Yeah we’ve been doing these things too, big time. We have also got all sorts of deals including the biggest one, 60k per year grant. But that doesn’t go so far for “almost all tuition and fees.”
One of my kids has something near that at U of Arizona though. We’re hoping to do even better.
We are definitely pursuing this, to the point of exhaustion.
However the point of this thread is, even with all that, we still need to borrow (others may not) so it was originally a thread about that part of it, about the borrowing.
You have stated you and your kids have no freaking idea how prepared they are for college. I was just questioning why you didn’t know that. More importantly is that you know that so you can send your kids to schools that will be at their level of academic achievement
OP on a prior thread (in August) described his son as follows…
“He just needs to go somewhere where it’s going to be easy, and a non drinking non partying kid can get a good gpa in the first year even when he’s not prepared at all, has read less than two books cover to cover in his life, and while mathy has many weakspots that are not his fault.”
Sounds like a very forthright assessment just incongruous with some of the options now being explored.
Trust me I get it. It is crazy how much college is. My point was some people go to comm college to help defray the cost. Just worth a thought. Look at all options.
One thing to consider re: European universities is the job prospects in the US on return. Those schools won’t have career offices geared to the US, there will be none of the infrastructure that US schools have to help their students get jobs.
I base this on my experiences as a graduate student in the US and in England, as well as a family friend who graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He literally couldn’t get a job for a year+, then got a crappy job, and is now getting his masters at Columbia ($$$) which should help his prospects.
Small sample size, I know, but something I rarely see mentioned on CC when considering non-US schools.
I’m not “suddenly realizing” that my children have never been in an academic situation that remotely resembles college before. Kindergarten didn’t resemble college either, and that’s where the not knowing started. So its been a long time. It continued in elementary school despite being placed in a gifted program. GATE Elementary did not resemble college. And so on.
Thanks for the advice that I should sit down with my kids and talk about college. I wonder what they think. We’re going to do that now as soon as they get home.
Good point, if one is pursuing only a bachelors or some other terminal degree in Europe, and are expecting to use a Bachelors as a job qualification, or are intending to go straight to work after college. In general, one should think twice about thinking a US Bachelors is a job qualification too, though it depends on the field.
Grad schools routinely admit people with foreign degrees, all the time.
Health field advanced study, you have to do your research.
As I said, I haven’t read the whole thread, which has nothing to do with anything. I was responding to a specific post where the longtime, well respected poster was accused of being combative. Will agree to disagree on that one.
I have a question about this one. I hope its unquestionable, because the whole scheme falls like a pack of cards without this.
Lifting the following out of context, but I’m sure you understand the context:
“Retirement assets do not get counted, but your prior year’s contributions to qualified retirement accounts do get counted as untaxed income, and are added back to your adjusted gross income in the income portion of the aid formula.”
Is it right to assume that the above refers to discretionary contributions to things like 401s, and does not refer to contributions to Roth IRAs?
I thought retirement funds are not considered assets in FA calculations. But if what you say is true, then the whole scheme doesn’t work.
I thought MMRose was saying that because contributions to Roth IRAs have already been factored in as income for the year, and have already been taxed and contributed to your total tax paid for the year, that they wouldn’t be double counted in any way.
I see how traditional IRA contributions reduce your AGI on a 1040, but in a fake way for FA purposes, and are counted back in as income.
Also we always have to keep in mind what we are talking about: FAFSA, CSS, or what most colleges do with information according to their own policies. Those can be 3 different things, but almost impossible for us to converse here always identifying that.
Yes, you’re correct that Roth contributions are not added back as untaxed income in the year you make the contributions. That applies to tax deferred contributions (401k, traditional IRA, etc).
so ucdprof - you’re thinking of taking equity out of your house as a cash payment; dumping it into roth IRAs so it’s not a solid cash asset like it would be in a checking account, then removing it to pay for college?
i dont want to muddy anything - but i’m curious on this all.
In the back of my mind, when we took out roth funds once for education, the funds had to have been in the roth for 5 yrs prior to removing them without penalty. anyone can verify? also to consider: are their deposit limits for roth IRAS?
Roth IRA contributions are counted as assets in the year they are contributed because it is a choice to fund your retirement versus saving that money for paying for college. Simply put - you could use that money for college, but chose instead to put it away for later.
It is counted as an asset, not additional income (so assessed at 5.6%), and after that year of contribution is no longer counted as an asset as it is in a qualified retirement plan.
For example:
You put $7k* into your Roth next month for 2021 (you can contribute until April 15th of this year for last year’s contribution), and you put $7k in you Roth for your 2022 contribution as well.
When you filled out the FAFSA using 2021 data, you would report the $7k contribution but when filling out your FAFSA using 2022 data, you would report the $7k 2022 contribution but not the $7k from the previous year - so each year would show $7k, but wouldn’t increase to $14k in totality. Does that make sense?
Basically, you can’t ‘hide’ $7k worth of assets each year in a Roth without disclosing you put that money in, though the following year(s) you do get the benefit of the money being in a qualified retirement fund and can no longer be counted.
*IRA contribution limits re $6k per year unless you are over 50, at which you can add an additional $1k to your yearly contribution.