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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You already have very generous retirement savings and I'm assuming you're in your late 40s, maybe early 50s based on your kids' ages? So another 15-20, of working at peak earnings. Many people with your income will pay for the expensive 70K a year college out of both savings and current income. You say you have $220k per child. You can easily pay for expensive private colleges out of that $220k and your current income. Right now that's $55k from savings, 20k from current year income. Easily doable.

I find your post a bit of a humble brag - if it is genuine. Racking up $3M in retirement savings, plus $440k in college savings, plus presumably your house/mortgage/equity and any other assets while only making $275k HHI. I'm sure it can be explained to some degree but it's a bit unusual without inheritances. By the way, most med students take out loans for all their education as it's expected they will earn the high salaries in the future to pay off their loans with some ease and discipline. There is no requirement for you to pay for your child's graduate schooling. Helping out is great, but it's not the same obligation as college itself. Your "DD" is also years away from medical school. She may change her mind. She may get weeded out by premed courses in college. [/quote]

Are we really that unique?  You've guessed our ages.  I don't think $3M is a highly unusual retirement amount for folks our age in our income as that only produces $120K per year income (in today's dollars)- in 10 years yes we will be fine assuming the stock market doesn't crash.  We work at jobs that don't provide retirement health care or pensions. I only shared the retirement savings as I think it goes into financial aid calculations and I would guess based on that alone we wouldn't qualify.

No inheritance money but both my husband and I had college paid for and we both paid for our own graduate school through tuition reimbursements etc.  I also lived with family rent free after college which helped.

I totally agree that she might get weeded out by premed courses in college and that's what makes this hard.  [b]If we put another $100K in a 529 plan and she decides not to go to medical school then we've probably just locked the money in for another generation.  I don't want to pay the taxes to get the money out.  [/b]We are planners and it feels easier psychologically to put let's say $25K away for the next 4-6 years than to come up with $100K at once.  We will also have a younger one in college when the older one would theoretically be in med school.  I realize I'm lucky but I'm just trying to get ideas.
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One of the strange effects of the 529 plan is to make smart people believe that it is the only way to pay for college.  It isn't.  It's understandable that you want to get the best tax treatment for this money, but there's enough uncertainty that it's not possible to guarantee that.  So, if you don't want to risk rolling it over for future generations, or paying a penalty to access the money if she skips medical school, just invest it in a taxable account.  No favorable tax treatment, but also no potential penalty, and you can use it for whatever you want.  [/quote]

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