<p>^ You may consider buying a condo, an apartment, a mobile home,… instead of paying rent. This is a way to save for college. I don’t think putting money in 529 fund is a good strategy for low income family.</p>
<p>coolweather, I don’t think Irishmomof2 was asking for financial advice. And saving 10 or 20 percent for a down payment is is usually beyond the ability of a relatively low-income household in a high-housing-cost state.</p>
<p>When my older daughter went to college, I was still married, and our combined income was about $75,000. Most of the money in the 529 is from those heady days. </p>
<p>Some of you will be happy to know that I have an older car, no Playstations, and a TV that is 25 years old. I do have a Smart Phone, but I have good plan which is below $100/month. We do have a Wii that my daughter received as a Christmas gift about 5 years ago. </p>
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<p>I think a lot of people on this forum would benefit by reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” </p>
<p>Most people I know would much rather work to pay their own mortgage instead of buying a house for someone else, but scraping together the money or building the credit to get necessary loans is an insurmountable struggle for many. </p>
<p>^ We are not talking about people who make $6/hour here. We are talking about “Parents with no savings and higher incomes” and parents who pay for ECs to prepare for colleges mentioned in the article in post #1.</p>
<p>Many parents I know on CC have a second property for renting.</p>
<p>I think it’s worth noting that a lot of those poor people with TVs, etc., are being victimized by “rent-to-own” and installment payment operators who persuade them to buy this stuff, for which they end up paying far more than the value of the item–and often have it repossessed when they can’t keep up the payments. But these are low-information people, not the sort of folks we’ve been discussing on this thread.</p>
<p>I never understood the term victimize in relation to consumption.
The way I invision victimization is that some gang abducted the victim and using physical force and threat to his life and family made him/her to sign up / spend money on something that victim will not buy on his own will. This activity is illegal and criminals will eventually do time. If person was not physically forced and his and family lives were not threatenned if he does not purchase, than he/she is not a victim, so he was NOT victimized. I just want to be clear on this as I have never heard of the situation when physical force was used to make somebody purchase something. But it may happen and probably has happened to somebody, I just do not know how often…</p>
<p>That is one definition of victimize, ‘to commit a crime against.’</p>
<p>Another is ‘To subject to deception or fraud. Cheat.’ Many English words have several meanings. Sometimes completely unrelated, and other times, like this, related but distinctly different.</p>
<p>This thread should be required reading for all those seniors whose parents are wondering how to pay for them. And, I think, even full pay parents have those wonders - what if I lost my job, etc. </p>
<p>It’s so much harder when you’re an international student. If I were a US citizen I would take out a student loan and be able to pay quite comfortable after graduating. However, I can’t take one out unless I have a co-signer and my family knows no one except an old family friend in San Diego, and I don’t think we know her well enough to trust her or her to trust us with something so important. </p>
<p>Financial aid is given to int. students in my chosen colleges, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough. 90% of scholarships are for US citizens and the majority of the ones that fit me are worth no more than $1000. </p>
<p>I’m really really freaking out that I won’t be able to attend a good college. </p>
<p>Tvistz- do you come from a country that has not a single university? And at your home country’s U’s- how much financial aid do they provide to US Citizens?</p>
<p>@blossom, I live in the UK (originally from Bulgaria). I don’t really like the UK (and that’s sugar coating it severely) and I’ve been to the US and I find it great. I’d also prefer to study in a country where they speak English since I know that language best and don’t want to have language barriers especially while I’m studying. Bulgaria isn’t a really prosperous country anymore so I can’t go there. </p>
<p>I don’t have a good idea of the fin. aid in the UK for US citizens, but this website gives you an idea: <a href=“http://www”>http://www</a> internationalstudent com/universities-awarding-aid/ (replace spaces with full stops). </p>
<p>For example, the London School of Economics gives rewards of £3000 and £24,000 (limited of course). Some other unis give you bursaries depending on your household income. </p>
<p>I don’t quite know how to express what I’m thinking, but I’ll do my best. I’ve read through most of the posts here and it feels like many families expect that every cent be put toward college–at the expense of not giving kids a childhood they can enjoy. I’m not talking about extravagance, but general amenities and experiences that add to their quality of life. FROM THE DAY EACH OF MY KIDS WAS BORN, MY H AND I HAVE BEEN PUTTING MONEY EACH MONTH INTO COLLEGE SAVINGS ACCOUNTS AND IT STILL HASN’T BEEN ENOUGH to cover the cost of college.
