There is so much variance in cost between colleges! 80k and even 40k seem like really high yearly costs.
I went to a community college for 2 years in California and then transferred to a mid-tier state university for the last two years.
I graduated in 2017 and the total cost for my education was about 30k. It was expensive, but spread out over 4 years I was able to pay for most of it by working part time.
As a father what were the tradeoffs you considered when planning to put your kids through college? Did you consider the route through community college? Was the dorm experience important? It seems like the decision to not put your kids through community college is usually more for social reasons rather than academic, since community colleges, at least in California, are MORE rigorous than regular universities, since they are preparing to send kids to the full range of colleges. Parents and kids seem to think that it’s important to live on campus in a dorm because they will make more friends. But idk, I am very curious to hear the thought process from a parent’s point of view.
I had my kids in 2001 and 2003. I just started putting money away into 529 funds and that was kind of all my thought process. If I spent time then thinking how expensive it would be when the money would be needed, that would have been paralyzing. As I mentioned, along the way I got lucky and was involved in two modest exits that let me put enough into savings that I had enough combined with the 529 to basically say I would pay for their undergraduate. Obviously, I could have just kept that money for myself but it was what I wanted to do. I have had various retirement savings all along so that I feel like I am OK provided I do not live to be 90 or something.
My last exit happened end of 2019, just in time for me to get it all invested in time for the pandemic to start. I am pretty sure I turned all that investment into cash at the bottom of the stock market and did not really get it back into investments in time to make it all up. Around end of March 2020 I was definitely expecting the stock market to keep falling and panicked. I probably would still have money for myself after paying for college if I had just not touched it and caught the rebound.
I went to a community college for 2 years in California and then transferred to a mid-tier state university for the last two years.
I graduated in 2017 and the total cost for my education was about 30k. It was expensive, but spread out over 4 years I was able to pay for most of it by working part time.
As a father what were the tradeoffs you considered when planning to put your kids through college? Did you consider the route through community college? Was the dorm experience important? It seems like the decision to not put your kids through community college is usually more for social reasons rather than academic, since community colleges, at least in California, are MORE rigorous than regular universities, since they are preparing to send kids to the full range of colleges. Parents and kids seem to think that it’s important to live on campus in a dorm because they will make more friends. But idk, I am very curious to hear the thought process from a parent’s point of view.