Reply to What are your plans for kids' college costs?

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[quote=Anonymous]Putting money into the Virginia Pre Paid program (VPEP) which guarantees tuition at any public Virginia university college (you can sign up for different amounts--we signed up for 4 years.

If kids don't go to public VA school we can withdraw the money from the account like any other 529 and use it to help pay for another school.

We plan to set aside the same amount of money each month while they are IN college to help cover things like room, board, books, etc.
Any schooling beyond college, they will have to do with grants, loans, etc.

We are making it very clear to the kids what kind of savings we are able to do. We will absolutely support them if they want to pursue an out-of-state or private options, but we want them to understand they may need to come up with scholarships or other sources of $ if they want to go that route instead of public VA school.

DH and I were in total agreement that we wanted to pay for 4 years of undergrad for our kids. DH and I also agree that both of us had parents who:
1. Didn't really think through paying for college, and only put in a limited amount of money into it, which wouldn't necessarily have been so horrible, since plenty of kids have to pay their way and do just fine, BUT
2. They did not TELL us their plans, or more accurately their LACK of plan, for paying for college. It was 100% understood that we were expected be going to college, but there was no discussion about what amount of $ parents could actually contribute. DH and I wasted a lot of time in high school dreamily flipping through the pretty catalogs of expensive private Liberal Arts colleges, and parents never once explained to us that there was no money for that.
DH and I and both ended up at in-State U with part-time jobs, and have zero regrets, as it turned out, but senior year of high school was unnecessarily stressful for us because our parents weren't proactive and upfront about college costs.
DH and I are determined not to screw our kids over in the same way. 
To be clear, I'm not saying you are screwing over you child if you don't pay for 4 years of college for your child. I'm saying make an plan to figure out what you CAN pay, and be upfront with your kid about it.[/quote]

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