“Some girls can do STEM”
Wow!
I hope my MIT student doesn’t have to work for someone who thinks like that.
Well maybe those of us with boys are getting tired of the “girls only” programs…often at zero cost.
@SincererLove It’s not just out of current income. They devise that number as a part of current income, current assets and future income (parent loans).
CityMama – it is great if your can be done with the testing by the end of junior year.
But all three of my kids wound up doing their best score in the fall of senior year. Teenage brains keep growing, easier to prep over the summer than during the school year, more practice tests make perfect. Also, junior year is the hardest academic grind year and the most important to get good grades. Finals in May, plus you have AP tests in May, plus you have SAT Subject tests in June so they happen right after the kids finish the school classes on those subjects. Adding ACT/SAT plus prep time is a lot.
ACT is given several weeks earlier in the fall than SAT and ACT gets the scores back weeks faster than SAT does. So it is easier to do the “money” testing in the senior fall with ACT rather than SAT. We used the junior spring semester as practice and to figure out whether SAT or ACT suited the kid best.
A handful of schools require that you send all scores – Berkeley, Rice, Georgetown, Penn are a few. Most don’t require that. But if a school does super-scoring, you will have to send multiple score reports to get that counted.
^ This year, there is an August 26 test date for the SAT, a couple of weeks earlier than the Sept 9 ACT. Perhaps scores from those two tests will come out around the same time.
Still, our child will hopefully take the SAT the first time early in the fall of junior year and presumably one more time at some later date.
citymama9-a few things that I learned from my daughter’s application process: have the student take a diagnostic SAT and ACT (an actual published test under test conditions-many tutoring services offer this free, at least in Los Angeles) to see on which test she performs better. If it’s the SAT, she should plan on taking subject SATs as she finishes the relevant classes (so if she takes Chemistry junior year, she can take the SAT Chem test at the end of that same year). My daughter took the ACT because most of the schools to which she was interested in applying required either the ACT or the SAT plus SAT subject tests and it seemed easier in her case to just have her study for and take the ACT. Also, she took the ACT in Sept and again in October of her senior year and still had time to apply ED. It was nice to have the entire summer to study.
Good info evergreen!
In 2016, the first fall SAT date was October 1 and scores didn’t come out until Oct 27. That didn’t leave much time before the November 1 early application date.
ACT date is Sept 10 and scores come out in 10 days. So scores were in hand much earlier than SAT. Big difference.
citymama9-and some schools do want ALL test scores. Not sure how they know if you send them all, though.
As for the original question in this thread:
- What is/was your income? $375,000
- What geographic location do you live in? Los Angeles
- What is your retirement funding situation? 401 K (employer does not match and only one retirement account as I was a stay-at-home mom)
- Were there any special circumstances that allowed you to decide to go full-pay at $50K+/year? (you are expecting a large inheritance down the line, a rich uncle partly funded, etc.) None at all. Had to take out a second on our house as we are still paying off our own student loans
- Any specific regrets/advice? We only have one child and when she got into Brown we decided we should give her that opportunity. I assume we’ll have regrets if she doesn’t graduate or graduates with a degree that won’t get her a job. We’ll see.
My income has varied, but I would say it has averaged 250K to 300 K per year. My daughters are going to State Schools though… I could not justify the cost of a private education. My daughters are bright but not Ivy League material so with the iveys being out of the question, and no reasonable amounts of merit aid on the horizon… it was really an easy decision. They are happy with their choices, both in Sororities… both communication majors, so the State Education is as good as anywhere as far as I am concerned. If they had special talents or interests that required a private school education, we would have talked about it… but they were typical high school girls . . . and I never bought into paying for status. My experience teaches me that where you go to school is for the most part irrelevant in the scheme of things. The cream will tend to rise no matter where the undergraduate education… and I have never been overly impressed, at least in the legal field, with the Ivy Leaguers…all for what its worth.
- Income: 160,000 AGI
- Region: Small town midwest, low cost of living
- Retirement: 700k so far (includes my office building which we will sell when I retire) we're in our late 40's/early 50's, no pensions
- Special circumstances: My parents have no money so no inheritance from them; my in-laws have some wealth but they are young and healthy, so no inheritance likely in time to help with college. My in-laws have not offered to help pay D's college and we have not asked.
- Regrets/advice: Our D will start college this fall. We all want her to attend a LAC, but even with $23,000 merit aid, it's going to be $14,000 more per year than our state flagship. We have given her a choice-we will pay 100% at the flagship and she can graduate debt-free, or we will pay 1/2 of the $14,000 difference and she will have to pay the other half. (She has some savings bonds but she will have to get unsubsidized direct student loans to pay what the bonds won't cover.)
She plans to focus on pre-med. On the one hand, this means she should have a decent salary someday. On the other hand, she has the high cost of medical school in her future.
DH and I both attended state flagships for undergrad (and I attended a state flagship professional school after my bachelor’s). While we feel we got an ok education, we do not feel it was anywhere near as good as the education at an LAC. We are somewhat practical and understand that one purpose of attending college is to get well-paying job. But we also believe in learning for learning’s sake alone. Also, our daughter attended a semester school during her junior year of high school, and the effect of being in such a stimulating environment where you have small classes and know your teachers well, you are challenged by your intellectually inclined peers, you build a sense of community, etc., was profound. We want a similar college environment for her.
I put myself through undergrad and professional school and it took me 10 years to pay off my student loans. I have always said that I want to give my kids more help with college than my parents were able to give me.
