<p>Private school tuition was about half of college expenses, but we had quite a bit of aid for both.
We hadnt any savings left for college. Not more than $10,000.</p>
<p>Our rule was that the kids would take out Staffords no matter what, unless they got a 100% full ride. We had enough saved to pay for four years of the flagship (two years for each kid). Add the Staffords – that covered another year for each – and we would only have to fund one year for each kid out of current income. Very, very doable.</p>
<p>Life got interesting. </p>
<p>S1 got a 100% full ride to the flagship. Turned it down. However, he also got $55k in scholarships (from the university he attended plus external awards) and a laptop, had well-paying summer jobs and $22k in Staffords. He covered 50% of the COA, plus graduated in 11 quarters instead of 12. </p>
<p>S2 got a partial scholarship to the flagship. Turned it down. Has taken out $25k in Staffords and has not made much over the summers/during the school year. He’s not covering nearly as much, and is taking an extra semester to graduate due to some health issues. </p>
<p>While both were in school, we got some financial aid – S2’s package was much sweeter than S1’s.</p>
<p>I had not been working (due to health issues) for several years before S1 went to college. I went back when he started, and 100% of my pay went to EFC. DH had a regular allotment from his paycheck that went straight to our EFC account. This worked well til I had another serious health crisis 2.5 years ago and I had to stop working. It has been a little hairier since then because I have no income and lots of medical bills, but we have managed to pay everything out of current income and without touching what we had saved (it represented pretty much all our liquidity). DH kept up his 401(k) contributions throughout. </p>
<p>We are in the donut hole for full-pay – just enough to be full pay, but painfully so. The best decision we made was to buy below our budget for our first house and to have stayed here ever since. Our mortgage is less than what we paid for rent in 1998. We drive old cars and all that kind of stuff, but I know that we are also really fortunate to have good health insurance and steady employment. Can’t take that for granted any more…</p>
<p>so i guess we’ve been in denial about college for our 4 kids (midwest area) </p>
<p>one positive on our location: theres not much pressure and talk here about going to brand name/ivy/etc schools. Its not a big deal; i am overwhelmed and thankful my kids dont feel that pressure. </p>
<p>we have around 50$K saved for 4 kids. yep – denial i guess! had NO FLIPPIN idea school was so pricey from when we graduated in the early 90s from our flagship U. </p>
<p>SAHM here; that’s part of our dilemma. have loved it; but it means college choices are going to be hard. no help from parents at this point; but perhaps that will change. </p>
<p>so; for kid #1 next year: tutition/free scholarship at our flagship U; the rest will come from his savings/working; our savings, and perhaps a student loan down the road. </p>
<p>We had about $10,000 saved when D started school - we used our savings for private middle/high school, because that was something we found was necessary for our situation. I had not worked full time since she was born. I had been doing some substitute teaching for a couple years, so I ramped that up when she started school. That income, the money we had saved, and some belt-tightening got us through until I finally found a full time job a year later (not exactly highly paid work, but more than subbing paid). She was fortunate to attend an extremely generous private college. We used all of my income (less retirement contributions) for school. We were able to get both D and later S through school on current income.</p>
<p>We have some friends who scrimped and saved even before their kids were born so that they could fund a prepaid state college plan for them. Good thing, too … he worked for the auto industry & was let go just about the time his first started college. It took a while to find another job, and when he did, it was a pay cut.</p>
<p>I preach “save, save, save” to all the young people I know.</p>
<p>Here’s our crazy quilt of college savings: </p>
