How do people fully fund 529s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Expensive schools cost about 70k all in.

I realized that once we started making 300k it was possible to fund as you go for 1 kid if need be. If you have more then 1 then hopefully they are 4 years apart or get your household salary up to 400k. Also never pay for a PHD, any good programs they give funding for the student.

What on earth are your expenses if you think you cannot afford 2 kids in college on $300K.

Taxes and retirement savings? $300k = ~$160K take home. If you can afford two kids in private college with $160K take home, I'd be very impressed. I have no idea how you survive after paying property taxes, groceries, utilities, etc.

If you save and cut out the retirement savings and private schools are important to you, then its plenty. I would hope at that income level your house would be paid off by the time your kids get to college. We live on far less than $160 take home and managed to save for college. I don't care about a private college nor do my kids. Our house will be paid off before high school. We pay cash for our vehicles. Life is about the choices you make. If its important to you on $300K income you can afford two kids in private colleges.

You have misread and then doubled down on it. PP was VERY CLEAR that they are talking about PAYING AS YOU GO FOR COLLEGE. That means paying cash out of your earnings that year. NOT SAVING in advance to pay for it. And that poster is right, if you are making $300k then you take home far less of it and would be hard pressed to cash flow two private college tuitions - even if you get a slight break on one of them - out of the cash you earn that year.

Good for you for paying off your house in advance. Not relevant to the person you replied to, but good for you anyway.

Point is they could save and choose not to so they'd need to adjust their budget or do things like pay off their mortgage to make it work.

They were never saying they couldn't pay for college. They were saying that they realized that they earn enough to just pay cash each year for it, so they didn't fully fund their 529s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - These are helpful responses, for the most part. We are in MD, so I'd love for both kids to go to UMD, but older one is already expressing interest for out of state somewhere. I'd like to cover their undergrad expenses and am pretty sure I can for in-state based upon what I've read on UMD's, Towson's, etc., websites. Based on what posters have said, it sounds like for out of state and private, my kids just need to apply and see what aid is offered if they're accepted, then decide if it's financial advisable. We've come into some financial challenges and I'm not sure I can continue to fund them beyond what's currently in there, and I don't expect much additional growth since they're both near maturity, i.e., 2021 and 2024 life cycle funds.

It is actually more strategic than that. If you do your homework in advance including running the Net Price Calculator for each school (see _The College Solution_), you will mostly know what each school will cost in advance of receiving offers of admission and merit scholarships. Acceptance letters should not contain anything terribly surprising.

Out of the ~22 schools my two kids applied to (between them), only one merit scholarship offer came as (an unpleasant) surprise.

How was it an unpleasant surprise - you mean it was less than you anticipated?

Yes. Wildly at odds with the NPC.

All of the other schools came within a few thousand dollars of the NPC figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - These are helpful responses, for the most part. We are in MD, so I'd love for both kids to go to UMD, but older one is already expressing interest for out of state somewhere. I'd like to cover their undergrad expenses and am pretty sure I can for in-state based upon what I've read on UMD's, Towson's, etc., websites. Based on what posters have said, it sounds like for out of state and private, my kids just need to apply and see what aid is offered if they're accepted, then decide if it's financial advisable. We've come into some financial challenges and I'm not sure I can continue to fund them beyond what's currently in there, and I don't expect much additional growth since they're both near maturity, i.e., 2021 and 2024 life cycle funds.

It is actually more strategic than that. If you do your homework in advance including running the Net Price Calculator for each school (see _The College Solution_), you will mostly know what each school will cost in advance of receiving offers of admission and merit scholarships. Acceptance letters should not contain anything terribly surprising.

Out of the ~22 schools my two kids applied to (between them), only one merit scholarship offer came as (an unpleasant) surprise.

Well, maybe your kids didn't have needed stats?

It was one kid, one school, and the stats far exceeded the school average. Hence our surprise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being able to pay for college is one of the benefits of only having one child.

EXACTLY! Life is short and expensive. Why have so many children? I don't get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being able to pay for college is one of the benefits of only having one child.

EXACTLY! Life is short and expensive. Why have so many children? I don't get it.

+1. One child and will be able to cover everything for undergrad private in 529 by the time DC is 12 or 13. Will also cover any grad, med, law if DC is interested. We would never be able to do this if we had 2 children.

Sure kids can take out all or partial loans but it means they will not get the head start in life they would if they had no loans and could potentially delay buying a house, moving to large city, getting married, having kids, taking a career change, etc...

I’m not saying it’s wrong for kids to have loans but it’s a huge rock on their young shoulder for years to come.

[Anonymous]

Put the maximum in when the Dow was around 9,000 in 2009. Timing is everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being able to pay for college is one of the benefits of only having one child.

