This is an interesting thread.
My father purchased $5000 US Savings bonds for each of his grandchildren at birth as a way to think about future college.
I am not able to work due to a medical issue (which started shortly after my third child was born). I had not worked long enough to qualify for disability, so we have been a 1-income family and I have been a SAHM since shortly after college. So if it wasn’t for my father’s contributions, and $20K we managed to invest into a 529 plan, we would have had no college savings.
On top of my own, we have had other medical issues that have gotten in the way of savings. DH has amassed $220K in his 401(k) account by contributing to the company match. But we have only $2400 in emergency savings, and we live very frugally on his now $75K salary.
As we attended college visits, it always amazed me when the Ivies tell us that 60% of students get some financial aid - that means 40% are able to afford $65K per year for 4 years! Holy smoke. I suppose if we had 2 wage earners for the past 20 years, we’d be in different shape, especially savings wise.
Thankfully, DS1 is at an Ivy and DD1 was accepted to Yale, so we know we will be able to afford their college expenses thanks to fantastic, generous, need based financial aid, and they will graduate without any loans.
We got lucky, because they were lucky and worked really hard to get into great schools. Had they not, we told them they would have had to apply for scholarships and or take loans to afford college.
We did not expect to incur additional tax when we redeemed the bonds to pay the family share of my son’s first year. But because he got financial aid that covered his tuition and fees, our share was applied to room and board. Bond redemption for education expenses do not apply to room and board, so we had to pay tax on the interest on the bonds we redeemed.
I should not complain, because we are very very fortunate, especially compared to many families.
While we WANT to provide more for our kids, they had had to learn some of life’s unfair lessons early. Make the most out of the cards you are dealt. Consider yourself lucky to be able to even play with some of the others. My late mom was fond of the asking us, when we even hinted about wishing we had more - “Do you wish you were born rich instead of beautiful?” My own kids have heard me repeat this many times.
When DS first went to college, he was self-concious about coming from a public high school, and was a little annoyed by some of the comments that the privileged kids made about “the reason we have to pay so much is for other kids who don’t have to pay anything.” Of course, he turned it around on them when he said “isn’t it great that all our degrees will say the same thing, so despite the fact that some kids can’t afford the SAT prep courses and private high school tutors, once we are here we can learn as much from each other as from our professors”. Now in his junior year, those same kids are among his closest friends. While my son felt awkward because he had relatively little, his friends felt they got looked at differently since they came from privilege (having their own sports car, spending the summer converting dad’s “old” yacht for a oceanography research project).
What you have, or don’t have, doesn’t define who you are. It sometimes will give you a perspective that you didn’t know you had, and that you might someday be fortunate to even overcome.