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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP again...

So I've been thinking about this a lot.

I looked to see exactly what our contributions to date were and they were a little higher than I had written in my OP due to compounding.  I didn't check my statements before writing my OP. It just kind of hit me a few nights ago with DD told me that she wanted some sort of medical career (most likely doctor).  Before people give me a hard time about taking it seriously, DD is a strong student in a very selective HS program.  She's in one of the select programs at either TJ, RM IB, Blair or PHS.  I just wrote checks for $10K each to their college funds last night ($452K).  We contributed $15K earlier this year.

I just ran the numbers and this is what I feel comfortable doing (gulp):

*Paying $50K each for 4 year undergrad (2 Kids)
*Paying $70K each for 4 year graduate/medical school (2 kids)

I can do this by assuming that we will be paying $30K per year out of pocket for schooling for the next 12 years and using the balance from their 529 plans.  The kids are 4 school years apart.  I'm assuming only 3% growth because I've moved most of their college fund money to the "safe" investments.  We've had a great run up in the stock market and I wanted to lock in my gains which I did earlier this year.  I was hoping that we could be a little more frivolous with our spending instead.  Oh well.

It's probably unlikely that both kids will want to become medical doctors but likely that they will both want to go to some sort of graduate school.  I'm very much a planner and I guess I would feel awful if they both wanted to be doctors/were accepted to medical school and I felt like I couldn't pay or that I felt like it strained our financial resources too much.

For the last 16 years, I had always planned on paying for undergraduate school and had never given much thought to graduate school. My husband and I both work in fields were tuition remission is common for graduate school.  My husband and did not get to where we are by having the attitude that so many people do- we will figure it out when it comes.  That attitude drives me bonkers.

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I applaud your planning but given how much you have saved, isn’t it constraining your kids to allocate only $50k/yr for college? That writes off most selective private colleges for them. Especially given that you have no idea how/if/when they may do graduate school. Vs. you know with a lot of certainty that they are going to college and when. I am the poster above with similar savings and fact pattern and we intend to let our kids select whatever college is best fit. If it turns out that they attend state uni or get some kind of merit aid, then the remainder of their 529 can be used for grad school. We will also contribute to their grad costs out of then current income to the extent we can and it makes sense (eg, they may go to grad school at night while working and get some kind of employer tuition contribution, or a grad stipend, or whatever). Just another perspective since you are soliciting opinions and feedback. 
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I feel like there are enough public options that we don't need to spend $70K per year to get a great education.  [/quote]

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