College savings--GAH!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15:33, what the PP finds unbelievable, I think, is that the parents saved for the male child, but not his sisters. Though I also think it's unbelievable, and not a little selfish, that parents that have the ability to save for college choose not to in order to teach their kids a lesson, especially given the exploding cost of higher education.

We are saving and have over 100k in DS's 529. He's 5. It's ridiculous to expect him to be able to save and pay for college on his own when most private colleges cost over 50k+ yr. We as parents will pay just as our parents did for us.

you might be shocked to learn that most people don't make 1 million a year and don't have generational wealth our trust funds.

Stfu and go play your country club polo while your wife bangs the pool boy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have saved quite a bit for my son for college.

It is important to remember to save for yourself and your retirement first. Your child may be eligible for scholarship and loans (although loans seem pretty much out of control right now) for college. He or she may work during school.

However, for your retirement, no one is going to give you a loan or a scholarship! Pay yourself first.

OP here: We do save quite a bit for retirement. That's the one thing we've done well. And that's why our take-home pay is so depressingly low. We are still paying for a full-time nanny but that is about to end, so I guess we can devote a good chunk of that to college savings.

Today's lesson: Children are expensive.

[Anonymous]

We are saving $300 a month for each child. They are 13 and 11, and they each have about $70,000 in their 529 plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see that I missed the gender discrimination in the "unbelievable" post, so I add my own "unbelievable" to that! In this day and age, wow.

But I do think the expectation that parents are to foot the bill is ridiculous, and allows colleges to raise tuition at the unbelievable rates they do. There is a bubble, and I want no part in that. Cost will drive my kids' decisions. There is always a way. Just not always an easy way.

By the way, here's a good tip: high AP scores translate to credit at community colleges, and therefore to guaranteed transfer contracts. So if your child gets a 5 on the AP English exam, s/he will have a year of college English credit through the guaranteed transfer agreement with certain schools. That's $89 for the credit, versus $1200 for the equivalent CC course, versus thousands for the equivalent public or private university course. That's a way to cut huge amounts from the total cost of a quality degree.

Curious to know how many kids you have, that you expect them to pay 100% of their own way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see that I missed the gender discrimination in the "unbelievable" post, so I add my own "unbelievable" to that! In this day and age, wow.

But I do think the expectation that parents are to foot the bill is ridiculous, and allows colleges to raise tuition at the unbelievable rates they do. There is a bubble, and I want no part in that. Cost will drive my kids' decisions. There is always a way. Just not always an easy way.

By the way, here's a good tip: high AP scores translate to credit at community colleges, and therefore to guaranteed transfer contracts. So if your child gets a 5 on the AP English exam, s/he will have a year of college English credit through the guaranteed transfer agreement with certain schools. That's $89 for the credit, versus $1200 for the equivalent CC course, versus thousands for the equivalent public or private university course. That's a way to cut huge amounts from the total cost of a quality degree.

I'm the PP whose parents had money for my brother and not my sister and I.

I agree that people shouldn't have to feel pressured to pay all of it, especially since most can't. But, working through college is EXTREMELY stressful. Not to mention there were some semesters where I couldn't work because it would have interfered with internships which were unpaid. Fortunately, my sister and I moved in together to help keep each other upright. I nearly dropped out, and had to go on a leave of absence for a year and a half in order to earn money to cover bills for my final internship (then nearly had to drop out again).

SOME parental support is good. It is very difficult to cover 100% on your own. I plan on having some for each of my children if they choose to go to college, but they will have to work and receive financial aid as well. As I said before, its a partnership.

I will say that many students who had their way paid by their parents did not seem as motivated as those who were actually working to be there. I saw several who partied and dropped out (or were kicked out).

