Do you plan on paying for your child(ren)'s college?

[yourmother]

My DS is 7 and while college is a ways away, we are putting money away for his education (college or trade school).  My DH have agreed to pay for his classes but not necessarily his room and board.  We both went to a local university and live with our parents while in college.  My dad paid for each semester so that I wouldn't have student loans.  It was such a treat and I plan on passing that on to my son.

We obviously would love to have my DS stay local to save money on in-state tuition.  However, we will let that be his choice.  He can manage his own room and board with a job or money from Grandpa.

What are your plans (if any)?  

[yourmother]

PS - I made a misspelling in the poll. I need to go back to college!

[wildrice]

FWIW, it's spelled college

My parents paid a set amount of money for mine. Since I chose a cheap state school with scholarships, they paid for a large portion of my room and board. Had I chosen something more expensive, they may not have. Could you do a financial amount instead? I know 11 years in advance it's impossible to know what anything will cost - my parents just saved what they could and then that was what we had to work with.

[maudefindlay]

Mine are 9, 11, and 13 and we will pay tuition, room, board etc. Our only stipulation is they need to choose an in state school, luckily there are several great choices. We hope they go away to school and live in the dorms are year or two before getting an apartment. That way they can meet lots of people and make friends more easily.

Eta Starting out in life with no undergrad or grad school loans was the greatest gift mine and DH's parents gave us.

[gummybear]

Special
We have 529s for both girls and most likely will have enough money to pay whatever is left over. This will probably get me flamed but we plan on having the girls take out a least some loans if they go to a more expensive college and work/contribute while they are in school. I know this is bootstrappy but we believe that having a little skin in the game will be good for them.

[goldengirlz]

We do.

There are a multitude of ways my child is privileged (and beyond), but if I could choose one thing to do for them, it would be this. Both H and I graduated without any undergrad loans and it gave us a tremendous leg up financially.

[CrazyLucky]

Our savings goal is 75% of an in-state school. Their grandmother is also saving money for them in a 529. I have no issues with them taking out a loan for a portion of their expenses. I think it will make them a little more judicious in their choices. MIL paid for a portion of DH's college and then he took out loans to pay for the rest. His mom helped pay off the loans, and I can see us doing that, but I'm not planning to give them a full ride.

[thebreakfastclub]

My philosophy is that we are saving a certain amount monthly that works within our budget. Whatever it doesn't cover is my son's responsibility through loans.

Whatever the loan is where the parent owes the money, I would not do that for my child.

I think we are on track to cover roughly 75% of 4 years in-state expenses. If he wanted to do something more expensive or out of state, again that would be on him to cover the difference via loans.

I feel very little stress about paying for college. I do what I can. I will be smarter about having conversations with him about what loans cost and what is worth it. My parents were zero help there. Luckily for me, college was cheaper when I went and I felt nervous about going into debt for school, so I picked a much less expensive school.

[msmerymac]

Yes, as much as we can, since they won't be getting good financial aid packages. Any school they want and can get into. We both went to private schools and lived on campus and my H went to an Ivy. We both graduated undergrad with little to no debt. We also both went to grad school - which we'd only help with if there was money left over, but if they do a PhD they should get funding anyway. (That said, we both have grad school loans.) FWIW, our first is due in November, so we have a lot of time for things to change.

[sproctopus]

Not really? We will help how we can when the time comes -- if he chooses college or post-secondary education/training (and my job covers tuition for dependents), but we can't afford to save for that now.

[pandorica]

We plan on paying for what we can. We have a 529 for DD and will start them for the babies on the way too (or maybe they will all share one? Not sure the best method yet). We may not be able to cover everything for each kid, but may give them a set amount. That's what my parents did for me. I'm not opposed to them needing some loans, but would prefer to minimize it if possible.

[Velar Fricative]

DH and I both had/have significant student loans so paying for college is an absolute priority for us, if not THE priority. We want to give our kids the leg up financially that we never had.

However, we plan to pay for all college expenses at SUNY or CUNY schools only, or the equivalent if either chooses to attend private school, which would make them on the hook for any remainder. BUT, we plan to also make them scared of student loans so that they opt for CUNY/SUNY lol. Luckily there are so many campuses in these in-state public systems so I am certain they'll find campuses they like and they won't feel like we are depriving them of options.

[chilerellanos]

Nope. I can’t.

[ssmjlm]

Special snowflake - grandparents are paying for college, we have a small 529 for her that will likely go to books and other on-campus needs.

She's the only grandchild for them and they can afford it, I realize how privileged we are.

[turkletsmom]

I live in Louisiana and we have a state program that will pay for in-state tuition if a student meets a certain score on the ACT. I was able to go to a local university for free with this program and I'm hoping it's still around for my kids. We live within commuting distance to two schools. If they wanted to go to LSU, we have enough in 529s to pay for at least one year in a dorm for each kid. After that they/we will have to cash flow room and board or take out loans. I'm not signing any loans for an out of state school, so if they want to do that they will need to figure out scholarships.

[brooke77]

Yes. Like PP, saving for my DS’ education is a major priority for us. We are hoping to cover all of undergrad and help with grad (if he’s interested). I graduated with 6 figures of student debt and it really affected a lot of aspects of my life.

