Things I've learned about "Paying for College."

Parents Forum
1

Here are some random thoughts that I’d like to share with the “new to the whole paying for college crowd” that might be helpful as you are stressing on how you’re going to make it.

1> Sending a child off to college decreases your personal spending. One of the thing that is amazing to me is how much $1 here $5 there I spend on my kids when they are at home. My oldest went off to school 3 years ago and the cost was significant and we as a family went through an itemized budget of our new expenses, but we didn’t remove any costs. Things to consider. Will your child be driving while at school? If not, your insurance company can change his/her status on your policy to a still covered in case he/she drives on a weekend, but for the most part inactive and the cost is pretty significant. Especially when you have two to drop, like I do this year. Two teenagers eat a lot! Our grocery bill has dropped by 20%. I don’t have to put gas in a car as much and I don’t have to drive to as many events. Those $5 football games on weekends are gone. The “Dad can I have some money to go to the movies” is pretty much gone too. I don’t know what the amount is, but on a monthly basis we are probably spending 10-15% less then we did with one at home.

2> There is no insignificant amount of money. Things like “NFL Sunday Ticket” on DirectTV is expensive, especially if the reason you got it isn’t at home anymore. A yearly subscription, almost covers one semester’s worth of books. That $435 Kiwanis’s scholarship that you shrugged at? My middle son was able to get a summer job where he’s helping a local person set up a business. He makes about $200/wk and over 12 weeks, $2400 helps. My oldest started TAing in school and now is pretty much self-sufficient on everything except tuition and room/board. He even had a car at school his second year and payed for repairs, gas, insurance…

3> I sat down with both boys as we did the “how are we going to pay for this exercise.” They both now know what the rest of the family is sacrificing to make it possible for them to go to school. They both stepped up and helped by suggesting how the family might pass on a weekend event to help here, or pointing out things like “do we really need to go out to eat tonight?” They both figured what portion they can be responsible for and how to contribute.

4> The 529 we started for each of them when they were little and I struggled writing the check for 18 years really helped. It wasn’t nearly enough to pay for all of school, but I can tell you that the happiest check I wrote was that first draw on the 529 balance. “This makes paying a little every month so much more satisfying.” If you are reading this now and your kids are just starting college next fall, even as little as $100/paycheck helps.

2

Your first point shows that it is an illusion that having the kid live at home and commute to college is “free” with respect to non-tuition/fees/books costs, even though there seem to be a lot of parents and posters here who think that way, possibly because costs are distributed in small bits in many parts of the household budget (grocery costs, utility bills, etc.) and because the parents have become used to spending it while the kid is in high school.

It is still usually less expensive to live at home and commute to a nearby college than live in the dorm, but the cost difference is less than the full price of living in the dorm, due to the offsetting reduction in live-at-home and commuting costs. For what it is worth, some colleges estimate several thousand dollars per year of “room and board” and commuting costs for a student living with parents and commuting. Example: http://www.sjsu.edu/faso/docs/1819_COA_UgrdGradCred.pdf

3

One other factor that some of people have is a sports/activity spending goes away. No more travel sports. I know for many that was reduced when the kid hit HS, but some still have something they pay. There is always small things we can all do that over time that can make a difference.

4

Travel teams and music lessons! Those costs add up.

I once added up how much we were spending on all three kids per year for sports and music extras. It was breathtaking. And we were not by any means at the extreme end of elite travel teams or musicianship. Three kids taking four different private music lessons per week, and three kids doing mid-level sports travel teams and sports camps was as far as we went down that road.

They enjoyed it, and we could afford it, but that money, over the course of all those years, would have paid for at least a couple of the twelve years of college we paid for.

People of young (not yet college age) kids seem to be unable or unwilling to understand that their kids are most likely not going to win an athletic or music scholarship that is worth more than the money they spent on lessons and sports over the years. So do it because the kid loves it and do as much as you can comfortably afford, but do it with your eyes wide open.

I’m speaking in general terms. Yes, i know Your (as in the person who is about to disagree with me, here) kiddo was accepted to Fabulous College based on the music/sports/whatever thing that you spent thousands of money on over the years. Congratulations! In my personal experience, watching friends and family growing up, and moving through high school and college, the vast majority never play the sport after high school, and never continue on in music.

(I have one who is playing her sport at a D111 college, and two who continued with their sports at a club level in college. One of them put the instrument away the last day of high school and never touched it again. The other two play for personal enjoyment. They gained something positive from all those teams and lessons, but if money for college had been an issue, they would have gotten just as much enjoyment playing rec. league sports and just being in band through high school.)

