Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion college plan

I thought I would start a new topic on this one.

A study came out that 1/3 of retiring Canadians went back to work because they underestimated the cost of retirement.

Bostonian mentioned his 529 plans and in my own calculations of future financial planning, I estimated (for my grade 4 child) 600K if she takes advantage of her legacy at Harvard and 50-75K if she goes to the U of Toronto (currently a top 20 school in the world). As a parent, this is part of my planning.

The other topic was about free tuition, which was viable in the 60s. City University of NY was free, wasn't the State CA universities have something similar? When the US was at the peak of economic global power and growth provided money. But my father and most of the fathers I know also had defined benefit plans and retired without worry. All of that has changed.

My financial planning takes into account college cost savings just as I plan for retirement. How many people really do that, or when college comes around figure out the loans and then deal with it?

And when I say saving, that is part of the budget, so any ideas about housing expenses, vacations, eating out have to take part of an overall budget so I can pay for those college costs. I have a really smart and talented kid that can go to college and be anything she wants, so part of my responsibility as a parent is to plan for that. Just if she was really disabled and I had to plan for her care after I was gone.

How many plan early on?

Wren, Harvard is one of the more affordable schools, unless you make a ton of money (and then you can afford it without aid).

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/fact-sheet

I have heard of some folks with only one kid or two very close in age joke that they would quit their jobs a few years before the kid goes to college and then work as a Wal-Mart greeter, making just enough to get by. This is actually not a bad strategy - make just under $65K a year and have the entire $60K COA covered.

ok, is that your plan?

We make just enough to get by, already, so we won't even have to do anything drastic! Unfortunately, that usually puts us just into the middle range where we don't qualify for aid for anything but don't make enough to do whatever it is without it. But at least Harvard wouldn't be asking us for anything, anyway.

Heck of a situation that would be -- "no, we couldn't afford to send DS to the state school, so he had to go to Harvard."

They look at assets.

Assets are easier to hide than income, not that I am saying doing such is ethical or legal.

Hey-- we've done the calculation here.

Stanford is WAY more affordable than the UW for us. About 18K annually "more affordable."

How wacky is THAT?

Perhaps, but the behavior of the colleges with respect to cranking up tuition is not always ethical, either (you may recall a scandal in the 80s. Administrators from the elite colleges were meeting annually and were basically fixing prices at their institutions so that they all kept pace with each other). I suspect that this type of behavior is not isolated.

In a situation like this one, hiding assets strikes me as being a reasonable reaction. I knew someone whose family had to take out a second mortgage on their farm to pay for college.

They do look at some assets, and some schools require the CSS Profile (which provides info beyond FAFSA). Of course, if you don't save anything in a 529 and you spend it all on "stuff", you don't have assets.

I'm sort of only half joking because I have seen folks that scrimped and saved for the kids' education, and they don't get anything for financial aid. The folks who spend every last dollar get a lot more. Doesn't seem right, but that's how it is.

And I'm only half joking about being a Wal-Mart greeter. Think about it - if you have a family income of $120K-$130K, you aren't saving $60K of that each year for college (maybe you would get some aid, but still would be expected to pay $30-35K/year). So if both parents make $60K/year, one is working just to send the kid to school. And it may be tough to squeeze $35K out of the $60K salary after taxes and expenses relating to work. In some areas of the country, you could easily survive on $65K (not here, but many other places).

Maybe after we get the first two through college we'll be greeters when the last one goes to school (first kid is a freshman, second is in 10th, third is in 4th).

And we do have 529 plans for the kids, though I have mixed feelings about this. We started middle kid's plan late because I declared that she was not college material when she was 4. I certainly wasn't on this forum then...didn't expect her to be "gifted".

Please don't rely on the legacy to "ensure" admission. Remember that legacies typically only get a "boost" if they apply EA/ED. Stanford legacy does provide a boost - last I heard was legacy admit rate around 14%, non-legacy 7%.

Better chances if you are a recruited athlete with decent GPA and SAT. We can't rely on the athlete thing at a school like Stanford as mine are not DI material, but it can help at DIII schools. And other talents can help, such as music, art, etc.

My eldest passed up free tuition at a couple of decent schools (merit based on GPA & SAT). I'm hoping my youngest holds true to her word that she'll take up a free tuition offer at a local university if she has the scores.