So according to some people, we shouldn’t have taken our kids to Disney when they were young and seen the pure joy on their faces. Or maybe we shouldn’t have let them go to friends’ birthday parties, for which we gave appropriate gifts (which were usually about $20 apiece). Multiple that by 3 kids by ten or so friends by seven or eight years. Or let them go to friend’s bar and bat mitzvahs, sweet sixteens or quinceneras. And maybe we shouldn’t have gotten them Playstation (or Xbox, whatever it is) so they could blow off some steam after long days of school and homework. Or perhaps they should have been the kids who didn’t play sports or music (all of which required equipment). </p>
<p>Our cars are ten years old. One would hardly call our lifestyle lavish, but we go to the movies with our kids and had parties for them when they reached certain milestones. We traveled to distant cities to celebrate occasions with family. We gave our kids religious instruction, which required money for classes. We vacationed when we had some extra cash. In short, we didn’t spend every minute wringing our hands over how to save for college. We tried to achieve a BALANCE, and now we need financial aid for them to go to the colleges of their choice. No whining here, just explaining that it’s not always about making bad choices.</p>
<p>^ My kids had all the activities you mention. I took them to Disney World, Miami, DC, Hawaii, Nevada, and several places in California, let them go on out of town field trips and to summer programs. But I did not have college saving accounts. I indirectly save for college by trying to pay off the mortgage, have no credit card debts,… and put money in retirement plans. At the time my kids went to college I did not have any monthly payments,… and I could pay for college.</p>
<p>Tvist- you missed my point. If you live in the UK- even if you have a personal preference for getting a university education in the US- is it the responsibility of taxpayers in America to subsidize you to study here instead of in Britain? Is there not a single college in the UK that would be suitable for you? It’s a shame that financial aid to overseas students is limited in the US- but it’s not as though you won’t be able to get an education by staying where you are, correct?</p>
<p>Not sure your situation is similar to those of families posting here. Unless I’ve missed something.</p>
<p>College4- you sound like great parents. I don’t think the point here is that you shouldn’t have done all those things (I also have old cars but my kids haven’t made it to Disney, and we didn’t do the Xbox/video game thing for both financial and other reasons). The point is to own your decision-making and realize that a dollar spent on X is a dollar not available to spend on Y. That’s all.</p>
<p>Nobody is accusing you of bad choices. But every family makes different choices.</p>
<p>I have a neighbor with a pretty nice upper middle class lifestyle. He is constantly complaining that our state U costs “too much” and the answer is for higher sales taxes for a bigger subsidy to the state U system.</p>
<p>Why is it fair that the waitress at the local waffle house, who can’t even afford the State U for her kids (even with a Pell) should be subsidizing his vacations and all the electronic gizmos in his house every time she buys a pair of socks just because he thinks higher sales taxes are more fair than him paying full freight???</p>
<p>choices. We all have to make choices. And the folks who can even contemplate NOT doing Disney and putting the money in a college fund seem to have a much better array of choices than someone who can’t afford Disney (and has no college fund, and no retirement fund, and is choosing between gas in the car to get to work and getting a dental procedure.)</p>
<p>Raise your kids and own your decisions. Don’t whine to your neighbors about how hard it is as a 15 year stay and home parent to get back in the workforce for anything other than minimum wage. That was a choice you made- and surely you didn’t think your profession was going to sit on ice for over a decade waiting for you to go back. Don’t whine to your neighbors about how bad the tax system is and we need something even MORE regressive (i.e. soak the poor) so you don’t have to take out a home equity loan to finance college.</p>
<p>We are your neighbors and we made choices too.</p>
<p>nvr mind</p>
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It’s also easier when you’re an int’l student for parents to conceal overseas income & assets when applying for FA.</p>
<p>@MiamiDAP, your plan for funding college seems to depend on a lot of variables that may not be true for all families. First, medical school (and law school) are not representative of all graduate education. My older brother and sister attended/are attending graduate programs fully funded by their universities and actually included a stipend for research or teaching. They both chose the best UG college they got into in order to improve chances of getting various kinds of funding for grad school, which worked extremely well for them both and therefore for my parents as well. I believe that grad school cost nothing at all. Also, your plan depends on having only one child since many things change between kids such as the economy, illness, family finances and even what opportunities were available to older kids are not available to later kids, depending on the kids themselves and on circumstances (all this is happening in our family). Further, how can you ensure in kindergarten that your child will have e.g. 4.0 GPA and 34+ ACT in HS to qualify for merit aid? It seems like some parents universalize from their own experience and believe everyone else should or even can follow that path. I read this whole thread because I and one more brother will have more challenges funding our UG college than my older sibs did - for lots of reasons, not attributable to bad planning or carelessness on our parent’s part. I don’t think a one size fits all prescription for how to pay for college especially if it includes medical school as a fixed variable applies to most people. </p>
<p>@ LyricalLacuna, some posters, okay one…think that there is only one path from point A to point B. Might even say it is great to ensure val from a rigorous private prep and then bring up full tuition merit over and over. Might be a class of only 33, and a val that has the same ACT score as the number in the class. Maybe somebody might assume that a 4.0 In UG is perfectably attainable…but somebody may not have a kid that went to a school where a 4.0 Is rare, not every year by any means. Just saying.</p>