529 planning - education bubble
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Anonymous
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What are other expectant parents, and parents of infants doing about 529s? We're thinking to keep saving aggressively for college, to be responsible.
But at the same time, I know the price can't keep going up 7% a year. There is so much innovation now with MOOCs (massive open online classrooms) and other online platforms, I think the education bubble is going to crash. Thoughts? |
Anonymous
| I think it will crash too before DD hits undergrad (she is now 3). I still save what I can, but I'm not worried about paying 70K a year. I'm looking at grad school and found out that #of applicants has declined in the past couple years. |
Anonymous
Don't forget the declining birth rate too. Maybe colleges will have to fill their seats with foreigners, but I'm guessing it will affect prices in our favor. We save for our DS, but have other saving 1000 month in his 539 is not a priority right now. We got burned falling for the hype that real estate price increases were never-ending and won't fall for it again. If prices are out of control in 17 years, we will explore other options. |
Anonymous
| 10:37 here. I was duped too and am now underwater. If it takes 300K to graduate when DD reaches age, we will be looking at other nontraditional options too. |
Anonymous
| We'll send our child to a German university. At this point it is still free for foreigners. |
Anonymous
Why would it be bad to save aggressively for college, even if the bubble bursts? We are saving aggressively, but putting only half of it in tax advantaged plans. |
Anonymous
| I have 10 month old twins. I put in $900/month into their 529 plan. My husband is putting in $350/month. The time to save is now! |
Anonymous
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I think the price of access to learning/education will crash. Information wants to be free.
But college also serves a signalling role, and the price of that will continue to increase as wealth continues to concentrate. |
Anonymous
I forgot to add that my real focus right now in multilingualism for DD. I think this will serve her well in 20 years. |
Anonymous
| We put $26,000 at birth into our 2 kids plan. We will let the deductions ride for a bit then redo in a few years. |
Anonymous
| I would be interested in hearing forumite thoughts on traditional 529 savings plans vs. prepaid college plans. I'm in Virginia and it appears that prepaid college for my 3rd grade daughter is priced at about $7000 per semester. Times 8 semesters, say, you can see this is $56000. I looked on line at my alma mater, Virginia Tech, and it looks like current semester tuition and fees are around $5460. That seems like a big disparity to me, and it suggests that tuition will go up somewhat faster than returns will. Thanks in advance. |
Anonymous
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I'm in the industry. For the top-tier of schools (top 25 or top 50.. remember there are over 2,000 universities in the US), there is little reason for them to control their prices. They will have plenty of foreigners willing to study there, and foreign students (by law) are not eligible for financial aid = they pay full tuition fees.
As for MOOC (online courses), the quality of instruction may be acceptable, but not the overall learning experience. There's benefit to those casual conversations with your classmates etc. Continue saving. What's the worst that can happen if you over-save? |
Anonymous
| ^^^Quality of life today?? |