<p>Hadn’t saved a dime until halfway through 8th grade. Made it to $36K by the start of college ($29K at the time the FAFSA was filed). This was enough to cover AFC for year 1 and year 2. Still saving aggressively for the out years.</p>
<p>Thanks all. I find all the perspectives interesting. Keep sharing…</p>
<p>I don’t know if these answers should have any bearing on how you feel about your own situation. Some folks earn enough so that they can pay tuition out of their current salary, thus needing little to no savings, and others are unable to afford an ongoing tuition bill. For the latter group, some cannot make ends meet and also save for college and others can. Sometimes you can make positive choices but other times there is no choice. My sister’s husband lost his job and all savings went out the window - I guess it’s good that they had the savings to allow them to stay in a stable situation. Now that my brother-in-law is employed again, it’s unlikely they will get financial aid and unlikely they will have money to afford college - but not for lack of trying or wanting to do the right thing.</p>
<p>About $55K for the first. When the market started to dive a couple of years ago we took it out of stock and put it in cash (529). Now we wish we hadn’t since the market rebounding…oh well. We have paid out of pocket the first two years as it wasn’t enough for all 4 years ($20/year total for instate). We didn’t know how my job was going to be and decided to save the $55 for the last few years just in case. We are now using that to finish.</p>
<p>The 2nd will be around $60 probably. Again, we will pay out of pocket for the 1st year or so and then use the savings.</p>
<p>I was a SAHM for the first 10-11 years, and have been a just-above-minimum staffer since. We saved in a 529 started when ours were in elementary because it was better than absolutely nothing. Some of the time we only contributed sporadically at best. Between that and their own jobs, neither of ours have had to take loans, but they go to a university where we receive a staff discount on tuition. We had about 22K saved by S1’s first year, and about 15K for S2 when he started; we shoveled in at a higher rate and are hopeful that our graduation gift to him will also be a loan-free start.</p>
<p>Not much. We were young when we started our family and went through a series of difficult events in the early years on top of some poor financial choices. We stayed in an expensive area because 99 percent of our family is here. It’s been very important to us to have a parent home with the kids so I’ve only worked part-time since our eldest was born. Our focus most of their childhood was to fix the financial mistakes (which we did) and make sure we aren’t a financial burden in our old age (which we are plugging away at.) We started being able to put some aside specifically for college when our eldest started high school. Obviously, not enough time to save a ton. Our only “promise” has always been attend locally (2 high ranking publics within 20 minutes) and live at home which we can afford out-of-pocket without financial aid. D really wanted an LAC and was able to get into one that meets full needs. D pays for her own books, supplies and entertainment through work and her own savings. She will graduate with 12K in student loans. We pay room, board, travel and part of the “self-help” portion of her tuition with income/savings. Anything extra gets thrown at the student loans end of the month. What we can offer will be about the same for S (thankfully he starts after she graduates.) </p>
<p>Honestly, I see us as pretty average. We have a handful of very well off friends who had college covered while kids were in utero (and never a smug moment about it I might add.) We have friends who couldn’t manage the books for a semester at the community college. Most in our circle are us… pay for public university out of income/meager savings… preferably “live-at-home”, maybe sleep-away with student loans or “keep those grades high and hope someone wants you enough to make up the difference.”</p>
<p>We gifted our kids the max allowed by the IRS from the time they were born. I think it was $10K per parent when the oldest was born, and it is now $14K per parent. We sacrificed to do it when the oldest was young - no vacations and older cars, but in later years we’ve had ample income so it’s not a big deal. Hard to believe, but each has (or had at 18) nearly $400K in their accounts - enough for undergrad and grad school. The oldest will go to law school next year and the middle child will probably go to business school after undergrad. The youngest is still in HS. Anything left over will serve as a nest egg.</p>
<p>We have two kids. One is in College and one is in graduate school. We sta.rted saving when they were very young. We had over $300,000 for each kid in savings for college when each started. </p>
<p>When D has her first tuition payment due this coming summer, I’ll have $8000 saved and she will have $14,000 saved. I’m contributing $2500/year to her 529 and she will be responsible for $3000 OOP from summer employment each year. So basically, about $11,000 per year for four years. Not enough but the best she and I could do.</p>