Because we have a S who will be in college when our D is in med school, we have told her that we most likely will not be able to help pay for med school, but we will try to pay the interest on her med school loans while she is in med school so that it doesn’t compound.
We will not use retirement assets to fund college and we will not tap our home equity. We feel pretty strongly about that.
Whew-sorry to be so long-winded. Have really enjoyed this thread.
- What is/was your income? Fluctuates significantly but $200K on the average.
- What geographic location do you live in? Southern CA
- What is your retirement funding situation? SEP-IRA plus real estate investments totaling around $800K plus. We paid off our around $900K to $1 Mill dollars worth (just slightly above average where we live) residential house so no debt at all.
- Were there any special circumstances that allowed you to decide to go full-pay at $65K+/year? (you are expecting a large inheritance down the line, a rich uncle partly funded, etc.) Our only kid unexpectedly got into a college Early Decision which I consider to be top 5 in USA (his number 1 choice) that I honestly did not think he would get into. Also, he's our only kid and we have been saving college money just in case he got into an expensive private college that we had to pay in full. As a NMF he had an opportunity to go to a Honors College at OOS state school for tuition free but they just didn't have a good program in his interest area.
- Any specific regrets/advice? No regrets at this point because he hasn't started his school yet. Lol However, it would have been nice to go to college for almost free and use the money set aside for him for graduate school or invest it in dividend stocks etc. But my own parents would have funded my education had they had enough money (I went to college and law school for almost free because we were relatively poor), and since my kid really wanted to attend this school, I gave him the choice. I even told him he could buy 5 nice Mercedes Benz with the money he will be able to save if he goes to a cheaper school but he said "nop." I told him not to stress out in college just because he knows he's paying full; I didn't want him to feel pressured to accomplish so much because he knows we are paying full.
I am not all that concerned about his getting a high paying job because I rather he find a job that he likes rather than a high paying one. I figure he will be able to find and do something he likes and make a living. For me, I rather have him be a happy person making a living and helping others than an unhappy one making lots of money. However, he keep son telling me he wants to make money too. lol We will see.
Great thread. One additional item would make the responses even more interesting/helpful.
Which is how much cash has been saved up for college and (if that amount is below $260k per kid) where is the rest coming from?
@northwesty asked:
A great question that would really help inform some of the answers.
For us, we had about a year’s worth saved in accounts dedicated for college, but also had another year’s worth (+) accumulated in our general accounts (since we have been living below our means). The balance will come out of current income (both ours and the kid’s), contributions from the grandparents, and then (if necessary) student loans and/or home equity.
When I started on CC I was adamant we were shopping for merit aid for D1 (high stat). Full pay would be somewhat tough because of younger sibling with serious medical issues and possibly lifetime care. We have about 1 million saved for retirement and pensions which will payout about 60K per year. We have to think about long term care for D2 as well. We have moved often so we likely won’t pay off our house before retirement but it has almost doubled in value (but as we all know this can change quickly). We have some saved in a 529 and also D1 has a small trust fund. Our hope was that could be saved for graduate school. After a week long tour of merit aid schools we felt attending these would not be academically a good fit for D1. She would be settling for something we all felt was not good enough. I feel bad saying that but it is honest. She has worked very hard and has had to be very independent from a young age due to needs of younger sibling. Suddenly I feel like she should have the best option for what she wants. We will make it work. I feel sad I couldn’t give her enough of me. I’ll give her college though no matter what the cost.
I am required to pay 1/2. I have 2 kids, 1 who already has paid for freshman year. So $175k is left for the 2 of them. I pay their R&B out of cash flow. If the tuition goes above $50k/year, will come out of cash flow.
So I am an older parent with >50% marginal tax rate (exacerbated by being self employed so paying full 15%+ FICA) so was faced with the choice of putting ‘college fund’ as pre-tax dollars (2X) in a SEP or after tax dollars (1X) in a 529. I decided to direct the funds to the SEP, which I will be able to access later this year if needed. Also the rental real estate market here is steady but excellent returns so we directed money there also. We figured we could liquidate those houses if we needed the cash but honestly it would be a shame so we’re not planning on that.
As a result, I think we had 9K in 529 for DD when she started. For now, we’re funding out of cash flow but not sure how long that will last as I’m winding down some at work. I figure if I can get 2 years covered, the remaining 2 years can get borrowed if needed and paid back over next few years. Last kid.
We had about 30K saved for DS which covered one semester. Then it was cash flow with me taking on a lot of extra moonlighting work. We ended up with about 25K in loans at graduation which we paid off in a year or so.
@Veryapparent I was touched by your entry! Your daughters are fortunate to have you.
Hey!
I’m a highschool student now - international. I was just wondering if you could all help me with something.
Right now, I’m torn between CMU and UIUC for computer engineering. CMU is much more prestigious and I would rather go there but it costs around $72,000 as compared to UIUC which costs around $50,000.
Even if i go to CMU, my parents won’t have to take out loans to fund my education, but it will take out a huge chunk of their savings and my parents are not really certain about that. Is a CMU education worth $22,000 more? My parents main criterion for a university is prestige and rankings, so how prestigious would you say Carnegie Mellon is? What are some other universities in the same tier?
What would you all do in such a case?
Thanks! 
InfiniteLibrary,
I’m not trying to derail this thread. Go to the Graduate school forum, under College Discussions, and ask for a response from XRAYMANCS. He is a college rep from UI and offers great advice.