[Anonymous]

How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

I would venture to guess that most folks on this board would be considered RICH or WEATLTHY and thus, their idea of budgeting is totally different from that of a true middle class family. We save $100 per month for our toddler son and that's unfortunately all we can do right now. Of course we don't want our child saddled with college debt, but we also don't see anything wrong with having him shoulder some of the financial responsibility (whether that's loans, working part-time or whatever). We will encourage him to study hard and explore all avenues to keep costs low (i.e. scholarships, state school, two years at community college, etc) but at the end of the day, we only plan to HELP and not finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

Yes, I would agree with the pp that most on DCUM are not really middle class, so saving for college, and house renovations and vacations is doable. However, I don't know how far ahead of saving for college I would put my house/vacation fund. I think college is more important. On the other hand, if you're truly middle class, you children might qualify for some college aid, something that most on DCUM will not qualify for. I know I'm figuring I will have to pay for every dime of my children's college education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did the prepaid 4 years at a VA state school when my son was born (we inherited some money from my grandma and used it to buy the prepaid tuition for DS). We put aside a little bit each month for room and board. If he wants to go somewhere besides a VA state school, he can pay for the difference himself.

We're doing something similar. Saving the cost of a 4-year public education, and then committing to split the difference between that and whatever schools my children choose. I want my kids to have a financial stake in their decisions, but if a private university is a better fit, for whatever reason, I don't want a huge cost difference to make the decision for them. I transferred from a school where he had a 50% scholarship to a pricier private school and really blossomed socially and academically. I'm very, very lucky that my parents had the means to make that happen for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

We don't save for house renovations and vacations (?). We do those things only if we can pay for them out of current income. College savings are much more important to us than renovating the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

No vacation fund. No renovations for the house. We do have an emergency fund for home repairs, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

We don't save for house renovations and vacations (?). We do those things only if we can pay for them out of current income. College savings are much more important to us than renovating the house.

Then there is no way you are middle-class. You have tens of thousands of dollars in current income sitting around? Or you don't plan on taking a vacation for he next 18 years? If the answer is yes to either question then I don't think you meet the definition of middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

No vacation fund. No renovations for the house. We do have an emergency fund for home repairs, etc.

Driving vacations, staying with relatives/friends and cooking our meals makes our vacations affordable for us. Our house needs many updates (faded and split vinyl sheet floor in kitchen, aging roof, 50 year old bathroom) and those updates will keep on waiting. Maybe it's because I grew up in a crappy old house that I don't see the urgency to make renovations. I'm taking the bus to work since car #2 has bit the dust. We all have to make choices.

[Anonymous]

We save but for public university only. I don't see any value in private, honestly. We had to cut back on the college fund a bit for now but when DS is out of daycare I plan to take the daycare-aftercare difference of $800 and add it to what I put in now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you budget for other very costly things in life? We are middle-class and save $100/ month per child. I don't want to save more for this because I want to also save for house renovations and vacations. I also don't want my kids to graduate from college with six-figure debt. Do you all have house funds/vacation funds, etc in your budgets?

We don't save for house renovations and vacations (?). We do those things only if we can pay for them out of current income. College savings are much more important to us than renovating the house.

what if your hvac dies on you? Or your roof falls apart? Do you live in squalor until you have the money to repair it? Because I call bullshit.

We have an HHI somewhere around $135K with one child in public school. We are doing our 15% to retirement (until just a few months ago, a great part of that money was into Roth IRAs monthly because my husband's employer did not have a retirement plan, and I put a small amount into a Simple IRA through my part-time employer) and are at about 30% on mortgage. Even with very low daycare costs, we are only able to put $200/month into our daughter's 529. We're trying to figure out currently our best plan of attack for paying for a new roof, because we don't want to drain savings (which we honestly don't have a TON of), but we also can't get a Home Equity Loan (put 10% down on our house a year ago so that we could pay for some desperately needed renovations out of pocket), so we're likely going to have to put it on credit.

There is no way in hell anyone who is NOT fairly wealthy is able to put aside the kind of money that is being touted as "what you need" these days. The average HHI in the US is, what, $50K? How the HELL does one put any money aside after mortgage, daycare, rising gas/food/etc and oh, any healthcare?

I 100% believe this is another bubble. There is no way the rising costs are sustainable when kids are looking at crushing debt when their parents can't pay. Kids coming out of college with student loans comparable to a normal monthly mortgage? How the hell are they supposed to eat? Not everyone starts at 6 figures.

Sorry, tangent, but my point was that we make a very decent salary and are only able to put aside $200/month. We don't have a fancy house, we have one car payment, we take no fancy vacations. If that is the best WE can do, imagine what is happening elsewhere.