- DD (from my first marriage) had UG paid for, zero debt. Wanted to pay her own way through graduate school, did so, and my gentle offers to pay off her student loans are met with a polite "no thank you." She's well-employed, but I want her to know that there's a safety net.
- S1 (from my first marriage) took a circuitous route with many scenic rest stops. He's now at Rutgers. I pay his living expenses; he has grants for tuition (at age 26, he's considered independent).
- S2 is a Yale sophomore. Paid everything Freshman year. Sophomore year he had about half of spending money saved; we will cover the rest. He will be making silly money for a student this summer, so he will pay for discretionary next year.
- S3 will matriculate at Skidmore next year. Has a job now, should pay for discretionary items.
We will see about grad school. S1 might want it; I think S2 and S3 will be chomping at the bit to go to work.
We have some UTMA and 529 savings, but the majority of this comes from general taxable account savings and current cash flow.
We have three in college (2 graduate in May - YEAH!!!)
We have 2 in private school, and one in-state public.
We pay half of one child’s, after scholarships, which is about 14K per year (mom pays other half)
One is about 37-40K, after 25K scholarship
One is about 20K, in state, no scholarship
We always told them we would pay full cost, everything, for in state tuition, room and board.
Because one got large scholarship we said we would meet him in the middle, and he would take 20k or so loans.
In reality, we have paid everything, except when GPA was VERY LOW (less than 2.0). Kid took loan that year - maybe 7K.
Kids pay nothing, except for way out of line spending (multiple concerts in a month, speeding tickets, too many video games in short period of time kind of things).
We made saving a priority, and lived below our means to have everything covered when they went to college (but we felt like those Grand Canyon pics were important too, so we have had nice experiences/vacations as a family).
We have said we will commit 0 to grad school, but we are free to change our mind.
Late to the conversation, starting this fall, we will have three girls in college–drum roll–total yearly out of pocket expense will be over 130k. (One at an Ivy, another at a UC, the youngest starting at Harvey Mudd this fall). We will be in this situation for the next two years. The amount is equal to almost 40% of our net annual family income–so things will certainly be constrained, but we have prepared as best we could, and have no regrets whatsoever with the amount…
We have saved some in 529’s–about enough to cover instate public college w/o using any other funds. Son got a very generous scholarship to an instate school and didn’t do well so he lost it (ADHD kid, not a huge surprise). He’s not in school now but will hopefully go back at some point. I have told him that he needs to pay for at least one CC class himself and do well in it before I will pay for any more school for him. He is fine with that, and for now working and paying his own bills seems to be helping him grow up.
Daughter will be going to a private school where she got some merit aid. We will probably need to pay about 30-40K more over her college years than we have in the 529 but our income is decent so we should be able to swing it. It is possible she may need to take a loan in her later years if tuition goes up too much (we assume it will go up). But we would probably take loans before we had her do it–we have a lot of home equity. She is choosing a somewhat unusual major that isn’t available lots of places. She has always been a good student and she is also very frugal by nature–so if she doesn’t have a lot of extra money in school she will be fine. That all contributes to our willingness to stretch a bit. I have always made it clear to both kids that I will pay for a college of some kind but how much I am willing to pay will be affected by their dedication to academics in HS.
She will work in college at some point. She has worked for the last year and a half or so. Because she is frugal she will likely have enough saved up to cover her day-to-day expenses for at least the first semester–so if she wants to settle in and wait to look for a job she can probably do that.
We offered to pay an “average” cost of attending an instate college which we estimated to be around $25,000 per year based on last year’s prices, with a willingness to reach up to $30,000. Our daughter applied to several OOS publics and got enough merit at each to make this a reality. She also applied to three private schools with competitive full tuition scholarships, knowing that anything less than a full tuition ride would make the cost of these schools too high. She earned a full tuition scholarship at one of these schools so the end cost ended up being far less than the $25,000/year. In addition, she won a bunch of local one time scholarships so first year was well under $10,000. She loves her school.
We fund everything so far, though she has been trying to find a summer internship opportunity. She is very frugal with her allowance. We live overseas so the summer earning situation is a little complicated–our choice not hers, so helping with spending money is okay with us.
With the roughly $50,000 we saved due to the scholarship we hope to be able to help her with some aspects of graduate school.
We have 3 kids but they are fairly spaced upart 3, 8, 17(thank god!). We make a pretty average middle class income for Indiana. My daughter is a good student and earned about 12k in merit. So the remaining cost (in state) is 22k. Our EFC from the FAFSA was 16k. So we’ll pay 16 and ask her to cover the 6 through workstudy and summer jobs. We also are requiring her to keep a 3.5 GPA - needed to keep the merit & our contrib. Basically, we are really trying to avoid her coming out of school with massive debt. Hope that helps.
I only have one child. The NPC’s think I should be full pay, but there’s really no way I can afford the pricey options. In consultation with my financial advisor, I have not saved for college, instead focusing on funding my retirement. But I can afford to send her to our state flagships out of current income with some stretching. That is worse case scenario, however. We are chasing merit money instead and my D has always know that was the plan, so fortunately, she has the stats and resume to be competitive for good merit aid. Merit aid will also allow me to fund as much study abroad as needed (which will be pretty much every summer, intersessions, and 1 full year) if she doesn’t get scholarships for those and give her a nice monthly allowance. I can also then help with grad school if she doesn’t get a scholarship for that. I will not allow her to take on any debt and I will not take out any loans either.
‘Requiring’ a 3.5 is a really high standard. My daughter had a 3.8 her first semester which was similar to high school and I thought it was no big deal for her to get that. Umm, yeah, what do I know. Second semester was much harder and third semester she got the first C of her life.
Even her school only requires a 2.8 to keep the merit scholarship as engineering is hard! She has another scholarship that requires a 3.0 and I think that is enough of a challenge.
^ Agree. My son graduated with a 3.2 and we thought that was great - and he wasn’t a STEM major. He worked incredibly hard all 4 years and only had one C his first semester.
^ if I were to add a required GPA lminmum, which I haven’t for a number of reasons, I would only make it apply to the kids’ majors. One of my kids, bless him, will never do well in a foreign language course; why he chose French rather than the easier Spanish is a subject for another thread :)).