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[quote=Anonymous]This is what we did, YMMV.

We are in Virginia.  We bought the prepaid tuition for both our children 14(?) years ago.  Our children are now 17 and 15.  We fully funded the 529 to cover expected R&B.  For us, we decided on $12,500 per year for that- so we have saved ~$50k in each for that.

Any more funding we do in non-educational accounts.- although we have designated them ourselves as potential education accounts.  We have enough in total for one to go in state and one to go to an out of state private school fully funded.  We have enough fore both to go out of state to a state school fully funded.  We do not have enough if both go private and get absolutely no merit aid.  If they do not go in state, we will use the money we get back for the first year of tuition (I think of the prepaid as equivalent to bonds- so we have been more aggressive on the other investing).

Scenario 1)  Both go to In state schools.  We are golden and have extra money- to spend ourselves in retirement, gift them a ( almost clunker) car, help them with graduate school expenses, fund their IRAs until they get real jobs-  whatever- excellent spot to be.

Scenario 2) One goes in State and one goes out of state (public or private).  We are still golden, but have less left for above extras.  Would lean toward helping in state child with grad. school.

Scenario 3) Both go out of state OR one in state and one private- golden with no $ for extras.

Scenario 4) Both go private:  They will have to get some merit aid if they don't want to graduate without loans.  If the schools are worth it, I go back to work to pay for it without loans, but that is not an option for most of the private schools out there- it would have to be extremely well suited or elite.  Otherwise I go back to work for our (DH & my) spending/saving/donating.

Fast forward, one is a junior and one is a freshman in HS.  Junior is aiming for engineering- so will be in state or at an out of state public school. So, barring any huge changes, Scenario 4 is out.  For many reasons, freshman is a harder match- so we will see what happens.

So, my suggestion is to fully fund 529s (in whatever form) for in state costs and save elsewhere for the other options.[/quote]

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