Paying for college costs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have “well-funded” 529s started when they were babies. But not sure that we even have enough in the eldest’s for next year! He’s a junior. The costs are outrageous. But I admit we haven’t considered u of Maryland. I’m old ( went to college in the 70s) and a snob. Go ahead flame me

I will, there is absolutely nothing wrong with going to UMD>

Especially since the goal is to get out and get a dam job.

"snob" really?

You are ridiculous. Those UMD grads will be outpacing your kid easily.

You need to study civil engineering if you want to get a dam job...now a damn job is something else!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We contributed up to the amount of the annual gift tax exclusion (for reference, it is $17k for 2023) per kid per year since birth and it looks like we'll have enough for wherever they want to attend. Oldest is in eighth grade and 529 plan is in excellent shape and may even have some left over for grad school, a sibling or the next generation. High joint income but never over $1m/year.

so out of touch with most people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am lucky to live in Virginia, where if my kids go to public school, we will pay max about $42k a year (w&m) for school.

On the more affordable end are Christopher Newport ($27k) and GMU ($15k).

We also have a hhi of $250k so will not qualify for non merit aid at most school.

Let’s say max I pay instate is $160k per kid. And I have 2 kids.

I have saved $150k for both of them and can afford to pay for instate for both with minimal loans.

Any school that’s annually $55k+ tuition and room and board (and I’ve seen 60, 70, 80+k), we just can’t afford or it’s not worth it. Not for $300-350k/kid.

Also they can go to grad school if they need to, to improve their career prospects.

I don’t know why people would take on more than $100k of debt for undergrad. It’s unnecessary, especially in Virginia.

$150 each?

[Anonymous]

We maxed out 529 contributions (up to gift tax exemption limits), from the day DD was born. And fairly early on, we super funded it. Given 10+ years of growth, that has been more than adequate for any 4 year college. There should be enough left over to help with grad school.

I will add that our HHI has never been higher than 300K, but we are older parents, so by the time DD came along, we had almost 20 years of savings behind us. Plus, it's so much easier to fund college when you have only one child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are def not wealthy. Our older one got a full ride at Hopkins. So we were able to pool his 529 and therefore even consider sending the younger one OOS

$400k for 4 yrs. Hope stock market cooperates. Otherwise, its going to be tough.

That's fantastic. Sports or Academic scholarship?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am lucky to live in Virginia, where if my kids go to public school, we will pay max about $42k a year (w&m) for school.

On the more affordable end are Christopher Newport ($27k) and GMU ($15k).

We also have a hhi of $250k so will not qualify for non merit aid at most school.

Let’s say max I pay instate is $160k per kid. And I have 2 kids.

I have saved $150k for both of them and can afford to pay for instate for both with minimal loans.

Any school that’s annually $55k+ tuition and room and board (and I’ve seen 60, 70, 80+k), we just can’t afford or it’s not worth it. Not for $300-350k/kid.

Also they can go to grad school if they need to, to improve their career prospects.

I don’t know why people would take on more than $100k of debt for undergrad. It’s unnecessary, especially in Virginia.

$150 each?

No I have saved $150-160 in 529s total. We are still 2-4 years out for the start.

The rest we will pay from “cash flow”, other savings, selling some stock if needed, and hopefully minimal loans.

But 250k-350k per kid gif undergrad is not what we’re signed up for.

[Anonymous]

We are only looking instate because we have twins and have about $125k total saved for college (most was gifted to us.) It looks like even instate tuition, room, and board is 30k/year so that gets us about half way with each kid. We only have a year to go and just had MAJOR house repairs that ate up any ability to dump money into accounts.

We make 300k so we won't qualify for financial aid, despite this income level being relatively new to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are only looking instate because we have twins and have about $125k total saved for college (most was gifted to us.) It looks like even instate tuition, room, and board is 30k/year so that gets us about half way with each kid. We only have a year to go and just had MAJOR house repairs that ate up any ability to dump money into accounts.

We make 300k so we won't qualify for financial aid, despite this income level being relatively new to us.

Why wouldn't you save? You have a very large income and house repairs should not have bene the priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are only looking instate because we have twins and have about $125k total saved for college (most was gifted to us.) It looks like even instate tuition, room, and board is 30k/year so that gets us about half way with each kid. We only have a year to go and just had MAJOR house repairs that ate up any ability to dump money into accounts.

We make 300k so we won't qualify for financial aid, despite this income level being relatively new to us.

You should be able to pay the rest out of cash flow on your current income.

[Anonymous]

Paying 360k over 4 years for full pay no merit, vs 150k for in state may just not be something people want to do. And that’s OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC goes to college in 2026. How much does it cost for an OOS Top 50 school/yr ?( we will not qualify for aid)

I was budgeting $50K ( so $200K for 4 years) - but some schools have tuition alone at $50k ( eg UCLA is $46k) per year

So total cost seems to be close to $70k to $80k, which equates to $300k-$350k for 4 years.

