Did you folks not do ANY saving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all need to stop beating up on this one parent. You have NO idea how little you know about parenting a child with SNs and how ignorant you all sound. In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t even know what you don’t know. For you, these are the unknown unknowns. (Kudos to you. No hard feelings. But you just do not know of which you speak.). But good on ya for thinking you were good planners.

Pot calling the little black. Some of us have children with SNs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all need to stop beating up on this one parent. You have NO idea how little you know about parenting a child with SNs and how ignorant you all sound. In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t even know what you don’t know. For you, these are the unknown unknowns. (Kudos to you. No hard feelings. But you just do not know of which you speak.). But good on ya for thinking you were good planners.

Pot calling the kettle black. Some of us have children with SNs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all need to stop beating up on this one parent. You have NO idea how little you know about parenting a child with SNs and how ignorant you all sound. In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t even know what you don’t know. For you, these are the unknown unknowns. (Kudos to you. No hard feelings. But you just do not know of which you speak.). But good on ya for thinking you were good planners.

This isn't a thread about SN kids. It's about who deserved help for college. This guy, who makes more than half a million dollars a year, and probably closer to a million, is claiming he's a donut hole family. That's nonsense, and offensive, no matter how many SN kids he has.

Having SN kids doesn't give him a pass on being an officious jackass.

[Anonymous]

So, how much have people been saving? Coming from a middle class background, Half of my colllege tuition was grants and loans going to a top 10 liberal arts college. My wife went to school overseas and doesn’t think saving is important. I have been putting 2500$ a year into a Maryland 529 making 13% return for 10 years. That is the max that has tax benefits in Maryland. I know I need to open up another fund in my wife’s name and enter another 2500$ per year.

[Anonymous]

You don't have to save for college. Two years at CC, pay as you go. Transfer to 4 year "commuter school" and pay as you go or get small student loan. Work summers and save for books, etc. My daughter did this and her job after CC offered tuition reimbursement which almost paid for the last 2 years at the 4 year school. Has degree in risk management, a great job in her field, and just bought her first home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to save for college. Two years at CC, pay as you go. Transfer to 4 year "commuter school" and pay as you go or get small student loan. Work summers and save for books, etc. My daughter did this and her job after CC offered tuition reimbursement which almost paid for the last 2 years at the 4 year school. Has degree in risk management, a great job in her field, and just bought her first home.

This is a very admirable path, and congrats to your resourceful and practical daughter. However, I think the premise of the first sentence is dangerous. Wouldn't it be better phrased as "there are great options even if you have't been able to save?"

Being anal I know but words matter.

[Anonymous]

I've opened 529 accounts for my two kids and have a small amount in them, but I'm not planning to save enough in them to fully pay for college. I do save in other accounts, both tax advantaged retirement accounts and general saving and investment accounts. I'm confident we can come up with the money one way or another when the time comes.

[Anonymous]

We have been saving about $2500 per year since birth. We probably have 2.5 years of room & board in state saved. Once she graduates from HS and we aren’t paying tuition for that any more, if we save half of her HS tuition for 2 years, we can probably eek it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all need to stop beating up on this one parent. You have NO idea how little you know about parenting a child with SNs and how ignorant you all sound. In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t even know what you don’t know. For you, these are the unknown unknowns. (Kudos to you. No hard feelings. But you just do not know of which you speak.). But good on ya for thinking you were good planners.

This isn't a thread about SN kids. It's about who deserved help for college. This guy, who makes more than half a million dollars a year, and probably closer to a million, is claiming he's a donut hole family. That's nonsense, and offensive, no matter how many SN kids he has.

Having SN kids doesn't give him a pass on being an officious jackass.

If they can pay cash for a fancy SN school and therapies they can pay for college so its a non-issue. We private paid for many therapies and still managed to save.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to save for college. Two years at CC, pay as you go. Transfer to 4 year "commuter school" and pay as you go or get small student loan. Work summers and save for books, etc. My daughter did this and her job after CC offered tuition reimbursement which almost paid for the last 2 years at the 4 year school. Has degree in risk management, a great job in her field, and just bought her first home.

You don't have to but if you can afford to and don't its very selfish not to. Most of us want our kids successful and to do better than us.

[Anonymous]

SN is not a thing

[Anonymous]

I saved, but then got divorced
The ex doesn't put in a dime for college, too busy spending on the second family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SN is not a thing

What is it then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have saved enough for in-state tuition. It’s the jump between in-state Maryland and private times two children. That’s 100K to cover 4 years at UMD for one child versus 280K to cover 4 years of private room and board. Now we would be talking over half a million dollars ...on top of living in a high cost area. We are good savers, but not great investors and to have a spare 500,000 we would have needed a good investment like if I had held onto my townhouse (who knew it would double in price after I sold it) or invested in Apple way back when.

So for me it’s the reality of in-state flag ship becoming even more competitive and hearing of good students getting Spring admissions. It’s also like the Ford cars of the 1900’s “look, you can have any color car as long as it’s black”. To have choices other than in-state, my dd would need merit and/or out of state public college.

+ 1. Most of the UMC people from the DMV area (a high COL area) who sound frustrated are in this situation.

+2 In Va, the cost of attending the top schools (UVA & W&M) are 33-40k/yr which is a lot more than national averages you hear about in-state tuition etc. And your kids have to be in the top 5% of SATs and top 10% of their class and take a large amount of AP/IB courses to get in. The combined entering class of both these institutions of in-state VA students is just above 6000 kids and they need to get representation around the state. Not every high-achieving MC/UMC NOVA kid can go to their top in-state school(s).The picture is similar in MD. Parents whose kids are not a sure thing for those, start looking to less competitive out of state flagships, private schools. They also consider JMU, GMU, VT, Towson, UMBC etc. but those are often far from what they pictured for their students who have 4.0+ weighted GPAs and 1400+ SATs and lots of talents--but just miss the cut-off for their state flagship in the most competitive states. Conventional wisdom has been telling parents the "smart" thing to do is save for in-state public tuition. So both selectivity and the rapid rise of costs has left parents scrambling to find options for their kids. People with 200k+ salaries can often cashflow the difference, but those between 100-200k seem to have the most struggle.

+1000

[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.

NP. If you're still checking into this thread, you've been though hell. I am sincerely sorry. No criticism from me.

Also very sincerely, please have child #2 pay for his or her own grad school and law.school. Let #2 work for a.few years so that they are considered an independent student (I don't know the age for this 're law school) and to save up to cash flow some of it. I paid for my own grad school by working full time and going to school at night. Took me only two and a half years. You absolutely cannot afford to pay for this. You need time to right your own financial ship.