<p>I am paying through undergrad (3 years and 3 summers). D will pay for years 4 & 5 at grad rates, though I’ll help with whatever I can.</p>
<p>both my kids will graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>I think this thread is funny. This is one nervous daddy-to-be. He’s just found out there’s a first baby on the way and he’s already worrying about whether the child will graduate in 4 years or not. :)</p>
<p>Right now…pray for a healthy child. :)</p>
<p>Our S is graduating in 4 years. He could have done it in less time (3 or 3.5, but we encouraged 4). He also could have stayed on & gotten his masters in the 5th year but he didn’t want to. He’s graduating & getting a job.</p>
<p>S wants to work a while & decide whether he wants to go back to school & what he wants to study & if employer wants to fund his education.</p>
<p>D may take more than 4 years because she transferred from OOS public to private & is re-applying to get into the program she wants to get her degree in. We’re hoping she graduates in 4, but are willing and able to help her if it’s a bit longer.</p>
<p>We had actually only saved enough for each kid to go to local in-state flagship U, but neither has followed that plan. ;)</p>
<p>
Exactly. So why not just save what you can afford to save, starting now, and then make some decisions once you have some relevant facts to work with? Which schools are worth paying for, how many years you’ll pay… you are way overthinking this stuff. It’s 18-20 years away. Anything can change in that time. And right now, you know nothing. Well, you know you need to save – good for you, that’s great. Save. Live. Love your kids and enjoy the wonder of their development.</p>
<p>D will graduate in 4 years but has attended 2 summers so far and taken an extra class (20 credits) one semester so in effect we will be paying for 5 years. She will study abroad next summer for 8 credits and take 20 credits one more semester. Your tuition payment is good for 18 credits a semester so we pay a little extra for the one class.
In effect- 2 extra classes freshmen year, 2 extra classes soph. year and 3 extra classes jr year.</p>
<p>Just hope that you don’t have to use college fund to live on during a period of unemployment…</p>
<p>"Unless money is no object (at which point this conversation isn’t too useful anyway), doing your best to pre-fund four full years (tuition, fees, supplies, room & board, personal expenses) at either your state flagship or private university (depending on which you’ve decided to fund) gives you pretty much all the flex you should need, particularly if you adjust savings (often upwards) to reflect college costs that increase faster than you projected. "</p>
<p>…is one heck of a sentence…</p>
<p>"With those four years dealt with and some advance notice, you can probably figure out how to easily fund a fifth year out of current income if one is needed, "</p>
<p>Umm …no… a second one will have entered college. They are exactly three years apart. It reminds me of the ONE time I bought “diapers” for both.The older one finished the toilet training process quickly.</p>
<p>“We had actually only saved enough for each kid to go to local in-state flagship U, but neither has followed that plan.”</p>
<p>Ditto…minus the flagship part…</p>
<p>Four years in my house (when I grew up and now that I’m the parent).</p>
<p>Why not just be conservative, plan 5, and if kid graduates in 4, gets a full ride or winds up at Cheaper State U, then you’ve got extra money to roll into retirement, take a vacation, buy kid a car, or whatever?</p>
<p>I am as much of a planner as they come, but this is ridiculous. A million things could change. Why don’t you decide on whether you’ll fund an 18 meal or 21 meal plan while you’re at it? Or how much to spend on kid’s winter coat or 16th bday party?</p>
<p>So much unplanned happened in our lives from the time we were married, had our kids, had our careers take some unexpected paths, retirements plans have improved and worsened. We all plan as best we can and then hang in there, living below our incomes and having a “good life.” We are savers by nature, so the fluctuations of our income and retirement haven’t rocked us as much as they could have if we stayed awake agonizing over it.</p>
<p>We COULD have had a lot more money to work with IF I had continued to work full-time or significantly part-time instead of devoting all my energies to raising our kids and running the household, but we have no regrets.</p>
<p>Save as well as you can, but live in the moment and enjoy the wonder of pregnancy and your new family!</p>
<p>My husband and I, both employed professionals, knew we were unlikely to receive need-based aid. We used a college savings calculator to give us a ballpark idea of what we should be saving. Then we deposited what we could every month on an automatic savings plan from the time our kids were babies. When other money came into our hands (we do some freelance work on the side, and my husband received a small inheritance) we contributed some of that, too. Once the kids entered their teens, the financial situation had become clearer–both our likely savings total, and the likely cost of tuition (which has risen much faster than inflation in the past couple of decades). We have offered each child not a “number of years” but a set amount of money. It’s up to each kid whether, for instance, they want to go to an instate public school and graduate loan-free, perhaps even with a little extra money to get them started in life, or whether they get merit scholarships/ take out loans for a private, out-of-state school.</p>
<p>My parents did the same for my sisters and me. I attended an Ivy League school with the aid of three merit scholarships (awarded by outside bodies, not by the university) that made up the difference between the cost of the private school and an instate public. One sister attended a flagship public. Another got a practically free ride to a state “consortium” school because she chose to major in a needed field; she used her education money for a master’s degree.</p>