college savings were less than i thought.

[Anonymous]

I don’t see a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I know when you are looking at up to 400K per student (worst case scenario knowing that prices continue to go up over the next 9 years) and you only have a third of that saved that seems scary.

I live in DC and have two kids, a high school senior applying to colleges now and a high school freshman.

Assuming you have no additional savings between now and when your 7th grader finishes college, you will have the following amounts without changing your lifestyle in the least:

in 529s now: 405K
50K x 7 years: 350K

Total: 755K or roughly 250K/student

If you did some expense cutting now and saved an additional $20K/year for the next 9 years, that would be another $180K, or roughly $310K/student.

You have a lot of money available to you. Before you panic, I think it would be wise to consider your children and where you see them going to college. Are your 10th graders superstars in academics, sports, national competitions, etc. Are they headed for the top tier private colleges that only give need based aid? Do they have a chance to get in there? Would that be a good fit? With DC TAG (which has an income limit of a just over $500K AGI), the cost for my kids going to the following out of state public universities is:

University of CA - about $55K/year
University of VA - about $63K/year (this is the top end of VA public colleges out of state costs, W&M is about the same, the rest are less)
UNC Chapel Hill - about $47K/year
University of Pittsburgh - about $40K/year

Top private colleges - Ivys and most top 20s - do not give much merit aide, but some do. The general cost is $85K/year and it will be higher for your students because inflation.

Whatever level student you have, there will be schools that will reduce the sticker price for your student and there will be those that will not.

Assigned reading: 1) Who gets in and Why, and 2) The Price You Pay for College. Learn how to read a common data set - explained in both books.

I am at the point in looking at colleges where I think we would be getting a bargain if college costs us $50K/year and worst case scenario is something around $90K/year.

We will use a combination of savings and cash flow.

$90k in today's dollars? This jumped out at me and scares me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I know when you are looking at up to 400K per student (worst case scenario knowing that prices continue to go up over the next 9 years) and you only have a third of that saved that seems scary.

I live in DC and have two kids, a high school senior applying to colleges now and a high school freshman.

Assuming you have no additional savings between now and when your 7th grader finishes college, you will have the following amounts without changing your lifestyle in the least:

in 529s now: 405K
50K x 7 years: 350K

Total: 755K or roughly 250K/student

If you did some expense cutting now and saved an additional $20K/year for the next 9 years, that would be another $180K, or roughly $310K/student.

You have a lot of money available to you. Before you panic, I think it would be wise to consider your children and where you see them going to college. Are your 10th graders superstars in academics, sports, national competitions, etc. Are they headed for the top tier private colleges that only give need based aid? Do they have a chance to get in there? Would that be a good fit? With DC TAG (which has an income limit of a just over $500K AGI), the cost for my kids going to the following out of state public universities is:

University of CA - about $55K/year
University of VA - about $63K/year (this is the top end of VA public colleges out of state costs, W&M is about the same, the rest are less)
UNC Chapel Hill - about $47K/year
University of Pittsburgh - about $40K/year

Top private colleges - Ivys and most top 20s - do not give much merit aide, but some do. The general cost is $85K/year and it will be higher for your students because inflation.

Whatever level student you have, there will be schools that will reduce the sticker price for your student and there will be those that will not.

Assigned reading: 1) Who gets in and Why, and 2) The Price You Pay for College. Learn how to read a common data set - explained in both books.

I am at the point in looking at colleges where I think we would be getting a bargain if college costs us $50K/year and worst case scenario is something around $90K/year.

We will use a combination of savings and cash flow.

$90k in today's dollars? This jumped out at me and scares me.

If schools are near 80 now, figure at lest 5% inflation and they'll be 90 by the 90 by the time her senior is a sophomore. They may be 100k a year by the time her high school freshman gets their degree

[Anonymous]

Not related to OP's question, but this got me thinking all the "cancel student loan debt" talk is focusing on the wrong thing, what we need is to lower college tuition. I recently saw in a newspaper that listed how much each head of school/president of local DC colleges make annually, and they are making big company CEO type of money, why??!!! you can't be crying "canceling student loan" when you are making millions off tuition every year. Those institutions are loaded, they should lower their tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not related to OP's question, but this got me thinking all the "cancel student loan debt" talk is focusing on the wrong thing, what we need is to lower college tuition. I recently saw in a newspaper that listed how much each head of school/president of local DC colleges make annually, and they are making big company CEO type of money, why??!!! you can't be crying "canceling student loan" when you are making millions off tuition every year. Those institutions are loaded, they should lower their tuition.