5

Well, all of those lessons & participation fees aren’t necessarily undertaken with some sort of false belief that it will lead to a career in the chosen sport or art, or to some sort of college scholarship. Sometimes it’s just about the quality of life for the child, and providing enrichment during childhood years without everything being structured around future college or career.

Yes, saving for college is important – but I really think the quality of life a parent can provide a child during formative years may be more important, and often for reasons that have nothing to do with college or education. Obviously the expense has to be reasonably related to what parents can comfortably afford. But I think the OP’s point is simply that when budgeting for college, it’s helpful to recognize that some of the customary expenses that were part of childrearing are no longer part of the picture.

6

Ha! I thought you both were agreeing with me. I saw @eastcoascrazy as reinforcing my point, not saying that they aren’t worth it if you aren’t going to make a vocation of it. But, now that I re-read it under @calmom 's influenced bias, I can see it her way. It’s a crazy weird world where text is missing things like tone of voice and body language.

I agree with the music lessons and sports can be a huge cost. My oldest took violin lessons every year up to college since he was 5 years old. He played one semester in college and hopes his schedule will allow him to again, but it was always an enjoyment thing for him. He also started guitar lessons when he was in middle school. He plays that much more now and has dabbled with earning a couple buck here and there with it, but again it is mostly for his enjoyment. Between those two lessons, it was about $300/month or $3,600/year so year that is a big savings that I didn’t mention.

On the sports front, my 2nd child was in xc and track so not so much on the travel team stuff, but lots of gas to and from meets and he went through $100 running shoes about every 3 months. Plus a xc camp a summer at $500 so yeah that adds up too. He’s going to be running at the DIII level in college, so I will probably still be out the $100 running shoes every 3 months…

7

Non music major S(22) had his last private music lesson a few weeks ago. That is a few thousand back in my pocket or at least a small dent into tuition.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t “need” a new instrument. There is a bit of snobbery/prestige playing a certain brand of instrument. I’ve heard him play a $10K classic and a modern $2K instrument from a less prestigious brand. The new instrument just sounds better to both of us.

If you think this doesn’t matter to them, what brand of sneakers do your kids wear going out? Very likely its got a swoosh, and are not New Balance.

8

You have no idea about the cost of an instrument if you’ve never priced violins. My son made due with a $6,000 violin but the first chair in our HS played easily a $20k instrument. We were friends with someone who’s daughter played at conservatory, both violin and viola. The violin bow she used cost more than $20k, I suspect she was walking around with $75k in instruments when she carried either case around. And these people were not rich.

9

DH inherited a 1917 Steinway piano, 6’-4" long, from his piano teacher. Fortunately, D understood how lucky she was to grow up with an instrument like that. She’s not a music major in college, but she got a scholarship for non-music majors that includes a stipend and free jazz piano lessons. :slight_smile:

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1 is an interesting point. DS19 isn't a big eater, so from that perspective we won't see much of a difference and he currently only has a learner's permit so we aren't paying car insurance for him yet (but probably will be next year). He also doesn't play sports, so no costs there. We do however pay on average about $600/mo on private music lessons which roughly equates to what the cost of his tuition will most likely be. That will still leave books, room & board, & incidentals (pocket money will be on him), but the increase in costs is far less than the approximate $20,000 total cost per year to send him to university. If he were to stay home, he could easily bus to school which would be cheaper, but then we'd still be paying car insurance (and most likely some private music lessons). The end result is that it won't be greatly more expensive for him to go away to school than to live at home.

11

My daughter always played with no thoughts of going to college, but decided last minute to play in college. It worked out, but was not the full ride many thing they will be getting. I do not regret one cent that I spend to sports, theater, band, travel sports, summer camps. It made my kids into the kids they are now. I wish I would have, could have, spent more.

I think a lot of it is just moving money to other things. I no longer spent $3000 on summer lax camps and travel teams, but I did spend more on visiting my kids at college, hotel rooms, care packages. I didn’t notice the big savings of them moving out the first year, maybe because of all the settling in costs, but did notice it the second year.

12

We were pretty disappointed at the drop in car insurance costs with D going out of state with no car. Our bill went up almost $200/month when she got her license (prior to that, we were paying less than $150 - and she did NOT get a car of her own to drive). USAA has now lowered the rate by ~$30/month.

