We were shocked by how much colleges expected us to be able to pay.
One thing that can happen is current “good” income doesn’t tell the full story arc. In our case, we just recently came into better job situations & better total household income after a few awful years post-2008 downturn. Just in time for filling out those financial aid forms for college!
In addition, we were in no position to pay our EFC because of years, decades really, of mediocre earnings and not nearly enough for retirement or savings.
Another shock to me was how many students at top schools are from full pay families. There is not a single friend in my social circle that could afford that kind of money for college. My boss? Yes.
There are many super smart talented kids who cannot go to “top schools” due to inability to pay. It’s not the end of the world.
I also get annoyed with some of the condescending attitude about what is and is not middle class, so here are some real things we are doing with 2 in at the same time this coming year. A lot of this is minor, but it adds up and were are OK this year.
In no particular order:
Put your 401Ks on hold. Actually contribute just enough to get the employee match, so that frees up ~20K after taxes. Remember if both of you max your contributions (~18K each) that is $36K. Now take off around a third off for taxes since that is at your marginal tax rate.
Delay Retirement. I’ll probably push retirement out a few years. Mrs Nokilli may do the same. We will see how things look financially in 4 years. I also offered my older kid to help with STEM grad school if they go to a high rent area (NYC, Boston, Berkeley) so this may impact my decision. This only applies if he is funded for grad school. I’m not paying tuition.
Draining savings. (Not touching 401k though)
3a) If you have a bunch of old savings bonds that can be cashed and moved into 529 without paying taxes. (There are some pitfalls in this so do it by the book.) That’s a quite a few thousand in taxes we don’t have to pay.
3a) When draining regular savings for the current year, put that into a 529 to get the tax break if your state offers one. The savings covered books last semester so every little bit helps.
Cut expenses. Bag Lunch/Drink the crappy free coffee at work instead of Starbucks or the local coffee house. This is the hardest this for me. I NEED a double espresso to start the day.
Make more money. I’m currently looking for a higher paying job or at least a lateral with some upside within a few years. Even if it sucks, it’s only until the kids are out of school. Who knows, I might like the new challenge. The great recession hurt. Didn’t lose job, but pay was frozen for 5 years and car died.
Target local scholarships. My S pick up one that covered our gap in the first year 1. Let hope the school doesn’t cut that exact amount in year 2. It was a one time scholarship for freshman year so i’m hopeful.
ProTip- He wrote the essay but I laid out the financial aid section explaining out gap and tweaked his resume on the application. There is no way he would have gotten the financials correct.
Grandparents? In-laws threw us some cash. It wasn’t a lot, but it helped with the meal plan last year.
HELOC - not yet but we might.
Borrow (not withdraw) from 401K - At least the interest goes right back to me although you are paying with after tax dollars. This is my last resort.
Drive beater Japanese cars. The Mrs. has the nicest car (~$23K in 2015 so nothing fancy), with just one more payment, but me and the kids share two 13 year old ones. I was shocked how nice the cars were in the high school parking lot and we live in a middle class town (MHI $60K) with high property and school taxes.
Not gonna work for DC but, pick a school in a lower rent area and live off campus after sophomore year.
Since you probably won’t get work-study, push kid to get on campus job for 10-12 hours/week. Any more starts hurting grades. Let them earn some spending money. Stay on campus so there are no travel expenses and many on campus jobs will work around your exam schedule.
A few years ago at freshman drop off weekend they had a job fair. I dragged him to the IT helpdesk booth and had him complete an application right there. He is not having anything to do with IT professionally, but it’s a great job because of the flexibility and he has gotten a few promotions. He will have supervisory experience this year as a junior and he doesn’t bother asking for me spending money. WIN-WIN.
*We didn’t have to worry about Georgetown. The only kids to get in from our HS in the past 7 years are recruited athletes with top grades (except Men’s Basketball). Not saying they didn’t deserve it academically, but if you are not recruited, don’t waste your money, in our HS anyway.
Some of your suggestions contradict each other, @NoKillli .
Looking to delay retirement but you must be under 50 if you can only contribute $18k to 401k?
Getting $36k by stopping 401k but putting in enough to get a match? My last employer matched 10%, so I wouldn’t have had anywhere close to $18k if I still contributed at least the match amount. (And I don’t think it is worth it to give up the tax benefits from the 401k.)
You suggest getting a different job, but borrowing from the 401k. You can only borrow from your 401k if you still work for the same employer.
It doesn’t really matter if you drive a 6 year old car or a 15 year old car as long as it is paid for. Might save a little in insurance, but you probably lose that in repairs and fuel economy.
I get it that they are just ideas, but that’s a lot of financial gymnastics. Pick a cheaper school.
@Midwest67 yes that is our situation as well. After some horrible years following 2008, we are only recently earning this much…just in time for college.
