If your HHI is between 200-300k, how much will you have saved for college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Are you all between the 200-300k HHI? I feel like everyone on this board makes so much more than that. We have about 65k for the oldest-6 more years to go until college. I started contributing more this year. At the end, it will probably be just under 100k/kid.
For the PP who said we don’t have to pay for college. I would like to help my kids at least not graduate with debt. It feels like so many kids already have a leg up in other ways bc of parental help. This seems like the least we can do.

You still have time OP. But I would have serious and frank discussions with your children that they will need to choose a state school or a school offering them signficant merit aid so that they graduate with little to no debt. In their current situation, private and out-of-state schools are simply not for them. I actually think they are a waste of money for almost everyone, but that's JMO.

[Anonymous]

Middle school jr has $215k, preschooler has $80k. Contributing $1000-$1250 per month per kid since birth.

[Anonymous]

Our children are young so we still have time to save more. We set it and forget it with college savings. At last look we had $60k in the 529 and $40k in iBonds and another $22k in a Roth IRA all earmarked for college tuition. So that’s $122k and our oldest will start college in 2032. We are on track to provide in-state tuition at a public university for our 4 children (2 bio, 2 adopted). We understand room and board will be subsidized by a campus job, ideally residence life as an RA and a small amount of student loans if needed. We feel comfortable about providing our children more than what we had from our families when we started college even though it will be less than enough to cover full tuition, fees, room, board and incidentals. Hopefully at least one has a scholarship in their future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had $138k fro my son. He is entering senior year of college and we have $80k left.

We have $160K saved for my daughter (entering senior year of high school).

This is PP. We started at 85k HHI and saved $100 a month. We probably hit $200K when the kids were 14 and 10. We are at $260k. At the height of college savings we were putting in $1200/month.

NP here. We started at 25K HHI and saved $200 a month. I probably hit $2M in each 529 plan when the the kids were 14 and 10. I now have an HHI of 8 figures and a NW of 12 figures. BTW, we only own a used Toyota Civic with 7M miles on it.

I know you think this is funny but I was just trying to share the power of compounding interest and the power of saving with a lower HHI. I am not trying to set aside the fact that $1200/month is a decent savings later on, but a decent chunk of that money was earned very early on. I had my first way younger than anticipated and I doubt you have any clue what someone like me sacrificed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we assume a 6% rate of return and an increase in costs of 5% per year like the calculators say, we will have $275k for our oldest and $350k for our youngest based on current balance and savings rate.

Neither of those amounts would come close to being able to full pay at a private school. We live in DC so no instate option and many of the really good state flagships are in the mid $50s to high $60s with room and board today…we’d be highly short of schools comparable to UVA.

The younger will have more because we upped our rate of savings when the youngest was 4 and the oldest was 9, so the youngest will have many more years to benefit from that (coinciding with the end of daycare which freed up $2k a month in our budget). We currently save $1000/month/child. Prior to about a year and a half ago we saved $4k/year/child.

$350 is crazy. Most people aren’t paying this much for college.

My youngest kid won’t enter college for 12 years. Many privates currently run close to $80k a year and top state flagships run an average of $60k. That’s $320 or $240 at today’s prices. The $350 we will have in 12 years won’t come close with rising costs unless something drastically changes for college pricing given that’s close to what people are paying today.

If you are able to save this much you should be able to pay part of the costs in cash

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our children are young so we still have time to save more. We set it and forget it with college savings. At last look we had $60k in the 529 and $40k in iBonds and another $22k in a Roth IRA all earmarked for college tuition. So that’s $122k and our oldest will start college in 2032. We are on track to provide in-state tuition at a public university for our 4 children (2 bio, 2 adopted). We understand room and board will be subsidized by a campus job, ideally residence life as an RA and a small amount of student loans if needed. We feel comfortable about providing our children more than what we had from our families when we started college even though it will be less than enough to cover full tuition, fees, room, board and incidentals. Hopefully at least one has a scholarship in their future.

Why does it matter if 2 kids were adopted? How does that affect college savings?

[Anonymous]

200k HHI. 1 child about to turn 8. Currently 250k in 529. We started around 6 months old, automatic monthly contributions and past few years have increased to $2200 month. All of this from passive income from investment properties. We also throw in extra money when we have it.

Goal 550k to cover college. Any extra money left over for further education if interested - grad/med/law. Left over after that to grandkids.

We bought a place in gentrifying neighborhood in DC so mortgage is low, drive used car, and don’t spend money on stuff. We max retirement and then spend money on travel and entertainment because experiences is more important to us.