<p>My husband went back to college when our kids were in pre-school. We started saving late, with a small auto draft into our state’s 529 plan when they were in mid/late elementary school. This resulted in $15K for each kid. Our state also has a Hope Scholarship. D1 qualified for $4K/year and D2 for $5K/year, for an additional $16-20K total.</p>
<p>My mother-in-law dropped a surprise $10K on each girl for college this year. We had no knowledge that was coming our way and are eternally grateful to her. My dad just donated a bucket of money to NYU to fund a medical scholarship. He’s not contributed to either girls’ tuition/expenses (no surprise there). Insert tongue in cheek: maybe D2 can apply for the NYU medical scholarship. Meow.</p>
<p>D1 spent freshman year at the local CC taking nursing pre-reqs and then transferred to a 4-year BSN program in-state that’s 3 hours from home. The CC was not only free, it paid her $2K in scholarship “overage.” Only her last college semester (this coming one) will be out-of-pocket for us. She graduates in May with her BSN and will have no debt and a 2006 car she’d paid for in full during her first year in college. She plans to work for 2 years and then go back for an MSN.</p>
<p>D2 received a merit scholarship from her LAC, covering about 60% of the TOTAL cost of attendance or $96K. That, with her $15K in the 529, $20K in Hope, $10K from her grandmother, and a $2.5K merit from my work, leaves us about $40K to cash-flow. She also has a 2006 paid-for car. She’s pre-med but med school will have to be paid by her.</p>
<p>Our house is paid off in March so we plan to bank the payment to cover D2’s junior and senior year shortage.</p>
<p>Both will have studied abroad in France during a summer term. D1 received a 50% international studies scholarship from her CC (yeah, her CC!) and D2 will apply for a travel grant from her LAC which would cover airfare and some incidentals. </p>
<p>Wow Knoxpatch, I can’t believe your father donated enough $$ to NYU to fund a scholarship, but can’t manage to help pay for his own grandkids’ education! Maybe that little piece of information should be given to everyone at NYU who is no doubt falling all over themselves to praise his generosity.</p>
<p>Sensitive subject for many, and there is no one good solution for everyone. We are financing college for our two our own way, which works for us. My wife and I maried when we were in our 30’s and she was a SAHM up until this year when kid #1 went off to school. Instead of 529’s, we’ve taken advantage of retirement accounts for flexibility in what to do with investment funds, and as Mrs. Lumpty turns 59 1/2 in the middle of kid #1’s Sophomore year, we may take advantage of the $200k in those accounts. We have also been aggressive in paying off our mortgage, and have $400k in home equity that can be tapped as well. We are not planing on touching the roughly $100k we have in liquid cash and stock investments. My retirement accounts are off the table as well, besides me being 7 years younger than my wife and not as easily acccessed. Both kid #1 and kid #2 have been told they are taking out the maximum amounts allowable in Staffords too, for some skin in the game.</p>
<p>I’ve budgeted a nominal $280,000 total for both kid’s undergrad degrees, assuming $35k a year at a typical OOS tuition public institution. Of that, $55k will be covered by the Stafford loans in the kid’s names, $150k will be paid out-of-pocket ($25k annually over the 6 years we’ll be sending one or both to school), and the balance either covered most likely via the Home Eq LOC, or if interest rates get crazy IRA withdrawals.</p>
<p>It takes the money out of a bunch of different pots, which we are fortunate to have. </p>
<p>^^Really? I think he has the right to give the money to whoever he wants. </p>
<p>He can do what he wants. Which he does. I doubt the money fully funds a med student’s tuition. Still, this was a classic move on my dad’s part. We found out via letter this past October. My husband and I learned early on to expect nada from him. It’s quite freeing.</p>
<p>We started saving for college when each of our two boys were babies. In addition to regular savings, DH purchased U.S. Savings Bonds every month for each kid. I was a SAHM.<br>
We saved enough to pay for four years of any state u. in our home state…about 50K each. </p>
<p>We were not well-to- do. DH was an engineer for the local power company. I took a p/t job when the boys were in middle school.