[jinkies]

Aug 15, 2022 9:45:21 GMT -5 wildrice said:

My parents paid a set amount of money for mine. Since I chose a cheap state school with scholarships, they paid for a large portion of my room and board. Had I chosen something more expensive, they may not have. Could you do a financial amount instead? I know 11 years in advance it's impossible to know what anything will cost - my parents just saved what they could and then that was what we had to work with.

This is what my parents did too. My brother did not go to college and my parents came into some money a few years before I graduated so I am fortunate that they were able to help a lot more than they initially thought. 

As of right now, my son is strongly considering a military route, and if he does go that way most of his college would be covered. He is going into 9th grade this fall and we have talked a LOT about focusing on his grades as a way to keep all options open in the future. If he does not go in the military, I think we would have a serious conversation about our contribution and how to maximize it. Including the potential to start at community college and transfer. 

My daughter is 10 and we would support her the same way. I am honestly not sure if she will be interested in conventional college, but it's 8 years away so a lot can change.

[bcv513]

I plan on paying as much as I possibly can, which is what my parents did for me. I chose the school where I got a scholarship that covered about 75% of the tuition, and my parents were able to pay the rest. I could have chosen a bigger school but would have had to take out loans.

I paid for my own graduate school and took classes at night while working full time.

[flygirl]

We will pay for a state school 100% & if he chose to go to a private school, I would hope that they could give enough aid to get him to state school prices-if not, I would try to sway him away from it unless there were considerable advantages to the school.
If you ask my dad, he will say he paid for my college, but in reality he gave me roughly $4k and I covered the rest with loans and working full time. H and I both had student loans which sucked and I’d like DS not to start out that way.
ETA- I also only have one kid so it’s easier to more aside to meet this goal

[wanderingback]

My child is still a fetus, but In an ideal world yes, but I doubt that it’ll be possible to save up enough since I’m behind on retirement and have $350,000+ in debt (all med school myself).

I would 100% pay for it and room and board and incidentals no questions asked if I had the finances.

To be honest, college expenses have gotten so insane that my partner and I were just discussing that if our child wasn’t super compelled to go to college and had other avenues they wanted to explore we would be 100% happy with that. So while growing up I think we’ll encourage college but not say it’s a "must" like my parents kinda were with me.

[winnied]

Special

We have 529s set up and contribute a bit, but who knows how much college will cost in 15-20 years. We are also hoping H gets a job teaching FT where he's an adjunct now (and where he went.) Costs would be almost entirely covered there, but the girls won't be required to go there.

I like the way my in-laws managed it for their kids (my FIL taught at the university they all ended up attending). They can go anywhere they want and their parents would pay up to half of whatever isn't covered by scholarship or financial aid. It worked out nicely that they all chose the very cheap option.

It's not our top priority TBH. I hope the job market/society changes enough to recognize that there are many, many jobs you do not need a degree for. Education for the sake of education is wonderful and I encourage it, but college isn't the only way to get it and it shouldn't be the only way to get a job either. Now, if our girls want to be a 4th generation engineer then college is needed.

[definitelyO]

yes we do - we have a 529 account. I think we need more $$ in it but DH doesn't... so we'll see how far it goes.

[AdaraMarie]

I have no idea, I think I will try to do what I can so they don't have to take on a ton of debt, but I don't know if I will be able to cover everything and I don't know if their dad will help at all. They have 529s but they are small and at most might be able to cover a year of tuition by the time they are that age.

[sent]

Yes. It's literally the only reason I went back to working in my business after my illness. Because I have to pay for 2 kids to go to college and help them get setup as adults.

I still have feels that I did not get to have the college experience I dreamed about because my dad would not talk about money at all and would not give me parameters on what he could afford. If we had been realistic and I knew that he could only afford to support me upto $X, maybe I could have dreamed differently and still felt satisfied with my choice. I also had zero financial education in how the real world works. I don't want my kids to grow up so naive.

[eb777888]

Yep. We're fully supporting David and already have a large amount saved. We're able to do that only because we' have one, if we had more I'm not sure we could swing it.

[ECB]

I said "special" - but it's a yes, as much as we can. If we can cover all of it, we will. If we can't, then we won't.

[penguingrrl]

We’ll do what we can, but won’t be able to
Cover everything by a long shot.

[CurlyQ284]

SD21 is a college junior. We aren't in a position to pay for her tuition but she lived with us for 2 years (now lives in an apartment with her boyfriend). H and exW had kids very young, didn't set aside any savings.

SD19 doesn't want to go to college, maybe she will later in life but judging from her senior year grades I don't think she is ready/could hack it. She tried to go into the Navy, that didn't work out but she just passed the firefighter testing so she will be joining the fire department.

DS9 has a college fund, there's not a lot in it. Im not sure he will go either. H, SD19, and DS9 all have ADHD and haven't done well in school. DS is the only one who was diagnosed in school and receiving treatment/support but he loathes school. Sooo we will see how he turns out.

[magic]

My parents paid for me to go to college and grad school and my in laws did the same for my husband. It was an AMAZING gift to each of us and has given us so many advantages in adulthood because we’re not paying off student loans. Because of our parents’ generosity we’re able to save for our own children.

[dcn]

Yes, H has the GI Bill to pass along to one of them, and then we are saving what we can now, but prioritizing our retirement savings. We will help as much as we can, hopefully they can graduate without a crazy amount of loans. I had $15k and that was reasonable and I was able to pay them off without much hardship. My H had almost $100k and had he not joined the military it would have been a slog to pay them off. We’d love to help our kids avoid that if we can.