The passive income really helps us with college savings. If we did not have that, then we would budget more and cut back on travel and entertainment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:200k HHI. 1 child about to turn 8. Currently 250k in 529. We started around 6 months old, automatic monthly contributions and past few years have increased to $2200 month. All of this from passive income from investment properties. We also throw in extra money when we have it.

Goal 550k to cover college. Any extra money left over for further education if interested - grad/med/law. Left over after that to grandkids.

We bought a place in gentrifying neighborhood in DC so mortgage is low, drive used car, and don’t spend money on stuff. We max retirement and then spend money on travel and entertainment because experiences is more important to us.

The passive income really helps us with college savings. If we did not have that, then we would budget more and cut back on travel and entertainment.

I hope you won't mind a question, but I need help figuring out how to get to such a place. With an 8-year-old you're probably early 40s, have a $200K HHI and a house in DC, are putting away $26K a year in a 529 and probably a similar amount in retirement. With that income and those expenses, how did you acquire investment properties? Sounds like a game I need to get into!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we assume a 6% rate of return and an increase in costs of 5% per year like the calculators say, we will have $275k for our oldest and $350k for our youngest based on current balance and savings rate.

Neither of those amounts would come close to being able to full pay at a private school. We live in DC so no instate option and many of the really good state flagships are in the mid $50s to high $60s with room and board today…we’d be highly short of schools comparable to UVA.

The younger will have more because we upped our rate of savings when the youngest was 4 and the oldest was 9, so the youngest will have many more years to benefit from that (coinciding with the end of daycare which freed up $2k a month in our budget). We currently save $1000/month/child. Prior to about a year and a half ago we saved $4k/year/child.

$350 is crazy. Most people aren’t paying this much for college.

My youngest kid won’t enter college for 12 years. Many privates currently run close to $80k a year and top state flagships run an average of $60k. That’s $320 or $240 at today’s prices. The $350 we will have in 12 years won’t come close with rising costs unless something drastically changes for college pricing given that’s close to what people are paying today.

If you are able to save this much you should be able to pay part of the costs in cash

Sure, but not the full predicted delta. Take my UVA example, out of state predicted to be at $489k for my youngest. That leaves us $139k to cover. I can come closer from cash flow, but am probably still going to be negative $40-$50k and that’s not even thinking about privates…

The predicted closets are mind-boggling. My entire college and grad school bill wasn’t $139k.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have anything saved for college. I was thinking that DCs will go to college in Europe and grad school in the US which we could cover easily. They don’t seem to want to do that so we will do a mix of pay as we go and loans. We can always help them repay the loans as well. It’s not a big deal.

[Anonymous]

We wanted to pay for college and help with a downpayment on DC's house. That's why we only have one child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our children are young so we still have time to save more. We set it and forget it with college savings. At last look we had $60k in the 529 and $40k in iBonds and another $22k in a Roth IRA all earmarked for college tuition. So that’s $122k and our oldest will start college in 2032. We are on track to provide in-state tuition at a public university for our 4 children (2 bio, 2 adopted). We understand room and board will be subsidized by a campus job, ideally residence life as an RA and a small amount of student loans if needed. We feel comfortable about providing our children more than what we had from our families when we started college even though it will be less than enough to cover full tuition, fees, room, board and incidentals. Hopefully at least one has a scholarship in their future.

Why does it matter if 2 kids were adopted? How does that affect college savings?

Because there are provisions for education for our 2 adopted children provided by a 3rd party, not us. We still save for them and know there will be additional funds available for them because of their adoptive status. These resources are not available to our bio children.

[Anonymous]

HHI $250k

Savings for our one DD 16 is about $300k. We bought a townhouse in a surburb so we could properly afford college and our lives. Got a bit of help from grandparents along the way, too. Started saving when she was 1.

[Anonymous]

About 100k per kid. Will be able to cash flow some as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:200k HHI. 1 child about to turn 8. Currently 250k in 529. We started around 6 months old, automatic monthly contributions and past few years have increased to $2200 month. All of this from passive income from investment properties. We also throw in extra money when we have it.

Goal 550k to cover college. Any extra money left over for further education if interested - grad/med/law. Left over after that to grandkids.

We bought a place in gentrifying neighborhood in DC so mortgage is low, drive used car, and don’t spend money on stuff. We max retirement and then spend money on travel and entertainment because experiences is more important to us.

The passive income really helps us with college savings. If we did not have that, then we would budget more and cut back on travel and entertainment.

Good for you and your child but the fact that school might cost this much is just insane and shows how broken things are