How much have you saved for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HHI is $350k. We have about $800k saved for 2 kids. We will need more than that. One must go to law school and the other to medical school.

Troll.

[Anonymous]

We have a college sophomore and college freshman. We had 85K total saved (to share). Both kids chose the most affordable school out of their top 3 acceptances. They both got significant merit. Both kids put a certain percentage of their jobs towards tuition, and they pay all their out of pocket expenses while at school.
We have an HHI of 180K and cash flow about 20K a year. My spouse and I work small second jobs and put all that towards college.

I wish we'd been able to save more, but we were really broke (as in making less than 60K a year HHI) for a long time. We're doing okay now and between merit aid, work study, savings, cash flow and all of us working a little bit extra, we have just enough and don't need to do loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI is $350k. We have about $800k saved for 2 kids. We will need more than that. One must go to law school and the other to medical school.

Troll.

Might be, but plausible. We have $350K for our junior, and about $300K each for 2 9th graders, and we hope they go to graduate school. Just now averaging $500k HHI, some years more, some years less. We did VA prepaid, so a portion of that amount ($35k and 2x $45K) will cover 4 years of college tuition in VA.

[Anonymous]

$130k for rising 4th grader. We have put $500/month in since the day he was born, and my parents gave $10k to start it.

$200k income.

[Anonymous]

HHI of $550k. Have $170k for 4th grader and $80k for 2nd grader. Thought we were really behind but these responses make me feel better.

[Anonymous]

$370k for two, 11 and 8. HHI is $675k.

[Anonymous]

None. We cash flow it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to this 2020 survey, only about half of American parents have anything saved for their kids' college educations (which is WAY more than I thought - I actually question the accuracy of that statement.) Of those who have money saved by the time the kid is in high school, the average saved is $26,000.

https://www.salliemae.com/content/dam/slm/writtencontent/Research/HowAmericaPlansHAR.pdf


I don't actually believe that statistic is in any way plausible. So I looked at the survey to find out what they mean by "college savings". They asked the parents how much they have put away for their child's education. On average, parents with a HHI of $35,000 or less reported they had $3,960 in a savings account intended for college; $1490 in a 529; $1705 in a checking account; $1000 in a piggy bank, $337 in a prepaid college plan... etc. They are adding all that up to say HHI under $35,000 has $14,000 saved for college.

That is not very likely. What those parents have actually saved is what is in the 529 and the prepaid accounts. A parent of a junior in high school earning $35,000 isn't setting aside the #3960 on the savings account for college - that may be their aspiration, but it is not likely that money is actually going to be available 2 years later for college tuition.

Most people have bupkiss saved for college. Then, there's DCUM saving $250,000/per kid that kind of skews the data.

I think you are reading it wrong because they wrote it very poorly. You have to read in light of the heading: "Half of higher education-bound families are saving for higher education"

So it's 48% of 61%=29% of families
Or 48%*(61%+12%)=35% if they're including the career training-bound in higher education-bound.

Which one it is may be clear from the report, but I don't have time to read it all now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these massive 529s is powering tuition inflation. We’ll never see costs flatten/come down at this rate.

Massive 529s are common here, on the Money and Finances section of dcurbanmoms. But they are not common in real life, where the vast majority of parents have 0 saved for college education of their kids and rarely have much saved for retirement.

Yeah - it's easy access to massive student loans, coupled with (potentially) loan forgiveness that are increasing tuition costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI is $350k. We have about $800k saved for 2 kids. We will need more than that. One must go to law school and the other to medical school.

Troll.

Might be, but plausible. We have $350K for our junior, and about $300K each for 2 9th graders, and we hope they go to graduate school. Just now averaging $500k HHI, some years more, some years less. We did VA prepaid, so a portion of that amount ($35k and 2x $45K) will cover 4 years of college tuition in VA.

Not a troll for amount saved. Troll for "one MUST go to med school and the other to law school".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to this 2020 survey, only about half of American parents have anything saved for their kids' college educations (which is WAY more than I thought - I actually question the accuracy of that statement.) Of those who have money saved by the time the kid is in high school, the average saved is $26,000.

https://www.salliemae.com/content/dam/slm/writtencontent/Research/HowAmericaPlansHAR.pdf


I don't actually believe that statistic is in any way plausible. So I looked at the survey to find out what they mean by "college savings". They asked the parents how much they have put away for their child's education. On average, parents with a HHI of $35,000 or less reported they had $3,960 in a savings account intended for college; $1490 in a 529; $1705 in a checking account; $1000 in a piggy bank, $337 in a prepaid college plan... etc. They are adding all that up to say HHI under $35,000 has $14,000 saved for college.

That is not very likely. What those parents have actually saved is what is in the 529 and the prepaid accounts. A parent of a junior in high school earning $35,000 isn't setting aside the #3960 on the savings account for college - that may be their aspiration, but it is not likely that money is actually going to be available 2 years later for college tuition.

Most people have bupkiss saved for college. Then, there's DCUM saving $250,000/per kid that kind of skews the data.

I think you are reading it wrong because they wrote it very poorly. You have to read in light of the heading: "Half of higher education-bound families are saving for higher education"

So it's 48% of 61%=29% of families
Or 48%*(61%+12%)=35% if they're including the career training-bound in higher education-bound.

Which one it is may be clear from the report, but I don't have time to read it all now.

I went back. The 48% is inclusive of 94.7% (2823/3010 people) of the population or everyone except "not attending." So 45% say they are saving, which I agree seems higher than I expected.

However, of those under $35k, the $14k represents only 201/822 or 24% of the lower income population. It's those saving who also know how much they have saved. 34% or 252/740 claimed to be saving, but then only 201 knew the amount.

Medians would be much informative than averages here.

[Anonymous]

Kids are kindergarten and 2nd grade. We have $325k combined in 529s. Goal is to have the $40k max in each of their accounts for private high school if necessary and then around 400k each for college. We’ll use taxable Accts for anything beyond that. If we can get to 450k in the next few years we’d prob stop contributing.

HHI is roughly 650-850 depending on bonuses and we are both 40. Salary has increased a lot over last few years.