How do most middle to UMC families pay for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save for it from the moment our children are born. And frankly, we don't have more children than we think we can pay for. (I'm not trying to be inflammatory or say that you had too many kids. I'm saying I would have had more kids if I had more money.)

This is WILD! I would say the majority of people I grew up with paid for college themselves - yes took out loans, some quite substantial. Exactly zero of them wish they hadn’t been born instead of going into some debt!

No idea how old you are, but I don't many UMC people that had to pay for college entirely themselves...even in the 1980s or 1990s.

Now, my Greatest Generation father did pay for it himself even though he grew up relatively well-off and his father was college-educated. However, you could attend Harvard in the 1950s for literally like $500 total (tuition, room & board for a full year), when the average HHI was like $4,000. It wasn't that huge of a lift even back then and he never had to take out any loans.

If the relationship between tuition and household income stayed the same, Harvard would cost a total of $10,000 today.

I think proponents of the new bill believe that by capping total borrowing, tuition will come down?

[Anonymous]

Hiya~
College costs less than big fat wedding. We started saving for weddings along with college. The kids can go OOS and go to private - as a result we do not pay for wedding. OR they can go in-state with generous merit aid and we pay for the 200-300K wedding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save for it from the moment our children are born. And frankly, we don't have more children than we think we can pay for. (I'm not trying to be inflammatory or say that you had too many kids. I'm saying I would have had more kids if I had more money.)

This is WILD! I would say the majority of people I grew up with paid for college themselves - yes took out loans, some quite substantial. Exactly zero of them wish they hadn’t been born instead of going into some debt!

No idea how old you are, but I don't many UMC people that had to pay for college entirely themselves...even in the 1980s or 1990s.

Now, my Greatest Generation father did pay for it himself even though he grew up relatively well-off and his father was college-educated. However, you could attend Harvard in the 1950s for literally like $500 total (tuition, room & board for a full year), when the average HHI was like $4,000. It wasn't that huge of a lift even back then and he never had to take out any loans.

If the relationship between tuition and household income stayed the same, Harvard would cost a total of $10,000 today.

DP here. DH and I both paid for college entirely by ourselves. We weren’t UMC growing up. We are now though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Saving in 529 from birth plus grandparents help. No scholarships = sucks, and no funds for grad school. The caps make no sense. I don’t know how folks will be able to attend professional schools. It’s almost like they are trying to kill off education for everyone but the elites.

Not true!

My state has 3 great schools that are under $30k all in. A kid can earn $10-12k to contribute yearly during their summer breaks/winter/spring break work. Get a Pt job of 10 hours/week while in school to add spending money.
Kid takes the $5.5k in fed loans.

That leaves $12-13k to pay for. Parents can help or could have saved to have the 40-50k TOTaL this is over 4 years.


Or you search merit and find a place that costs less or do duel entry in hs or start at CC.

There are literally thousands of good schools to attend, just not the top 50-60

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for the life of me do not understand how this country let college cost be determined by parent income. Middle class and UMC are in no more financial position to pay for college than those making 50-60k a year, unless those MC and UMC forewent houses, cars, etc. - which would undermine a large portion of the economy. The fact that the equity in my home is considered accessible to pay for college is ludicrous. The whole system is broken, very broken.

Agree, but UMC can afford to save for in state tuition. We did for 2 kids, and our HHI never went above $350K. And we have a house, and two cars albeit not pricey cars. We also saved a good amount for retirement. No, private schools.

I guess we lived below our means to achieve all of this.

You chose to save for your kids college. Smart choice. Someone making $150k+ does have the choice to save some. All you need is $40-50 k for instate for four years total--let the kid work and pay a portion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save for it from the moment our children are born. And frankly, we don't have more children than we think we can pay for. (I'm not trying to be inflammatory or say that you had too many kids. I'm saying I would have had more kids if I had more money.)

This is WILD! I would say the majority of people I grew up with paid for college themselves - yes took out loans, some quite substantial. Exactly zero of them wish they hadn’t been born instead of going into some debt!

So if you want 5 kids it's up to you to fund them. But I disagree with just have all the kids you want and don't worry about it. You choose to have a kid you choose to financially take care of them ..and yes that means helping significantly with college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can start the 529 accounts even before your child is born which is what we did. You just put yourself down as the beneficiary and change it later after your child is born. This helped us get a head start on saving before the daycare years. One of the smartest things we ever did.

+1

And if you overfund your kids 529, if you can afford it just leave it there for the grandkids. Each of our kids has over $50k left at age 22. That alone will pay for at least one grandkid each for college without ever adding anymore

[Anonymous]

If you are lucky to gain acceptance to the top 15 schools...then any truly middle class applicant can attend for 100% free.

The Ivy schools now say you get 100% free tuition if you earn up to $200k and you get 100% totally free if you earn up to $150k. It is then a sliding scale after $200k until like $300k.

This assumes modest savings that would be "typical" for someone earning $200k.

Some used to look at primary home equity, but most now do not.

So, one idea is if you have a $500k mortgage and $500k of savings, you pay down the mortgage by say $400k.

They also exclude retirement accounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save for it from the moment our children are born. And frankly, we don't have more children than we think we can pay for. (I'm not trying to be inflammatory or say that you had too many kids. I'm saying I would have had more kids if I had more money.)