<p>We also followed the Thumper plan. We contribute mainly to our retirement (we’re in our mid 50s). But in addition, we purchased the prepaid trust for our state universities, four years for each child. I’m also an employee for a state university. This means if D goes instate, we pay very very little. (It is possible to get money back.) But if she goes private or out-of-state public, then we get about $10,000 a year from the prepaid trust. We also have an additional $50,000 set aside for her. This means D needs to get merit aid from her private/OOS schools.</p>
<p>We chose to send our children to private Montessori through 8th grade. In doing that, we sacrificed saving substantially for college but it was worth it. If we didn’t do that, I don’t know if D would have stayed the course. We tried traditional public school for a year and half and it was a devastating experience for D. We had no problem yanking her from the local public school and returning her to Montessori.</p>
<p>We sat down with a financial planner years and figured out how much we’d have to put away each month to pay for four years at a public university for each of our daughters. We have faithfully put that amount away. We used the University of Minnesota as our price guideline rather than the state schools since U of MN is more expensive. My daughter will graduate this year and we’re ready. She will be able to attend a private college that will give her enough merit aid to put it right in line with the U of MN - less even. I thought our plan was reasonable. it enabled us to save for both our retirements and college.</p>
<p>When my kids were in elementary school our states 526 plan was limited to something which had underperformed the market by a lot every year. Our plan more or less was to live off one income and have my income increase to college tuition levels by the time the kids were in college. Tuitions rose faster than my income! Instead what happened was we inherited money form our parents which covered everything.</p>
<p>About 44K for each of our 2 kids. So about 11K per year coming form the 529 plans and then $14k per year OOP (We told the kids we would pay 25K per year. They could go to UMass for that but if they chose elsewhere the difference was up to them (FA, Loans, Summer earnings, etc). One is a sophomore at UCONN, the other is a HS senior just applying now.</p>
<p>We didn’t really have a specific account for college savings. We just put away as much as we could and essentially lived on one income and banked the other. (There were a couple exceptions to this rule - taxes, vacation spending and big one-time purchases such as a new roof came out of the “banked” income - but that was the general principle.) But, we’ve been fortunate. We ourselves had no student loans, started out married life with cars given to us by our parents, and had steady, professional jobs. Not everyone is so fortunate.</p>
<p>State sponsored college savings plans were just being invented when my kids were about to enter college (three years apart). So all of our college savings were in simple savings accounts. The COA for each of my kids was about $125K for a private college. </p>
<p>We had saved about $35K for each one when they enrolled. They had about $40K of EE savings bonds as gifts from my parents. </p>
<p>We made up the shortfall in a couple of ways. First, we scrimped, e.g, keeping our one car for 12 years; staying in our “starter house.” Second, the kids provided some modest support through summer earnings. Third, to provide the balance over the 7 years that one or the other (or both) were enrolled, we drew on current earnings – and sending about $15K per year to the colleges from (in effect) our after-tax payroll.</p>
<p>They each graduated in 4 years. No debt. We kept our clunker a few more years. But we also had “paid ourselves first” by contributing to my 401k “off the top” (pretax) every year, so the college costs did not affect retirement savings directly.</p>
<p>We have @ $55,000. She starts next year, and we’ll need around $80,000 total. I figure we’ll be able to add another $10,000 from the next four years’ salary, and then our daughter can take around 15,000 in Stafford loans, which isn’t too bad.</p>
<p>One huge variable in how much you saved has to do with when you had your children. We were straight out of school when our oldest was born. I was a SAHM and DH made under $20k that first year (early 80’s). No way we were saving for college. OTOH, we had just finished grad school at the astounding tuition of about $400/semester. </p>
<p>If we had waited 10 years with both of us working, it would have been a different story.</p>
<p>By the time my older D entered college, I have saved $38k in 529 but for both Ds. It is around 3 times the EFC for my D right now but I cannot pay off all EFC (need met school) with the 529 due to tax credit purpose. So I am almost sure there would be around 1/3 left for my younger D plus the additional saving in the next 3.5 years before younger D goes to college. Of course, I have additional saving that I may allocate for education purpose if needed. Hopefully my younger D can go to the same need met school.</p>
<p>We paid with current income. We were paying for private school from K-12, so the college tuition wasn’t that much more. </p>
<p>ditto ^^. I have saved zero. Paid private school tuition of 26k per year since 7th grade and child support so college won’t be that much more… well probably double, but I plan to pay that out of current income.</p>