@NoKillli appreciate the suggestions but we aren’t in a position for a lot of those. No investments outside of 529s and Retirement accounts. We have a small savings account for emergencies. And we only put in what our companies match into the 401k so lowering isn’t an option. We already drive older practical cars. We live comfortably but not at all extravagantly. It’s just a high COL here. D20 will absolutely apply for local scholarships but that will hardly put a dent in a Georgetown bill. And no grandparent is able to help. This isn’t a woe is me Post…just a question. We are fortunate to have great in state options and can definitely afford to send our kids there. @twoinanddone that’s exactly what D20 will do…target cheaper schools! She’s bummed this one won’t work out, but she knows cost matters. We are fortunate to be able to pay for other options!
But @TheGreyKing IIRC you only have one kid. We’d also find it doable to save enough over 18 years for one $300K bill (especially since monthly outgoings for a family of 3 would be much less). However, $900K for 3 kids is a completely different matter.
@chb088 - I hear what you are saying about being in the middle of a high cost of living area. Same with me. I am a public school teacher and my husband earns less than I do! Not exactly seeing ourselves as rich like the Trumps or Bloombergs are rich! For our Long Island north shore area, our $200K is average. We have a normal 4 bedroom house, I drive a Chevy Malibu, etc. But that does not make us middle class for the nation. It makes us fall into the affluent category. I never knew that until researching income categories when it was time to pay for college! We had thought we were middle class.
I am sorry that the methods of paying for college that people suggested for you in this thread do not enable you to send your child to Georgetown. They are enabling me, a public school teacher, to send my child to Williams, which costs what Georgetown costs. I get how hard it must be to have to limit your kid’s choices.
@Twoin18 - yes, it is definitely true that having an only child makes payments easier! And my having a future pension makes retirement saving easier.
With two kids, we think we still could do it, and also then we definitely would qualify for financial aid, as per the NPC. Yes, with more than 2 kids, it would get harder and they definitely would have to work for a couple of years before graduate school to pay some of it themselves, if not aided by the grad school.
More than anything else, having health insurance saves us!
We have 3 kids, all teenagers. We had them late, so retirement in on the not-so-distant horizon. And we’re both teachers in Catholic high schools. Did I mention that we live on Long Island?
So, for us the answer is that we simply cannot afford the price tags of a number of the schools frequently discussed on CC.
My son is attending community college. He’s a volunteer fireman and we will be reimbursed for the price of his tuition. After that, he’ll transfer to a local SUNY.
His sister starts in 3 weeks at Plymouth State in NH. She got a $5000 scholarship and is taking out a $5000 loan, bringing the cost down to just under $24,000 a year.
@chb088 - Maybe this idea might help? We paid off our mortgage last year with a home equity loan, because the interest on the home equity loan was less than the interest on the mortgage. Now we will pay off the home equity loan after the minimal required period. And then the open line of credit in the home equity will allow us to borrow more for college or grad school if and when we need it.
Good luck! These college bills are indeed pretty scary. We paid the first semester this month. Gulp.
Thanks. Trying to be smart about the finances. Really don’t see going into a lot of debt as a good solution to college financing when there are other options that cost less. Just trying to get D20 on board with that idea. It’s too bad…Georgetown is a wonderful school and a good fit for her academically, but the costs seem unreasonable to our family.
There are many threads on CC which emphasize the importance of giving a student a budget before applications go in.
We can afford to pay X per year, or Y total. Teach your student how to run the NPCs. Teach your student how to make a spreadsheet with estimated other costs (health insurance, books, travel, possibly yearly increases in cost due to inflation…).
We let our kid apply to a school she desperately wanted to attend, a school we strongly suspected would be unaffordable. I was flying by the seat of my pants, thinking our kid would not get accepted so why veto the application – let the school do the dirty work! Nope. She got accepted.
Then I figured our kid would be sensible and graciously accept one of the full tuition or full tuition plus offers on the table — wrong again. She was really angry with me.
Really bright kids in the running for acceptance to schools like Georgetown will often have amazingly generous offers at “lower tiered” schools. So, it’s not just how much a family can afford. What will you do if there is a full tuition or full tuition plus or super affordable in-state school option? Will you still be okay if your student picks the most expensive option?
^I just read these statistics aloud to my husband, and the 18% of Williams students whose families earned over $630,000 in 2013 blew our minds. We are paying the same amount of tuition they are, though we earn a third of what they do! Crazy.
(And, for this thread’s topic, Georgetown had an even higher percentage, 21%, over $630,000.)
Very interesting link @sunnyschool .
I searched a bunch of schools. Vandy was the highest I came across at 23% for top 1%. MIT was quite low at 5.7% compared to other very selective privates.
There are certainly many high COL areas in the country, but remember your salaries are probably much higher than they would be if you lived in Indiana or Oklahoma. I worked for the government and there is a locality adjustment. Living in Florida, my locality pay adjustment was something like 4% off the establish base rate. In southern California, it was 16%. In SF and NYC, it is 38%. This also applied to the 401k match, so really, the people in SF were making almost 50% more than I was. When I moved from California to Florida, I found many things more expensive in Florida - food, car insurance, sales tax on everything. The only things I really saved on were housing (although the insurance was more) and gasoline.
