basic skills. So I audited a CC course.)
There were middle-aged immigrants in my CC class who were terrific people. But most of the younger people in my CC class were lousy students and most--though not all--had utterly unrealistic plans for their careers. (The 2 exceptions were immigrants. One admitted he had done no work in high school and barely graduated. When he ended up in a back breaking job, he went to CC at night, but had to start in the remedial classes. He turned it around.) They cut class. They didn't do half the assignments. They would talk when the prof was trying to teach, etc.
The two kids who were good students admitted that they found the going hard. This wasn't because the work was hard for them--it wasn't. It was because they felt isolated.
The CC I attended has articulation agreements with some decent 4 year schools. But only a minority of the kids who start at a CC graduate from a 4 year school. And, I'd guess that a lot of those are the non-traditional students.
I give a lot of credit to the kids who go to CC and then succeed at 4 year colleges. But I'm not going to tell you that I think the experience at a CC is the same as that at a 4 year college, especially if you live on campus and take advantage of a lot of things that are offered. The 2 kids in my class who were good students certainly weren't having an experience remotely like mine a lot of years earlier or like that of my adult child more recently.
If you can't afford to give your kid the option of the better experience, that's fine. But if you can and won't, well...to me that's different. It's possible though--maybe even probable--that the kids OP is raising may be smart but view college solely as vocational training. But some of us think that if that's the way they feel, they're missing out on a lot. They'll have the same piece of paper at the end, but they won't have had the same experience.
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