This is WILD! I would say the majority of people I grew up with paid for college themselves - yes took out loans, some quite substantial. Exactly zero of them wish they hadn’t been born instead of going into some debt!

Some of us consider how many kids we have and factor in the cost of college. I wouldn't want my kids to take loans. It did factor into how many kids we had.

As it should! Just like most of us don't have more kids than bedrooms we can afford in a house-or at least we don't plan to put 3 kids in each bedroom. If you cannot afford another kid you don't have one

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:529 contributions since birth. My older kid is now fully funded for any private school. Still working on the younger kids. No family help - my family paid for all my education through grad school, and DH had a full ride for undergraduate and MBA (via consulting). We were committed to keeping the momentum going by saving for our kids.

How much did you fund per year? Really refreshing to see somebody who did it without grandparents help. I feel like most people get grandparent help. I know my kid won’t so I’ve been saving, but it feels like such a huge mountain.

Kudos to you!

[Anonymous]

DH and I first had to pay back student loans, then save for a down payment on a house. Meanwhile we had kids and no family able to help out with infant/toddler care. So it cost us a boatload of money for full time daycare. Any extra money went toward saving for a house and toward our retirement. Then aftercare costs.

Then we finally were able to buy a house and between finishing paying back loans, paying the mortgage, funding our retirement, taking vacations to National Parks where we camped, theye wasn’t anything left to put toward college.

This is the situation for most of our friends who are the first generation to go to college. Our kids are going to state universities.

What is really tough is we counted that when both our kids were in college (2 year overlap) we would get financial aid because since our kids were born FAFSA has always factored in having multiple family members in college. That disappeared this year! So we aren’t sure how we are swinging paying for both kids when fafsa doesn’t factor that in and now student loans are being cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save for it from the moment our children are born. And frankly, we don't have more children than we think we can pay for. (I'm not trying to be inflammatory or say that you had too many kids. I'm saying I would have had more kids if I had more money.)

This is WILD! I would say the majority of people I grew up with paid for college themselves - yes took out loans, some quite substantial. Exactly zero of them wish they hadn’t been born instead of going into some debt!

No idea how old you are, but I don't many UMC people that had to pay for college entirely themselves...even in the 1980s or 1990s.

Now, my Greatest Generation father did pay for it himself even though he grew up relatively well-off and his father was college-educated. However, you could attend Harvard in the 1950s for literally like $500 total (tuition, room & board for a full year), when the average HHI was like $4,000. It wasn't that huge of a lift even back then and he never had to take out any loans.

If the relationship between tuition and household income stayed the same, Harvard would cost a total of $10,000 today.

I think proponents of the new bill believe that by capping total borrowing, tuition will come down?

DP. I don’t know if tuition will come down or not but it might make people pause before taking out big student loans that they’ll struggle to repay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save for it from the moment our children are born. And frankly, we don't have more children than we think we can pay for. (I'm not trying to be inflammatory or say that you had too many kids. I'm saying I would have had more kids if I had more money.)

This is WILD! I would say the majority of people I grew up with paid for college themselves - yes took out loans, some quite substantial. Exactly zero of them wish they hadn’t been born instead of going into some debt!

No idea how old you are, but I don't many UMC people that had to pay for college entirely themselves...even in the 1980s or 1990s.

Now, my Greatest Generation father did pay for it himself even though he grew up relatively well-off and his father was college-educated. However, you could attend Harvard in the 1950s for literally like $500 total (tuition, room & board for a full year), when the average HHI was like $4,000. It wasn't that huge of a lift even back then and he never had to take out any loans.

If the relationship between tuition and household income stayed the same, Harvard would cost a total of $10,000 today.

I think proponents of the new bill believe that by capping total borrowing, tuition will come down?

They're delusional. To achieve a relationship between tuition and household income that is the same, you would have to increase household income.

College costs have increased (partly due to state disinvestment, partly due to bloated mid-level admin, partly due to health care costs) far faster than incomes have risen. There isn't much to strip out of the cost unless states choose to re-invest in higher education, and that isnot going to be done in response to this bill, because the federal government has also handed other massive new costs to states.

What will happen far more often is that institutions will close outright. We are at the edge of a demographic cliff, as well.

[Anonymous]

We started saving early and continued to save. It’s something you can plan for. You essentially have 20 years.

Retirement is similar, although you have a bit more time to save. If you set yourself up to start saving from the get go it is quite a bit easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:529 contributions since birth. My older kid is now fully funded for any private school. Still working on the younger kids. No family help - my family paid for all my education through grad school, and DH had a full ride for undergraduate and MBA (via consulting). We were committed to keeping the momentum going by saving for our kids.

How much did you fund per year? Really refreshing to see somebody who did it without grandparents help. I feel like most people get grandparent help. I know my kid won’t so I’ve been saving, but it feels like such a huge mountain.

Kudos to you!

Up to the annual gift tax exclusion for a single person (currently $19,000). I did it as an automatic paycheck contribution (so much like a 401k contribution, it's easier to invest money you never see). The market has worked in my favor as I started it at the beginning of the Great Recession, and was 100% in a total stock fund until the account reached the goal amount, then I took some risk off the table for my oldest. There were years when it was a real sacrifice to contribute $19k per kid, but less so now that we're older and more established.