Anonymous wrote:Most people underestimate cost.

Amherst this fall is around 90k

Fordham, GWU, Georgetown and Syracuse all around 80k

Most college raise 3 percent a year. Do the math.

And guess what kids like to go away to school and a lot refuse to apply in state.

GWU tuition alone is 52k so even a kid living at home has it paid off.

I expect to pay around 160k a kid for my share. The average person three kids will need around 500k saved minimum. And that is cheaper schools with Merit aid and kid working summers

If kids go top notch schools you need one million three kids.

Maybe your children think it’s acceptable to behave like this. Mine do not.

For us, fully funded means the ability to cover almost any undergraduate education and graduate (professional) school, including room and board, books, lab fees etc as well as a monthly stipend/living allowance. So I have a 10 year old who is fully funded, and a 2 year old and we're working on getting him fully funded

Anonymous wrote:In state tuition and room and board for four years.

This. We live in VA. DH and I went to W&M undergrad. Our daughters will need a VERY compelling reason to leave VA for college. Should the need arise, we will pay the difference out of other investments or just regular income when the time comes. We also plan to help with grad school but not pay all. They need skin in the game at that point. I knew too many people in grad school who were there because they didn’t want a real job yet and parents were paying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have Irish twins. One just finished his freshman year at UVA and the other is going to William and Mary in the fall. I drilled it in my kids heads that we expected them to go to state schools because that is what we saved for. We did the 529 prepaid for each and have 100k in the invest for both to split. So far I have not had to touch the invest and thankfully didnt in 2017 or thr first half of 2018 as had the money in growth funds. Any extra that is needed will come out of pocket.

I had planned for state schools as well but my son got in to Princeton. The school will provide some support, thankfully, but not enough to offset the difference. We will find a way for him to go there.

If that poster lives in Northern Virginia and her kids are in UVA and WM, I bet her kids could have gotten into Princeton too. One of the biggest benefits of Virginia schools is the enormous network and job opportunities here in NOVA. I've seen it at my work with VT in particular.

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha...someone lives in fantasy land!

For us, it means that we can afford to send our kid to any college in the US without having to take out loans, raid our retirement, refinance our home, etc. We saved about $215K/kid spread between in 529s and another savings vehicle with the plan to pay anything on top of that with cash.

My oldest just finished her junior year of college. She picked a school in the midwest with a total cost of attendance of about $52K, and then merit aid brought things down to about $35K. So she'll have a nice chunk of change left over for grad school. She actually didn't even consider price when picking a school, it just so happened the school she fell in love with was a reasonable price to begin with (comparatively speaking, of course) and gave her some nice merit aid.

My younger will start at Notre Dame this fall at $68K/year and so if she wants to go to grad school, she'll need to get funding or have loans. We'll help her some, but we made it clear to both kids that the help won't be anywhere near what it is for undergrad. But it was her choice.

I am always confused by "fully funded" college, too. According to the NYS 529:

"How much can I invest?
"529 account contribution limits are generally high—ranging from $200,000 or more, depending on the state. For the Direct Plan, you can contribute up to $520,000 on behalf of one beneficiary. This amount includes all New York-sponsored 529 savings accounts held for the same beneficiary."

For our family, we are aiming to save for half of in-state tuition with R&B in the 529, so for us we are fully funding what we expect to pay for college.

Anonymous wrote:Just for reference sake. The university my husband and I attended cost $60k this year. By the time our ten year old is going to colleg, it’s earimated to cost $84k per year. I hope people are estimating for tuition increases.

Yes, definitely good to plan for tuition increases of 3-4%. But you also should be planning for and realizing some capital gains. Your money shouldn't just being sitting in cash for 18 years. Very conservatively, you could just assume that your investments keep up with college inflation. In reality, they should do substantially better than that.

Anonymous wrote:I have never said we were fully funded to anyone but we have about $250K for our 7yo and are still adding here and there - the tax free earnings are a huge benefit for sure.

We have 300k each for a ten and an eight year old. This was the fortuitous result of an exit combined with some financial discipline (no porsche in our garage).

I view the accounts as fully funded but I wish the 529 calculators would let let you set the number of years for schooling -- I'd like to save for grad school, too.

Giving myself a break for a few years but at some point I may start adding again for grad school when I get around to calculating that math more clearly.

Anonymous wrote:Most people underestimate cost.

Amherst this fall is around 90k

Fordham, GWU, Georgetown and Syracuse all around 80k

Most college raise 3 percent a year. Do the math.

And guess what kids like to go away to school and a lot refuse to apply in state.

GWU tuition alone is 52k so even a kid living at home has it paid off.

I expect to pay around 160k a kid for my share. The average person three kids will need around 500k saved minimum. And that is cheaper schools with Merit aid and kid working summers

If kids go top notch schools you need one million three kids.

https://www.amherst.edu/tuition What are you talking about? Ahmerst is $72K. Fordham, GWU, and Georgetown around $70K, Syracuse $68K.

I have never said we were fully funded to anyone but we have about $250K for our 7yo and are still adding here and there - the tax free earnings are a huge benefit for sure.

Kids 6 & 7. Started when they were born. Plan to have about $100k into each kids 529 by the time they graduate.

Hopefully in state but if they get into a justifiable out of state school we will figure out how to cover the difference at that point.

For me it means 300-400k per kid (we have 3).

Needless to say we aren't there yet (oldest is 9) but we plan to be.