Jeez I wish I had you people as parents. Still paying off my loans. I didn't realize people did this for their kids until DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:I was just reading yet another NYT article about MC kids saddled with high levels of SL debt and the effect this has on the economy (the housing market in particular). Honestly, as tuition continues to rise and public support for high education continues to fall, it seems like very few middle class families are going to be able to afford the cost of college in 15-20 years. It's crazy to me.

If I may ask, how much do you save monthly or annually for your kids? How much do you have saved in total and how old are your children? Do you worry about them having to take out a "brain mortgage"?

We used a $30,000 bonus as "seed money" when our first child was 4yo to start college savings. Since then we have saved $400 per month per child. Our kids are now 16 and 13 and we have a total of about $250K saved.

We plan to get them through school debt-free. If they are very attached to a given school that is beyond our budget, we will be open to them taking on some small amount of student debt to do it. Small = less than $20K for four years.

We do not plan to pay for their education beyond undergrad.

We didn't have time to save for college for our DC1 - too many other expenses for re?ent immigrants. So, we will pay out of current cash flow for state college. We cannot afford private, and I'm not a fan of student loans for undergrad so UMD it is.
We set aside some money for DC2, but again, we most likely won't pay for private undergrad.

Anonymous wrote:We've saved 25%, will pay out of cash flow 25%, will borrow 25% and DD can do student loans for remaining 25% of the cost of a state school (including dorm if she chooses).

We aren't funding private - its not in our capacity and I don't think the marginal benefit of a private experience is worth the incremental costs.

I forgot to mention that we are hoping to increase the save / cash flow portion and have the borrow piece be less than 25% but we'll see where we land.

And, if we win the lottery or do unexpectedly well we'd be able to reduce the portion of student loans taken by DD, but she will have some.

Yes, I worry. I make too much for financial aid, but with the high COL in this area can't save as much. I'm hopeful I can pay for public, but not private.

We put away $4k annually per kid. So a base of $72k plus whatever it earns over the course of 18 years.

One set of grandparents has 529s for all the grandkids and puts roughly $2k in each grandkid's account annually, though who knows if this will decrease if BIL/SIL continue having more children at their current rate. Their account is actually doing better than the ones we have, so there is about the same amount in that right now as ours.

We'll pay out of monthly cashflow for some of tuition and hope the 529s will make up the rest, but if they don't, I took small loans and did work study through college, they can too. However, the cost of college played into our family spacing as we needed to not have two children in college at the same time.

Anonymous wrote:We've saved 25%, will pay out of cash flow 25%, will borrow 25% and DD can do student loans for remaining 25% of the cost of a state school (including dorm if she chooses).

I think this is a great way to do it.

Anonymous wrote:We are finding a way to make it work, but it isn't easy. Two kids in private colleges. Both get partial financial aid (needs based) but we are still on the hook for $50k/yr between the two of them. I get a small tuition reimbursement through my job at a university. If they'd gone to the college where I work we'd be doing even better, but then I suspect we wouldn't get financial aid, so maybe in the end it's a crapshoot. We fund our portion of the college tuition with a combination of current savings and several dips into our retirement accounts. Yeah, I know there are some risks to funding college with retirement money, but we aren't planning to retire anytime soon.

I forgot to mention that both of our college kids contribute through work study jobs and carry small student loans (about $8-10k/yr).

We are finding a way to make it work, but it isn't easy. Two kids in private colleges. Both get partial financial aid (needs based) but we are still on the hook for $50k/yr between the two of them. I get a small tuition reimbursement through my job at a university. If they'd gone to the college where I work we'd be doing even better, but then I suspect we wouldn't get financial aid, so maybe in the end it's a crapshoot. We fund our portion of the college tuition with a combination of current savings and several dips into our retirement accounts. Yeah, I know there are some risks to funding college with retirement money, but we aren't planning to retire anytime soon.

We are lucky - had our kid a little older and we are only having one.

We maxed out the 529 for his first four years and will probably do one more year. Leaves us with $140K there and 13 more years for it to grow.

We've saved 25%, will pay out of cash flow 25%, will borrow 25% and DD can do student loans for remaining 25% of the cost of a state school (including dorm if she chooses).

We aren't funding private - its not in our capacity and I don't think the marginal benefit of a private experience is worth the incremental costs.

Private colleges are about $60 k now. I just try not to think about it. We save a modest amount per month but I know we will need aid and anything in their college savings will be eaten up immediately. I prioritize retirement savings and we will contribute what we can at the time. What can one do?

Kids will have to go in state to a public school and VA has plenty of good colleges. For our financial situation, there's no way the cost/benefit analysis works out for an out of state college or a private college.

Both DH and I went to school on scholarship, supplemented by loans including PLUS loans. Our parents couldn't afford to pay for our college, and we can't afford to pay for college for ours. We'll help, but they'll need to be realistic about which college to apply and go to.

I was just reading yet another NYT article about MC kids saddled with high levels of SL debt and the effect this has on the economy (the housing market in particular). Honestly, as tuition continues to rise and public support for high education continues to fall, it seems like very few middle class families are going to be able to afford the cost of college in 15-20 years. It's crazy to me.

If I may ask, how much do you save monthly or annually for your kids? How much do you have saved in total and how old are your children? Do you worry about them having to take out a "brain mortgage"?