I don’t know what catholic school teachers on Long Island make, but in Denver (not exactly low COL) they can make as little as $35k. Why would anyone take that job? Well, it has great hours and insurance benefits and public school teachers aren’t making that much more.
I know a family where the mother worked at the catholic high school (in administration) so her kids could get free tuition. When they became college age, she got a job at DU and they got a tuition break, including at least 2 for law school. Pays off when you have 8-9 kids!
Georgetown is going to charge the same whether you live in Oklahoma or NYC. FAFSA doesn’t care, but the CSS allows G’Town to make some adjustments. I think it is hard for them to make comparisons for the person from SF who makes $150k which makes the family middle class and the one from Tulsa who makes $70k and may be considered upper middle class. The facts may be that the Tulsa family just gained that level of income and is living in a house with no equity while the SF family may be living in a $Million dollar home which they purchase for $400k 10 years ago. It’s hard to make it all fair.
I was answering the OP about any school that has a $70K COA and am not really worrying about writing a perfect response.
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Looking to delay retirement but you must be under 50 if you can only contribute $18k to 401k?
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Delaying retirement is my longer term plan, if necessary. I might do the consulting thing for a few years anyway. I’m into Information Security now and long term consultants are billing $100-$200/hr in my area. Maybe I’ll become a Security Cloud Architect. Those guys are pulling down crazy money now. Just gotta be agile in your career which I’m teaching the kids. I won’t need health insurance which makes it MUCH easier to be a 1099 contractor.
BTW in 2018 the new limit is $18.5K. The the over 50 catchup is still $6K.
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Getting $36k by stopping 401k but putting in enough to get a match? My last employer matched 10%, so I wouldn't have had anywhere close to $18k if I still contributed at least the match amount. (And I don't think it is worth it to give up the tax benefits from the 401k.)
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My employer doesn’t match and Mrs N’s match is just the first $1.5K. So for us we now have $34.5K before taxes available. Close enough for this post.
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You suggest getting a different job, but borrowing from the 401k. You can only borrow from your 401k if you still work for the same employer.
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Yep. If I stay I can borrow. If I leave it is trickier. You can’t borrow from an IRA but I could roll my 401K to another employer 401K and borrow if they have that option. I have an old 403b from TIAA with a borrow option but the interest doesn’t go to me. I’ll be 59&1/2 in my younger one’s junior year. I think I can take money out of the 403b/IRA without penalty, but I still need to pay taxes at my marginal rate. I need to investigate in a few years.
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It doesn't really matter if you drive a 6 year old car or a 15 year old car as long as it is paid for. Might save a little in insurance, but you probably lose that in repairs and fuel economy.
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Yea but I have the older cars now and they work fine with relatively low miles. I would not buy a 13 year old car and I have no interest in buying 6 year old cars. I generally buy new and drive them forever. Gotta love Toyota and Honda for reliability. I’ve got a great mechanic I’ve been going to for 25 years. He is not cheap, but will never screw me because I go to him for everything and send all my friends and neighbors there.
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I get it that they are just ideas, but that's a lot of financial gymnastics. Pick a cheaper school.
Older one is in big state U with a bunch of merit scholarships. If I was full pay there too, I couldn't do it all. Believe me, I struggled at the private college decision right up to May 1st. I'm a big public U guy (BS,MS,MBA) and work with lots of engineers who are alum of the private school my younger son will attend in a month. I'll probably have buyer's remorse for 4 years.
A lot of very good LACs and universities offer merit aid. Maybe not much is offered at the top-10-ranked (USNews) schools, but if you expand your definition of “elite” (which is easy to do, given the depth of quality colleges in the US), good schools that offer merit aid can be found.
^ Yep, that’s what many CC “donut hole” families seem to do. They chase merit scholarships.
If you’re competitive for Georgetown, then you may be competitive for a merit grant from someplace like Davidson College, where the average merit grant is about $25K. That gets your net price down to roughly $40K/year, which is comparable to the OOS sticker prices for many state flagships. Davidson may not be as well known as Georgetown, but for academic quality the two seem to be peer schools.
Granted, $40K/year is still a lot. Maybe as much as $10K/year could be covered from “self help”?
So then the remaining bill to the parents would be $120K for the 4 years.
A family could cover that by saving $400/month at 4% for 18 years … assuming you don’t want to pay anything for college out of current income. That’s comparable to socking away a car payment every month. Per kid.
Alternately, you just hop in your local time machine and buy yourself some Apple stock at late 1990s prices. Your total 2018 cost basis for 1,300 split-adjusted shares purchased in early March,1999 might come to about $1,600. Today it’d be worth $270K. That and a little “self help” (or current income) just about covers Georgetown.
The key is to plan ahead, live frugally, save an invest. You should have decent saving by the time if you have 150-250K income. More than enough for full pay for at least one child.