EXACTLY! Life is short and expensive. Why have so many children? I don't get it.

+1. One child and will be able to cover everything for undergrad private in 529 by the time DC is 12 or 13. Will also cover any grad, med, law if DC is interested. We would never be able to do this if we had 2 children.

Sure kids can take out all or partial loans but it means they will not get the head start in life they would if they had no loans and could potentially delay buying a house, moving to large city, getting married, having kids, taking a career change, etc...

I’m not saying it’s wrong for kids to have loans but it’s a huge rock on their young shoulder for years to come.

Yes, this is a big plus to having an only!

[Anonymous]

Most schools offer merit. My slightly above average student got merit at most schools she applied and she is attending OOS flagship at $32k a year. Had many choices including in state with merit at $20k a year. Younger DS excellent student, had some offers with significant merit but ultimately chose highly ranked private, it is $72k per year. When kids started college, 529 had $300k so rest we are paying out of pocket. It was a tough choice regarding second kid because he had some very attractive merit at Pitt, Ohio State and UMass. The bottom line is OP, you will have choices but very likely to get merit at top schools, they just don’t give it. So it will be your decision if you want to pay or not for the top schools—Duke, Vandy, Notre Dame, Swathmore, Georgetown if your kid is lucky enough to get in. HHI $400k

[Anonymous]

We are planning to pay a substantial amount out of pocket in addition to the 529. Our mortgage and our own student loans will be paid off right around the time my oldest is starting college, plus we won't be paying his living expenses anymore. I feel like that should give us close to $5k/month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 girls in HS and a total of $250K saved for college, and yet this only fully funds them for an in-state school. If either goes out of state to public or private, the costs are prohibitive. Even within the confines of the DCUMer, how do people fully fund their child's undergraduate education. Second, do most colleges provide some form of merit aid for strong students, such that that actual costs are less than what I'm seeing on college websites?

State school has been drilled into my kids since birth. I have one at Darden at UVA getting his masters and he got his undergrad at W&M the other at VaTech engineering school.

Our oldest is paying his way through Darden and got a lot of free money.

Ad a virginia resident I did not see any compelling reason to encourage my kids to look outside our state borders for schools.

[Anonymous]

We have saved some money, but nothing close to 250k. We are already paying 80k/yr for two kids to go to private school, so its not like college will be a shock.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 girls in HS and a total of $250K saved for college, and yet this only fully funds them for an in-state school. If either goes out of state to public or private, the costs are prohibitive. Even within the confines of the DCUMer, how do people fully fund their child's undergraduate education. Second, do most colleges provide some form of merit aid for strong students, such that that actual costs are less than what I'm seeing on college websites?

State school has been drilled into my kids since birth. I have one at Darden at UVA getting his masters and he got his undergrad at W&M the other at VaTech engineering school.

Our oldest is paying his way through Darden and got a lot of free money.

Ad a virginia resident I did not see any compelling reason to encourage my kids to look outside our state borders for schools.

Why can't you financially help? Why is the oldest paying his way through all of it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 girls in HS and a total of $250K saved for college, and yet this only fully funds them for an in-state school. If either goes out of state to public or private, the costs are prohibitive. Even within the confines of the DCUMer, how do people fully fund their child's undergraduate education. Second, do most colleges provide some form of merit aid for strong students, such that that actual costs are less than what I'm seeing on college websites?

State school has been drilled into my kids since birth. I have one at Darden at UVA getting his masters and he got his undergrad at W&M the other at VaTech engineering school.

Our oldest is paying his way through Darden and got a lot of free money.

Ad a virginia resident I did not see any compelling reason to encourage my kids to look outside our state borders for schools.

I'm all for state schools and am a double hoo, but I wouldn't point to Darden (or UVA Law for that matter) as an example of an affordable state school. They're essentially the same price of similarly situated private programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 girls in HS and a total of $250K saved for college, and yet this only fully funds them for an in-state school. If either goes out of state to public or private, the costs are prohibitive. Even within the confines of the DCUMer, how do people fully fund their child's undergraduate education. Second, do most colleges provide some form of merit aid for strong students, such that that actual costs are less than what I'm seeing on college websites?

State school has been drilled into my kids since birth. I have one at Darden at UVA getting his masters and he got his undergrad at W&M the other at VaTech engineering school.

Our oldest is paying his way through Darden and got a lot of free money.

Ad a virginia resident I did not see any compelling reason to encourage my kids to look outside our state borders for schools.

I'm all for state schools and am a double hoo, but I wouldn't point to Darden (or UVA Law for that matter) as an example of an affordable state school. They're essentially the same price of similarly situated private programs.

Yes. Now they are. I paid 12k for Virginia Law in state 20 years ago. Crazy how expensive it is.