How do you grapple with the cost of expensive colleges?

[Anonymous]

The trouble with the in-state Virginia options are they're in Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The trouble with the in-state Virginia options are they're in Virginia.

And??...

[Anonymous]

Why did the prior posters have kids knowing they would be unable to pay $50-$100k a year per kid in college tuition? By sending the kid into the world with massive student loan debt, the parents have substantially increased the chance the kid will live in poverty.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We have $180,00 saved for each child. One leaves for college in 2 years and the other child in 5 years. Anything beyond what we saved they will to take out student loans.

Wow. $180k for each? Wow. Good on ya! That's impressive.

We don't drive fancy cars or have a huge fancy house. We live way below are means.

That's good! We don't either, but that still seems like a lot of savings. What is your HHI?

Not Pp, but we have the same amount saved for each child. Our HHI is $220k.

Thanks. That HHI helps.

When we started saving, we had nowhere near that HHI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have $180,00 saved for each child. One leaves for college in 2 years and the other child in 5 years. Anything beyond what we saved they will to take out student loans.

Wow. $180k for each? Wow. Good on ya! That's impressive.

We don't drive fancy cars or have a huge fancy house. We live way below are means.

I love the implication that people who don't have $180K per kid are living above their means/driving fancy cars/living in a fancy house.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We have $180,00 saved for each child. One leaves for college in 2 years and the other child in 5 years. Anything beyond what we saved they will to take out student loans.

Wow. $180k for each? Wow. Good on ya! That's impressive.

We don't drive fancy cars or have a huge fancy house. We live way below are means.

That's good! We don't either, but that still seems like a lot of savings. What is your HHI?

Not Pp, but we have the same amount saved for each child. Our HHI is $220k.

Thanks. That HHI helps.

When we started saving, we had nowhere near that HHI.

I understand and would have assumed that you made less then compared to now.

I didn't mean anything negative. $220k is a healthy income. We gross about $60k less than that a year and have saved what we could over the past 16 years. Our DS is heading to college in a year and we definitely don't have a huge fancy house or fancy cars.

[Anonymous]

Given the crazy cost of college, has anyone considered that it's not a smart investment to send their kids to college? When I went to college, it was relatively inexpensive, so their was little risk. If your kid is great in subjects like math and wants to be an engineer, it's a no-go brainer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given the crazy cost of college, has anyone considered that it's not a smart investment to send their kids to college? When I went to college, it was relatively inexpensive, so their was little risk. If your kid is great in subjects like math and wants to be an engineer, it's a no-go brainer

Damn, hit the wrong button! Meant to say no-brainer. But it send hard to justify spending 150k on a bachelor's in psychology.

[Anonymous]

For those of us earning north of $200k/year among the top 5-10% of earners, how much sympathy do we deserve from the 90% of people who earn less than we do and the 98% of students who can't get into the elite colleges? It is infinitely harder for a super smart first generation college goer to navigate higher ed than it is for families like ours.

College costs are predictable. Given our personal histories, spouse and I always expected our child to also attend college. We also sent DC to a $40k/year independent school for 14 years. That gave us 18 years to save up the $30k/year difference between PK-12 and college. If DC turned out to be academically average, the state schools would be good, appropriate fits and we wouldn't need to use savings. By luck, DC turned into an academic high flyer who will go to a $70k/year college.

The difference between what we've been paying out of pocket every year for private school and college is just $5-6k/year over 22 years - less than 2% of income, even less when you include investment earnings from the 529. If you subtract out $5k in DC's earnings while in college, it seems even less onerous.

I would have gladly spent all this money on a nicer house, fancier cars, more lux vacations, but our child's education is a priority for us. While I would understand paying an even higher sticker price/donating to boost the number of low-income and first generation students, I am far less sympathetic to do that for the children of relatively high earners.

[Anonymous]

Like others, the way we are dealing with the cost of expensive colleges is by having saved like crazy up until this point. DS will be a senior in HS and we have about $200K saved for him, and about $120K saved for DD who will be a freshman. HHI has been about $180-$200K all along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of us earning north of $200k/year among the top 5-10% of earners, how much sympathy do we deserve from the 90% of people who earn less than we do and the 98% of students who can't get into the elite colleges? It is infinitely harder for a super smart first generation college goer to navigate higher ed than it is for families like ours.