13

Although a bit off topic, we did the sports and music for our kids (still doing for our D20). However, partly because of schedule / time commitment. partly cost, but MOSTLY to teach responsibility (beyond what you learn on a team) and provide opportunity for personal growth, we had kids working during the summer. S played sports, HS, travel,etc. His friends all played on multiple travel teams and were gone basically all summer (still don’t know how the parents took that much time off work as they went to most tournaments all over the country). He played on a “regional” team and was asked to play on others. We told him “no” and to get a summer job because that was important too. We didn’t care about the money he earned. We just wanted him to develop other skills off the baseball diamond (because he’s not going to the MLB and it’s important to have other skills). That has played out quite well as he is quite mature for his age and has several years dealing with the public due to those jobs. He knows how to speak to adults. Compared to most of his friends, you would guess he was a good 5 yrs older (which helped him get a practical business oriented job his first yr of college). With few exceptions, the lion share of his baseball buddies are in various stages of ending their baseball careers (getting cut by college teams). One of two have a shot at getting drafted but the rest are basically done.

14

just dropped two oldest at college - both at state flagship. we had a long talk about finances on the way home. Finances have been so tight and there’s no relief in sight with more kids at home. our savings have been wiped out. we dont quite have it all figured out. . . . We too have spent $ on kids over years for their activities, never thinking they’d get scholarships/go pro; but rather as a development activity. We received so much joy over watching our kids do “their things” over the years; we will never regret that. Those lessons and camps have helped shape them into who they are. I do know our food and household stuff bill goes down when there’s less people in the house and there’s less money going out for sundries and lessons of course. And kids are expected to chip in some too. Can’t say i’ve learned anything to share with others about paying, except that we are trying to stay away from unsubsidized loans.

15

As expected, whenever the topic of cost/benefit of expensive extra curricular activities comes up, some posters overlook the point.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with spending on travel sports and music… IF … You can happily afford it AND your child enjoys it AND you are clear about your expectations of the experience.

Looking back with the objectivity and wisdom of many years (we first encountered travel teams and music lessons over 20 years ago when my oldest was in elementary school) and watching how this has played out, I can’t help but be a bit cynical about it all.

My child who has not touched her instrument since the last day of high school was told by the high school band director as a freshman that she needed a better instrument. She liked band because she had a lot of friends in the band. She was an excellent, but not passionate, musician. Not a chance we were going to spring for a professional instrument for her! But the pressure to do it was there. Now, seven years later, even her best friend, the first chair all-state bassoonist who went to college as a music performance major, burned out, gave some thought about job prospects for bassoonists, and will graduate next spring as a math major.

Music does wonderful things for people! I’m all for music education, all for music in our schools, all for music lessons. I’m also all for clear heads and budgets.

We know a family who literally never took a family vacation together in the 16 years we have known them because one of their three kids was an athlete. The local travel teams weren’t good enough, so they traveled 90 miles one way most days of the week to practice and play with the #1 ranked elite club team in the nation. For years. Flew to tournaments, Played internationally. Recruited to play for a top college D1 team. Was it worth it? The athlete is burned out. She decided to forgo the last year of NCAA eligibility. She will graduate a semester early instead. The sport is a minor sport, not one where scholarship money would ever come close to covering the out of state tuition. the athlete could have easily gotten into that university on her own academic merits. The parents have had a very tough time with the empty nest after years of such child sportcentric focus. The athlete was pushed, hard, to achieve at an elite level, and acomplished a lot, but has a strained relationship with her parents. The costs (money, emotional, familial) of playing at that level were extraordinary. I’m not sure if the athlete herself would say it was worth it.

Club sports teams are great. Sports are great, but too many of us get way too wrapped up in “the next level” and lose our enjoyment of this nice level we are all enjoying right now.

We have a family member who has been sucked into the whole club team thing recently, and her daughter is mourning the loss of time with friends from the team they left for a “better” club team. it makes me sad to watch this happening.

16

@eastcoascrazy wow what a story.

Here are my family sport experience and why/how it was important to my 2nd child who will be running XC/Track at DIII school this fall (and he intends to do it all 4 years). As a family we’ve moved a lot, in fact this son actually wrote a local newspaper story about how he’s moved school 7 times in his life (a bit of a disclaimer, 2 of those moves were back to an area he was familiar and had friend groups). Track and XC does have a “club” type system too, but really only the most elite participate in it which we passed on, so we didn’t have that level of commitment like I see in travel soccer/baseball/basketball/hockey.

He knew that he would never get scholarship money for running at the next level, or at least when he plateaued after his Junior HS season that was the case. So he decided to look at the DIII levels and use his success on the track to help him get into an exceptional DIII school. And this hook helped him get into the top ranked academic DIII. So for some it does pay off.

