<p>These boards were an immense help when my oldest D was approaching and in college. Each year you helped us complete the Profile and do our taxes correctly. Thank you, thank you, thank you!</p>
<p>Our oldest was a hardworking, high stats kid and we owned a business that closed at the end of her freshman year, leaving my husband unemployed for 2 years. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 3.5 years due to hard work and AP credits with about 12K in debt. Much of her COA was covered by institutional aid at the colleges she attended. </p>
<p>Now our youngest is starting high school, again a hard worker with perfect GPA, etc. and I am trying to think ahead.</p>
<p>For the last 2.5 years we have had decent jobs and have been maxing out our retirement savings to make up for the many years we simply did not have the money (we are 54). Because we had to be frugal for many years, it is not a huge burden to save. </p>
<p>We paid all our business debt and now save about 30% of our income (and I hope that will go up). My husband is now deferring the max, we fully fund our Roths, we also have a very small side business that allows additional retirement savings. I will begin to defer a portion of my earnings in the second half of this year. We make about 132K total now--a long way from our family of 4 living on 40-50K. We also have been making a dent in deferred maintenance to our home.</p>
<p>Our youngest is talking about schools like Brown and I'd be interested in any advice that you can offer regarding funding her education. I know we may need to point her toward more merit scholarships rather than the shrinking number of need blind schools.</p>
<p>We do not want our girls to have to support us in our rapidly approaching old age, so your suggestions are very much appreciated.</p>
<p>I think you have answered your own question – with 132K of income and only one child in college, you will not get much if any need based aid. Something that may have changed since your older D applied is that colleges now have a net price calculator on their websites that you can plug your information into and see if you might qualify for aid. Small businesses aren’t handled well in them, though; what I did was put in the assets of my small business as if they were my personal ones (added them). Just assuming colleges would probably do the same… if the income flows through to your personal returns, then you don’t have to do anything extra for that.</p>
<p>There is a (now very long) thread about merit aid, too.</p>
<p>What you want to do, though, is to go to the cost/aid websites of each college she is interested in and read up on what merit aid is available. You can also tell something about the merit aid given by looking at the Common Data set for each college (just search for “<college name=”“> common data set” and you will usually find links). There is a section that talks about the merit aid given. Obviously the higher your kid’s stats (test scores in particular) are for that school, the better her chances of merit aid. The individual college forums out here on CC also often have threads talking about merit aid if you search or dig through the history.</college></p>
<p>But to be honest, if you don’t want to be “full pay”, your second D may have to look at schools a bit lower in the rankings than Brown in order to get decent merit aid.</p>
<p>You might get some specific school suggestions if you tell us more about her stats and ECs, intended major, any geographic restrictions, and how much you are willing to pay.</p>
<p>Thanks for such a quick response, intparent. Yes, we know we will pay quite a bit for D#2’s education. But taking the long view, it will average it out.</p>
<p>However, I am also asking about meshing our retirement planning with funding college and should have put that in my thread title. I am also curious how CSS Profile and schools handle salary deferrals. I know they are added back into AGI, but also does this vary from school to school depending on their institutional formula?</p>
<p>We had to file two Business & Farm Supplements for the CSS Profile for D#1 and it was a complete pain, but understood the necessity. We were a C corp and this side biz is a sole proprietorship, so we will definitely fold that in to our own assets. </p>
<p>Stats and college suggestions are probably premature–D#2 is 14, has always received As, tested into a challenging sci/tech magnet HS, will take algebra 2/trig as 9th freshman tracking into AP calc as junior, tests in the 99th percentile and above (depending on the tests). Two Presidential Excellence Awards, Superintendent Award, etc. ECs-drama, school play, choir, tutors, 3 years of book blogging, etc.</p>
<p>Retirement savings advice, since we have a short time horizon, are much appreciated.</p>
<p>We contributed the maximum to our retirement accounts. Our theory was that if our retirement income was sufficient, we could pay back loans if needed. But we didn’t want to scrimp on the retirement contributions. </p>
<p>We were able to fund college using current income because both of us were employed full time. My entire salary paid for college, and my husband’s paid our other expenses. Can you do that…and have your kiddo take out the direct loans?</p>
<p>Thanks, thumper1. Yes, we can do that, and will, of course. We’ll be sure D#2 understands the financial parameters we have.</p>
<p>One of our goals is that both daughters leave college with a reasonable, manageable amount of debt that does not greatly limit their career and life options.</p>
<p>May I ask, did you defer salary in preparing for retirement? The investment options I have are not great, so we have tried to do more through my husband’s 403(b).</p>
<p>Thanks all. You are such a wonderful resource.</p>