I don't see anyone asking for sympathy; did I miss something?

Anonymous wrote:College costs are predictable.

They are predictable indeed. They are also far higher relative to HHI (everyone's HHI) than they have ever been. For most people, they are too high to afford without massive amounts of loans. Predictable or not.

http://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532

Anonymous wrote:Given our personal histories, spouse and I always expected our child to also attend college. We also sent DC to a $40k/year independent school for 14 years. That gave us 18 years to save up the $30k/year difference between PK-12 and college. If DC turned out to be academically average, the state schools would be good, appropriate fits and we wouldn't need to use savings. By luck, DC turned into an academic high flyer who will go to a $70k/year college.

The difference between what we've been paying out of pocket every year for private school and college is just $5-6k/year over 22 years - less than 2% of income, even less when you include investment earnings from the 529. If you subtract out $5k in DC's earnings while in college, it seems even less onerous.

Ok, that's all good for you. Most of us don't send our kids to $40K private schools.

(Also, most of us don't see state schools as backup choices should our kids "turn out to be average." But that's for another thread.)

Anonymous wrote:I would have gladly spent all this money on a nicer house, fancier cars, more lux vacations, but our child's education is a priority for us. While I would understand paying an even higher sticker price/donating to boost the number of low-income and first generation students, I am far less sympathetic to do that for the children of relatively high earners.

Most of us don't have "all this money," sufficient to send our children (multiple children) to a school that costs $70K/year, regardless of whether their education is a priority for us. In fact, come to think of it, I don't know anyone for whom their child's education is not a priority.

[Anonymous]

We will have X amount of money saved up for each child's college education. We started saving when each child was born so with savings+interest, it will be a generous amount. We will advise the children to attend colleges that fit within those financial parameters. We will also explain that large amounts of SL debt can be crippling. So if they want to go into lower paying fields like teaching or social work, lack of SL debt is especially important.

[Anonymous]

For all of you married couples.... are y'all dumping whatever you have left into a 529 AFTER contributing (18k x 2 for 401k + 5.5k x 2 IRA) per year?


I was thinking of forgoing the 529 and making sure my wife and I max out 401k and IRA, should be enough combined with pension and ss. When my kids are ready for school, take a loan out from the 401k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of us earning north of $200k/year among the top 5-10% of earners, how much sympathy do we deserve from the 90% of people who earn less than we do and the 98% of students who can't get into the elite colleges? It is infinitely harder for a super smart first generation college goer to navigate higher ed than it is for families like ours.

College costs are predictable. Given our personal histories, spouse and I always expected our child to also attend college. We also sent DC to a $40k/year independent school for 14 years. That gave us 18 years to save up the $30k/year difference between PK-12 and college. If DC turned out to be academically average, the state schools would be good, appropriate fits and we wouldn't need to use savings. By luck, DC turned into an academic high flyer who will go to a $70k/year college.

The difference between what we've been paying out of pocket every year for private school and college is just $5-6k/year over 22 years - less than 2% of income, even less when you include investment earnings from the 529. If you subtract out $5k in DC's earnings while in college, it seems even less onerous.

I would have gladly spent all this money on a nicer house, fancier cars, more lux vacations, but our child's education is a priority for us. While I would understand paying an even higher sticker price/donating to boost the number of low-income and first generation students, I am far less sympathetic to do that for the children of relatively high earners.

I don't think anyone is looking for sympathy; it seems more like commiseration to me.

Good for you but it sounds like you have only one child and so with your income, your ability to pay for private school and/or save for an expensive private college really cannot be compared to any family other than one very similar to yours.

We are putting 4 (1 just graduated and 2 in college right now and one about to start HS) through college on a HHI of $210,000 and we prioritize a big family and education. Not going to list our sacrifices that enable us to make this happen because I am not looking for sympathy.

[Anonymous]

It's amazing to me that some are paying yearly for k-12 what I clear in a year.