Will my son ever run at an elite level (NCAA championships?, olympics)? That is so unlikely that we don’t even consider it. However, in all those moves, especially when he moved to a new school, it was that small group of athletes that accepted him to the new school, this became his friend circle and in almost every case this has been a great friend group. He is hoping that he sees the same thing at DIII.

The other thing to consider is he really loves running and competition.

17

I really appreciate the comments of both @eastcoascrazy and @BrianBoiler. We’ve been trying to keep the sports-life balance in our family. The summer camps are what seem to be the sticking point for me. So far, we have refused to do them, even when literally half of S’s club team is going to the same camp. It does mean that S’s teammates bond in a different way that just leaves out my S, and I feel sad about that–but not sad enough to shell out $1000 a week. We probably could afford the camp if we stretched just a little more, but not without giving up things we want–namely our rather modest family vacations. My issue is, even if I had oodles of money, I just have a sticking point with these camps that I can’t get over. I feel like they are damaging the kids’ sports in their efforts to professionalize all activities, and they lead to cliquey-ness within the team or school. I guess the camps for me have just come to symbolize the “pay to play” world, which I truly hate. Plus, a lot of the camps just seem to be ways for universities to make money off unsuspecting people who think it’s going to give them a significant advantage at admittance just because a camp is hosted at a particular school. Am I too narrow minded here? I hope I don’t regret this stance later on…would love to hear what those of you who are on the other side actually think.

18

$20K for a violin bow… YIKES! Good thing he is in the jazz band and not orchestra.


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My child who has not touched her instrument since the last day of high school was told by the high school band >>director as a freshman that she needed a better instrument. She liked band because she had a lot of friends in the >>band.

[/QUOTE]

Yep, we heard that same story plus the push for private lessons, which I don’t regret at all. His teacher is a well known musician and does lessons as a favor to his friend who owns the studio. There is a thread in the Music forum about “types” of music students. It sounds like ours fit the excellent academic student as well as excellent musician type, without the passion to be all in on music. I’m sure mine will continue playing in one of the ensembles in college. He was working on the audition piece this summer to get into the specific ensemble he wants. I’m also trying to convince him to also play in pep band. I’ve been to games and those kids have a lot of fun and get guaranteed seats.

The ironic thing about our pro instrument purchase was it was on consignment from a parent who purchased it for their son to play in college. It looked like he played it about 10 times before putting it down forever. It took the music tech about 5 minutes to adjust one small thing and we were out the door for less than half the price as new. I told S if he stops playing, it is mine to sell. If he plays through college, it is his permanently.

back to the OP… I do wish I loaded up on the 529, but we went to one income until middle school, then the recession hit. Made the decision to fund the 401K instead of the 529. If we were two incomes the entire time, both would be fully funded.

19

@ccprofandmomof2 I agree with points. In my opinion, club sports essentially are ruining HS sports, little league, etc. We live in FL. Baseball is a huge sport and breeding ground for future college and pro players, It’s funny, growing up in the NE, it was very unusual for a kid to go pro (baseball). Down here, kids get drafted every yr. Many of the better HS teams are loaded with kids who will play major college baseball and / or get drafted. However, their focus prior to that is squarely placed on their elite travel team vs. their HS team. S is a good player. Played 4 yrs varsity, 2 yrs as captain, in HS. His focus was on having a great HS team, competing for a district title, etc. In the summer, his HS team had a “practice squad” which was essentially a local travel team. He did that all four yrs ( along with Fall Ball- so baseball 10 months a yr) and treated the summer team as a serious competition between the local high school practice squads and some other travel teams. He was all about TEAM. The problem is many of the other players are so focused on the next level, they don’t really care about the team. They are simply showcasing where ever and when ever they can to get more scouting looks. Miss a HS game, sure. Hurt the team’s chances in district play, why not.

When we were kids it was about playing and competing, forming lifelong buddies, building lifelong memories. Today it’s about getting to the next level. I don’t blame them. There’s a lot at stake. Sad though because the reality is the numbers still haven’t changed, it’s still one in a million to make it to the MLB. 99.9% will get cut or burn out along the way. Wish they saw that and would focus on having a blast with their high school buddies and competing for a title. (had many instances where top pitcher wouldn’t pitch because he was going to throw in a tournament over the weekend - If I was the HS coach, I’d kick him off the team).

20

^ oh instead of doing that elite travel thing, we went on GREAT family trips every summer (National Parks, hiking, rafting, fishing, etc.) that we all loved and will always remember. Kids talk about it all the time. Would have been a terrible waste (and not fare to the rest of the family) if we just focused on travel baseball.