Student debt cancellation was by EO. Anything on price would require legislation which won't happen, but I would love to see tuition tied to the Stafford loan limit. If the availability of federal student loans was tied to a multiple of the Stafford loan limit, I think you would see prices come down. Make federal research dollars subject to the same limits, and you'd definitely see it come down

[Anonymous]

FWIW OP, our DC attends a private college, and after merit aid we are paying less than half of his HS school tuition (and this is not a kid with tippy top stats). We easily could be paying for his college out of current income. We've barely scratched the 529.

The sticker price is rarely what people actually pay. There are always cheaper options, even at top colleges, but especially at colleges below 30.

[Anonymous]

op, we live in MD, and our kid is going to UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:op, we live in MD, and our kid is going to UMD.

Sorry, posted without completing. you may be better off, just moving across stateline to MD

[Anonymous]

State schools in NY are still relatively cheap for out of state tuition.

[Anonymous]

One thing no one has mentioned is that even if your income is too high to make you eligible for federal student loans beyond the standard unsubsidized loan any student can get if they fill out the FAFSA, CSS profile schools may still give you need based financial aid in the form of grants. Specifically, you may qualify for some need based aid because you have multiple kids in college at once. The FAFSA calculations don’t care about multiple kids in college at once but CSS calculations (which are individual to each school) do.

We have 2 kids who will overlap for 2 years. The first 2 years our oldest was in college our DD qualified for no aid, but when her sister went to college both of their schools—neither of which gave merit aid// gave roughly $20k/year in grants. What you can expect from CSS schools varies wildly, but typically the well resourced and higher ranked schools are able to be more generous. You have to run the calculators on each school’s website though.

[Anonymous]

Move to VA or MD. 135k will cover UofMD schools.

If you stay in DC, apply to state schools in other states and use DC tag to get the tuition down a little. Apply to “lesser” privates to get merit aid.

You are kind of screwing over your youngest kid. The two oldest get to go to private and the youngest gets stuck with Wilson? That’s another reason to move to the suburbs, since you can’t afford to give your youngest the same private schooling the oldest got.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing no one has mentioned is that even if your income is too high to make you eligible for federal student loans beyond the standard unsubsidized loan any student can get if they fill out the FAFSA, CSS profile schools may still give you need based financial aid in the form of grants. Specifically, you may qualify for some need based aid because you have multiple kids in college at once. The FAFSA calculations don’t care about multiple kids in college at once but CSS calculations (which are individual to each school) do.

We have 2 kids who will overlap for 2 years. The first 2 years our oldest was in college our DD qualified for no aid, but when her sister went to college both of their schools—neither of which gave merit aid// gave roughly $20k/year in grants. What you can expect from CSS schools varies wildly, but typically the well resourced and higher ranked schools are able to be more generous. You have to run the calculators on each school’s website though.

Other than pell grants, the total amount of federal loans that you qualify isn't effected by income. The only difference between rich and poor kids is the availability of subsidized loans which are not in addition to the loan limit, rather they replace a certain portion of unsubsidized loans. For a freshman, federal loans without additional grants aren't paying tuition anywhere:

"First-Year Undergraduate Annual Loan Limit $5,500-No more than $3,500 of this amount may be in subsidized loans."

https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized

The biggest myth/misconception that I hear is that students can pay for college with loans. Parents can take out loans if they qualify, but a dependent undergraduate student can't hope to afford tuition based solely on loans

[Anonymous]

Sorry but you can’t afford to live in DC with three kids to put through college. Move to the suburbs so they can go instate.

[Anonymous]

Your students can also take ownership for some portion of the cost of attendance. Some families pay tuition, room and board and the student is responsible for books and all other expenses. Students can get jobs, summer and during the school year. In retrospect, I was a much better student when I had a job, it gave me needed structure.

Some families with significant means pay most but make their children take out subsidized loans so they have "skin in the game". No one is going to force you to return to a low standard of living although you could choose that for yourself given how you weigh the options.

College students are young adults. The most important thing is that you know what the options are and you clearly communicate them to your children before they start deciding where to apply to college. The worst scenario is that your child gets into a "dream" school that you encouraged them to apply to and you tell them for the first time that cost is a consideration and they cannot attend. That is crappy parenting.