Is that what others have experienced?

Looking at schools around 40-50 rank, I do think some can bring it down to around $50k. DD was offered merit at Mount Holyoke and Dickinson to be about that (I think those are somewhere in the 30-50 range in the liberal arts ranking). Her favorite ended up being ranked in the 70s range and costs us $30k/year vs. $70k sticker price.

Universities in the 40-50 range are a mix, some give merit (Brandeis, Case Western, Tulane) that could potentially bring the cost down. But no guarantee they will offer the same 5-10 years from now. Merit is a tool to attract higher tier students and schools successful at that will rise in the rankings and eventually give out less merit because they don't need to give as much. College pricing is a game.

We gave our kids a max budget of $40k and we don't qualify for need aid. They had plenty of options they were happy with. Good but not elite-college-competitive students.

We are in the same boat - limiting our kids to $40k/year. I was assuming we are limited to in-state schools - I feel we have limited in options in Maryland though and have my doubts whether my kids will get into UMD. Are there even any out of state options in this price range? It seems like you would have to applu to a well endowed private school and just hope that you reveive some merit. We wont qualify for need-based aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have “well-funded” 529s started when they were babies. But not sure that we even have enough in the eldest’s for next year! He’s a junior. The costs are outrageous. But I admit we haven’t considered u of Maryland. I’m old ( went to college in the 70s) and a snob. Go ahead flame me

We both went to state schools and can afford to send our 3 kids to private schools full-pay now. Flame that.

Seriously there is something so deeply pathetic about people who think they’re too good for what they can afford. Capitalism has considered you and deemed you not good enough.

Right? If all we could afford was state school, that is where my kids would be attending. Thankfully we have been income that allows us to save and we made that a priority even when our income was much lower.

There are multiple schools in my state that are $25-28K or less "all in for the year" that are "relatively easy" to get into (ie. guaranteed admission with a 3.5UW GPA for the "top" one (not the state flagship) and 3.0 for another 5 state schools--and that's just the "guaranteed admission"---basically I don't know anyone who has ever not gained admission to these schools). With min wage over $15/hr, a kid can easily earn $10K over 12 months (summers, breaks, part time while on campus, etc). Take the $5.5K in federal loans each year, and that leaves ~$10K to fund. However, my 3.6UW/25 ACT kid got $2-5K from the top 2 of those schools, so a kid with better academics/test scores would likely get more. So parents need to contribute at most $10-12K/year, possibly even less with merit awards. So if parents have saved even a little, they can use that and likely cash flow the remainder.

There are affordable ways to get a college degree---it may not be a T20 school, it may not be a T50 school, but there are choices and these are good schools. Much better to come out of college with only $20-25K in debt or debt free than to take out $100K+ in loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We are in the same boat - limiting our kids to $40k/year. I was assuming we are limited to in-state schools - I feel we have limited in options in Maryland though and have my doubts whether my kids will get into UMD. Are there even any out of state options in this price range? It seems like you would have to applu to a well endowed private school and just hope that you reveive some merit. We wont qualify for need-based aid.

We are also in Maryland in the same financial boat with a kid who is a good student (4.0/3.7) but won't get into Maryland. He didn't like Salisbury (small town) or UMBC (seems like a commuter school) so it feels anticlimactic that he will only apply to Towson (which he likes well enough.) I would love for him to have other options in our price range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We are in the same boat - limiting our kids to $40k/year. I was assuming we are limited to in-state schools - I feel we have limited in options in Maryland though and have my doubts whether my kids will get into UMD. Are there even any out of state options in this price range? It seems like you would have to applu to a well endowed private school and just hope that you reveive some merit. We wont qualify for need-based aid.

We are also in Maryland in the same financial boat with a kid who is a good student (4.0/3.7) but won't get into Maryland. He didn't like Salisbury (small town) or UMBC (seems like a commuter school) so it feels anticlimactic that he will only apply to Towson (which he likes well enough.) I would love for him to have other options in our price range.

I wrote the first post above and wondering for the pp- I wonder if you have considered Mont College and then transferring to UMD? I have a few coworkers whose kids have done this. I am not sure how difficult this is? My child will be disappointed that he is not going away like his friends but if it is only for one year, maybe not the end of the world. Again, not sure how hard the transfer is? Also, we have not visited UMBC but their curriculum looks good. Is the student life there really like a commuter college? That is disappointing! I am curious to visit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP.

DC goes to TJ. So he may not even get into UVA/VT for comp sci - therefore planning for OOS!!

If you want one of those schools, go ED.