You have $100k for your 1st kid, $100k for your 2nd, but none at all saved for the 3rd and 4th? Unless you have a clear plan for how you’re going to save $25k/year for the next 4 years for kid #3 and $25k/year the 4 years directly following that for kid #4, I don’t think I’d use up all your savings on the first two.
It sounds like you have $200k in college savings and 4 kids, and you’re looking at tuition bills for the next 13 years. I’d set aside $50k for each kid. That means they all have to earn merit aid to attend a 4 year school or do 2 years at a cc then transfer. But they’d all have an opportunity to go to college. If you use all your savings on kids 1 and 2, what options does that leave for kids 3 and 4?
I don’t think this student got accepted into Pitt honors.
But reality is…for engineering majors, being in honors isn’t a big deal. As noted upstream, most engineering majors don’t take honors college classes anyway at Pitt.
At Pitt the organization is looser and non honors students can take honors classes (and honors stunts don’t have to take honors classes) - unless this has changed?
So I’m thinking one honors seminar to have a smaller, more personable class would be sufficient to be similar to UMD honors.
If I were doing this over, I would encourage child to take a year or so of pre-reqs at a community college or branch campus with a good articulation agreement with a main branch into engineering. That would save a ton of money and only delay a little the “college experience”. My DD is absolutely committed to engineering and is studying her behind off but isn’t going to meet a 3.2 likely which would jeopardize the scholarship needed. My DD is fortunate (?) to not have any scholarships at risk and this first year of engineering misery is really expensive. It could have been done so much cheaper as long as she was carefully tracked to transfer. My DD is in a very good state school, and we’ve visited both Pitt and UMd and found both excellent for engineering and really seemed equivalent. Especially in the first two years where everyone takes essentially the same classes no matter what university they attend for engineering. So go for cheaper and I would with hindsight have looked for cheaper yet.
@austinmshauri Agree with the sentiment but OP still can stagger funds based on what they can save annually.
Assuming they have one kid in each grade of HS:
First gets $70k
Second $50 and they save $20k next year
Third gets $40 and they save $10k next year and $20k after that
Fourth gets $40 and they save $0, $10, then $20
Hard without compounding interest but that is $30k, $30k, then $20k saved each year, not $50k right away.
If kids are more spaced out, divide their #s by more years. If the little one doesn’t go you can help pay off subsidized loans of the others.
And everyone gets 70k.
$70k should cover tuition and a big chunk of costs in state for public if they are frugal.
Wanted to add that we saved and saved and saved and get no need based aid for school and have four to send through too. I allowed DD to attend one of her most expensive choices because it was just affordable, but she has fewer other options. And I didn’t realize how I would feel shelling out $12k more per year for this choice vs a siblings choice, especially when I can see they are having very similar educational and social experiences. I think, I could have had $50,000 to buy land for retirement or, I could have afforded nicer things for myself and family growing up. So a bit of regret on my part as the full pay parent who is choosing to fund college for my kids.
It may make sense for someone in the OP’s situation to say that they are willing to fund stay-away college only if kids meet a certain academic requirement (like GPA).
In the case of this family, the OP has indicated that the oldest is hard-working and serious about school, the second isn’t (and is banking on marrying well) and we still don’t know yet about the last 2.
So the plan could be $100K for the oldest, nothing for the youngest (she can go to CC) and $100K to start to split among the youngest 2 (the beneficiary of a 529 can be switched easily and the money there probably would grow with the market).
@austinmshauri@PurpleTitan This is what we currently have exactly. #1 80K 529 #2 86K 529 for the two younger (rising 9th and 5th graders) we have a current Roth of 110K to split between them. We are leaning towards U of MD but my DD is working hard on ways to go to University of Miami. Even Drexel would be cheaper than that. PITT is ruled out. U of MD is honors college but she isn’t sure she wants to do honors. Hopefully she would not have to. We have until 5/1 to figure this out. I know for sure the next 3 that we will look at what we have for 529s plus the federal loan and stay there. Lesson learned.
If Pitt is affordable why are you ruling it out? Unless you can contribute from current earnings kid #1’s budget is $20k from the grants + the $5500 federal student loan + $3k summer work earnings. That’s about ~$29k/year. re there any schools that come in close to that?
Pitt is better than UMiami for Engineering. UMiami has private school resources - but she’d have the benefits UM brings through UMD Honors. And she doesn’t seem to want Honors (?? Huge perks: priority registration, great dorms, community, smaller classes - she wouldn’t need Honors classes in Engineering but the Honors classes would be a good space for a harried Engineering major with supercompetitive* classmates, since Honors seminars tend to be discussion based and collaborative.)
Can you switch some of the non-academic child #2’s 529 (the 6K difference for instance) toward child#1?
because biomedical engineering tends to have premed, the major combines the rigor of engineering with the competitiveness of premeds, a tough combination.
Many bio engineering firms hire mechanical engineers. My son has a friend who majored in bio engineering, from what he’s said, she makes less than other engineering friends. All of his school friends are engineers, went to a Tech school.
But these are things she can figure out once in college.
I’m a big fan of schools that you enroll in the college of engineering but either it’s easy to transfer between disciplines or that there is a first year program and then you choose a major.
I don’t think there is any need to move 529 money right now, only the decision of how much Child #1 has to spend for the entire college term.
Child #1 ‘likes’ UMd more than Pitt, and the cost per year is about $5k more. Ask child #1 how she’s going to come up with that money. Borrow it? Work for it? If she has $100 for all 3 years, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to use $30k for the first year and earn more with higher paying internships during the summers, by living in cheaper housing as an upperclassman, of working during the school year. If the second sibling doesn’t go to college, maybe child 1 can use some of child 2’s 529 plan for child 1’s senior year. However, things will be more settled in 4 years and decisions can be made at that time. Maybe the student will get an engineering scholarship by then, maybe the family will have gotten over the temporary budget squeeze and be able to contribute more.
However, right now the choice is between Pitt and UMd, and the daughter has to figure out how to pay for the more expensive school. Parents have a budget of $100k for all of college for this kid, and Maryland is about $10k over that (dividing by 4). What does kid want to do? Pick the cheaper school? Earn the money? ‘Borrow’ from the 529 (using $30k instead of $25k per year)?
Even kids who don’t go to a four year college need help launching. Hair styling, culinary arts, auto repair, electrician, phlebotomy, landscape design, pharmacy tech. No, it’s not four years at U MD, but these programs cost money.
So I’m not in favor of raiding the college fund of a kid who may not be headed to college. That kid is still going to need financial support for whatever program works for the kid. Maybe it’s a coding academy/bootcamp? Those are pricey.
I’d need a ton of convincing that any of the options on the table are better for engineering than Pitt though.
I wouldn’t pay 100K either- but I wouldn’t be sending kid number 2 the message that kid number 1 is worth investing in because she’s becoming an engineer, so bye bye college fund. I’ve seen that dynamic a few times, and it doesn’t work out well for kids number 2 3 or 4. If a family hits the rocks financially and has to raid the kids college funds to keep from losing the house or to pay for a liver transplant, that’s something the younger kids can understand and deal with. But losing THEIR college funds because kid number 1 won’t “slum it” at Pitt… boy, that doesn’t make for four siblings who take care of each other in adulthood, or who split the care evenly for an elderly and ill parent, does it?