I didn't mean it to come off accusatory. I just don't get the whole "saving for kid's college" deal.
My thoughts are as follows.
My income potential is drastically higher than it was when I was 17-21. 5-6x what it was and increasing at an encouraging rate. College is going up at a rate that outpaces wages, as discussed ad nauseum here. As hard as it was for me to put myself through school, even with a "full ride" merit-based scholarship that covered tuition, it will be
harder for my kid to do it. As somebody who tested in the 95ish percentile on ACTs, ASVABS, entry and exit exams, I can tell you that merit-based scholarships are very hard to come by. I was not able to get the degree that I wanted. To do so, I'd have had to take out unsubsidized loans each year.
I lost my scholarship in my final year. I needed a 3.5 to keep it, and that was tough for somebody who was smart but enrolled full time and working 2-3 part time jobs. The $11k dollar loan cost me 12.37% in interest. It could have been cheaper, buy my parents would not even co-sign on a loan with me because "tough love, make your own way, we don't owe you anything."
My wife and I paid that loan fairly quickly, but during our starting years it was tough. We never really "went without," to make it happen, but we definitely deferred retirement contributions during a time when that money would have had the biggest impact to our nest egg.
I have extra money, time, and interest on my side if I save for her college. She will have none of those things. If she gets a loan, interest and time work
against her instead of
for her. It is drastically easier for me to pay that bill.
I have a very hard time with the line of thinking that your kid should have to struggle like you did. The whole point of me struggling with my issues is so that my kid can
struggle with new ones. My parents struggled through issues caused by broken homes, absentee parents, abuse, and poverty. I didn't have to struggle through those issues, because they beat them. Instead, I struggled to go to college, something that neither my parents nor my in-laws achieved. I'd like my daughter to struggle for things I never got the chance to struggle for. A PhD. Establishing a franchise. Curing cancer. If they fumble the ball I passed, that's on them, although I think the issue of raising ****ty, entitled kids is a separate one from setting them up for financial success. I know plenty of entitled, arrogant, lazy trailer trash. I know plenty of hardworking, down-to-earth kids who never had to worry about whether or not they'd be able to go to school.
I also think the people who think college is just "book-learnin'" are very mistaken. My boss, for example, is a smart guy with plenty of book learnin'. But far more valuable to him than the books he read or the paper hanging on the wall in his office is the fact that he met his business' cofounder in school, and he and his web developer (who is spooky-smart) shared a dorm room. People may not like to hear this, but college can put you in an environment where you have a chance to make friends with smart people who's parents made enough disposable income to put them in that room. Ask ole Zuckerberg about that.
Sure, I met losers who were just there because college was daycare for teenagers and young adults. But you'll meet those everywhere. As somebody who worked for 5 years in a college catering to military personnel, first responders, and tradesmen, I have no fantasies about those positions being filled exclusively by straight-shooting, down-to-earth, roll-up-ya-sleeves, get'er done folks who went to the school of hard knocks. Some of them were, and some of them were up-to-their eyeballs in student loan debt and had 40 credit hours to show for it.
Student loans, by the way, are currently still non-forgivable debt. Doesn't matter what life circumstances your kid ends up in, Sallie Mae gets her money one way or another. But if you max out 7 credit cards on Tethrd crap, Unc' Sam will let you file Chapter 7.
Also, everybody seems blind to the fact that I have a girl. Look at career fields where women earn good incomes equivalent to their male counterparts. What do they require?
). The original question was about saving for planned expenses, and estimations about what those expenses are forecasted to be, not asking for us to weigh in on if we think it's a good use of money to save for it.