We lived simply. Lived in the same house for 32 years, drove used cars, took vacations in our own state and have stayed on a strict budget our entire married life. </p>
<p>We were adamantly against our sons taking out loans of any kind.<br>
If they wanted anything other than our state u’s, they would have to earn scholarships to make up the difference. </p>
<p>They were happy to go to our state u’s.</p>
<p>S1 had a fullride at big state u. S2 was full pay at a different state u. Both had money left in their savings acct. accounts when they graduated. </p>
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<p>Of course he does. But his choices speak to his character.</p>
<p>None. Our kids have still managed to attend college, earn their degrees, get great jobs with no debt for us or them. Scholarships and low cost schools have lead to good outcomes for our family.</p>
<p>Two kids. $100k each at the time they started college. Both in privates. My business is having a great year so I continue to save. So far I’m ahead of the game.</p>
<p>We have approx 37k for both kids – not easy on two teachers’ salaries from a low paying state. Luckily, our state pays college tuition through a lottery scholarship and D who is a college freshman, received a merit scholarship that covers tuition, fees, and books. Thankfully she also received a coupe of outside scholarships that covered her room and part of her meal plan for this year. We are going to be able to cover her room and board next year without dipping into the college fund since we didn’t have to pay much this year. S is a high school sophomore and seems to be more on the cc or trade school path. If that happens, we’ll use the college fund (that will continue to grow) to pay for cc/trade school for S and/or part of D’s first year of med school (if that happens), or graduate school. </p>
<p>H is going back to our state flagship in January for some post MA classes for 3 semesters. He was accepted into a program that will reimburse us for 60% of his tuition at the end of each semester. </p>
<p>We are doing a combo of things. We started saving when they were younger, they went to private school k - 12, but we ran the numbers on how much to save a month if they were going to the average public school. I had a set amount taken out of my paycheck for years and years. Then as they got older we accelerated savings. We also figured we could continue paying that tuition amount towards college. Another option which I get isn’t available to most is we had a upromise card. We own a business and all our purchases were put through that cc - we got a lot from that. We waited to use the 529’s until both were in college at the same time. I just paid spring tuition, and we have enough saved now to get the two the rest of the way through.</p>
<p>Grandparents bought a bond that would be worth $20k at college time for each kid (2) and the prepaid college plan in full. We were in our late 30s when we had children and were lucky enough to live in an area with great programs in the public school system. We saved for the future regardless of what it would have been used for and our goal was to be debt free by 50… Between merit scholarships and salary we were able to pay without the kids having to use their bond money. We are very grateful.</p>
<p>Started 529 plans for 3 kids about 5 years before 1st’s freshman year. Also contributed some money to a Roth IRA (mentally earmarked for education).
Kid 1: savings in 529 plan covered roughly 1/5 to 1/4 of COA at private college (in USNWR top 20 LAC), Merit Scholarship (1st 2 years) and need-based scholarship (3 & 4th years) covered roughly 1/4. Parent PLUS loan covered about 1/5, and Kid 1 took some Stafford loans. Rest came from savings/income.
Kid 2: started 2 years after kid 1, went to OOS public. Some nominal scholarships. Kid 2 took the full complement of Stafford loans. Mostly paid COA with 529 savings and other savings/income. Kid 2 got good coop/summer intern positions (took 4.5 years to complete school) which helped pay for Room and Board for the last 1.5 years. Stafford loans currently deferred because Kid 2 is in grad school.
Kid 3: started 3 years after kid 2, went to private college (in USNWR top 20 LAC). Got some combination of need-based and merit scholarships and Stafford loans to cover 1/4 of COA. Savings from 529 plan and savings/income covered rest, except for final year, which was covered entirely by the Roth IRA. Stafford loans are currently deferred because Kid 3 is in grad school.</p>
<p>Not enough! Can I have a do-over? I had my first child young and was just beginning payments on my own student loans. Then H (now ex-H) lost his job. Several moves, a divorce, lousy/inconsistent child support, unexpected serious health expenses, etc. all wreaked havoc on my savings. Through a combination of scholarships, small savings and current income, I managed to get my oldest through the state flagship without debt. I am now scrambling to pay for 3 years (full pay) at a private LAC for my youngest. Her scholarships will cover the cost of one year. My funds will come from current income and home equity realized from downsizing. I don’t want to incur any debt or stop fully funding my 401K. I hope to also avoid or limit Stafford borrowing. </p>
<p>Not enough! Can I have a do-over? I had my first child young and was just beginning payments on my own student loans. Then H (now ex-H) lost his job. Several moves, a divorce, lousy/inconsistent child support, unexpected serious health expenses, etc. all wreaked havoc on my savings. Through a combination of scholarships, small savings and current income, I managed to get my oldest through the state flagship without debt. I am now scrambling to pay for 3 years (full pay) at a private LAC for my youngest. Her scholarships will cover the cost of one year. My funds will come from current income and home equity realized from downsizing. I don’t want to incur any debt or stop fully funding my 401K. I hope to also avoid or limit Stafford borrowing. </p>
<p>Sorry about the double post. My iPhone and CC don’t always play nice.</p>