College Planning Upper Middle Class
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Anonymous
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Wondering how much you were planning on contributing towards your children's college education. We make about $275K per year and have $3M in retirement assets so I'm assuming we won't get a dime of aid. We currently have saved $220K which I thought would be enough..but now DD is contemplating medical school. DD is a HS junior and if we want to pay for medical school, we need to start savings NOW. We also have child #2 that's 4 years younger who also has $220K in college fund. Hopefully, he doesn't want to go to grad school :/.
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Anonymous
Medical School is costly, but for the most part, your child should be able to get a loan and cover it once she's out working. That was what DH had done. As for grad school for your second child, many of my friends and I had our tuition paid for by the grad program we attended. I guess that is provided your child is a good student in undergrad. In our house, our rule of thumb is we pay enough for public college education for our kids. If they want privates or out of state public program, they need to get their own loan or find scholarships through the colleges. Or work! My siblings and I grew up with the expectation of paying our own ways through undergrad (and we all did it on our own!) and it made us more responsible with our choices of colleges. It also made us realize that we can't slack off in school or else we'd lose our scholarships. |
Anonymous
| Go instate for undergrad. Save for grad school. You are correct; you won’t get any financial aid. File the Fafsa to get the unsubsiduzed $5500 loans and have your children sign for them. If you are in an area with a string community college with a guaranteed transfer program, say to UVA, do that. Don’t count on any merit aid. It has dried up at the top schools. You might pick up merit aid at the second and third tier smaller schools if your child has something they want ( high ACT etc). |
Anonymous
| I thought you guys just bought your way into schools. |
Anonymous
My daughter actually joked about that. She said mom 11 days in jail isn't THAT bad so that I could go to the school I wanted. |
Anonymous
| You're not going to get any financial aid, but with what you have saved and your income you'll have no trouble paying in state tuition. Anything beyond that should be on the kids -- including all of grad school. |
Anonymous
This is pretty much our attitude, but similar to OP we saved a bit more. Everything else is on the kids to figure out. |
Anonymous
| We basically show the kids the money that is available, and they need to make their choices accordingly. If they choose an expensive private college, they need loans to make up the difference and are on their own after that. If they go to a state school with merit aid, they have much more flexibility for grad school. |
Anonymous
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I am thinking if we could sock away another $100K that she'd be okay if she goes to a school in-state.
Neither my husband nor myself graduated with any debt and we both have master's degrees. |
Anonymous
+1 Our original goal was to save enough for 4 years of a state school. My parents ended up making a big contribution to their 529 plans so they'll have more than planned. Anything they don't spend in their 529s they can use for grad school but otherwise they are on their own for that. This is the same thing my parents did and it seems reasonable to me. |
Anonymous
| We plan to pay for all including any private grad/professional schools since we can afford it. Can’t take it with you and we have an only child so he’ll get it all anyway. |
Anonymous
You need to bump up your savings a lot. Private schools are $70k plus a year, you don’t have enough for four years at a top 100 private school. You may get lucky with state honors programs, but they’re tough to get into. Despite not having enough, you are in an enviable position and you can do this! |
Anonymous
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"Wondering how much you were planning on contributing towards your children's college education. We make about $275K per year and have $3M in retirement assets so I'm assuming we won't get a dime of aid. We currently have saved $220K which I thought would be enough..but now DD is contemplating medical school. DD is a HS junior and if we want to pay for medical school, we need to start savings NOW. We also have child #2 that's 4 years younger who also has $220K in college fund. Hopefully, he doesn't want to go to grad school :/."
If both kids were in high endowment, expensive colleges at the same time, you would qualify for about $20k in financial aid each year they overlap. Another question is if attending a high endowment, expensive college is helpful or harmful in med school admissions? My very casual understanding suggests that it's harder to get med school level grades at a tippy top school. It has been suggested that even if you have the grades from the tippy top school, students end up competing for the limited number of med school slots with other students from their own school. Look into it, each school and med school likely have their own admissions quirks. |
Anonymous
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You have 3 million in assets but can’t divert any of that to the kids? That makes no sense. The less debt your kids have to take on, the better.
We make more than you but have 3 kids and are planning to pay for all of it. My 12 yo has about 220k just for himself. I’m not sure what the younger ones have but they each get 1250 a month. |
Anonymous
No. Don’t compromise retirement for kids. |