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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do you feel like you need to spend ridiculous amounts of money on your kids like all the other UMC/Rich people? My circle is mostly these types, myself included. We grew up in divorced and/or low income households often where our parents made less than 50k and we all now make 300-400k in our early 30’s. We all find it crazy how people think they need to pay for expensive tutoring, private schools, travel teams, etc when we had none of that and turned out fine. [b]One of my friends just had a baby and said he doesn’t plan on saving for their college education.[/b][/quote]

Dumbdedumm. It’s so blue collar thinking to not value education. 
Does he think his kids will just be lucky and land in fortunate circumstances like he did? 400k isn’t enough to trust fund his kid, so what’s his plan? Or is that too UMC for him to consider?[/quote]

College is only like 50k per year or less in most cases. So you can just pay for it, like other expenses, without needing to "save" for it. I think it's crazy when I read about how "blue collar" it is not to save for it. It's not a big enough expense to require saving.  [/quote]

It's blue collar thinking to forego straightforward, tax preferred savings vehicles for expected expenses. 
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There's no federal tax deduction and generally no state tax deduction for people in the highest tax categories. The only advantage is tax free growth. And 529s don't tend to have great growth performance so there's opportunity cost, and the risk of overfunding. I don't think funding a 529 is as straightforward for people earning a lot of money. Took a lump sum and funded 529s from the standpoint of risk management-- what if we lose everything type scenario. But as a matter of financial management, it can make a lot of sense for families to just pay for college each year without saving.  [/quote]

Why does your 529 not have "good growth opportunities"?  Majority do, as long as you pick the funds yourself and do not do the "my kid has X years until starting college".  The tax benefits from tax free growth is huge.  We aimed to underfund, but in reality if you are worth that much, just fund as you see fit, and leave the rest in for future generations.  The 50K left in my one kid's 529 could be enough in 25+ years for one grandkid to go to college, all while it's in aggressive growth funds for now and we don't pay taxes.  So the $10K we put in 15+ years ago will pay for a grandkids full college most likely.

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Like I said, we did fund them out of an abundance of caution. We weren't able to deduct at all (HHI around 1M annually) on either federal or state.

I will say, I've also long believed education is in a bubble that will burst, and this adds to my skepticism of 529s.  And also, we ended up moving to a state that mostly covers in-state tuition, which makes me even more blasé about it. [/quote]

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