In the end, I came up with this conclusion. I think if you have a high income, lots of other savings, assets, etc.,plan on putting at least 100K away per child if you think it is likely they will go to anything more than a community college. If your income is lower, do the best you can and learn the most you can about how to get any and all kinds of financial aid! The most interesting thing I read was about how much financial assistance is available at the more expensive private colleges. Interesting because I know I would have just assumed we could not afford it.
Depends upon where you live. It's up to each individual to do his or her own research. Like I said,
for our area, we have not much more than 100,000K earmarked for college, and -- with our first college bill only months away -- we are set to pay all the basics AND a new car for two kids. Admittedly, we do have the lowest tuition in the US (though we also have the low salaries to match it). Somewhere else you might actually need the 100,000K.
Also, if the private schools interest you, look into them but don't assume that they're going to pony up lots of aid. That is an oft-repeated, but rarely found in real-life scenerio. My daugther looked into a couple schools who supposedly do this, and her situation was typical: One offered her 16K/year,
which sounds great at first glance, but it would still leave us with 19K/year to pay . . . which is approximately 150% the cost of the state school that she really wants to attend. And the state school is
much stronger academically. The moral: Investigate these possibilities, but
also apply to the schools you can actually afford on your own.
And it isn't necessarily academically based... The school may want more kids from the South, or may need more gender balance, or want kids that will round out its diversity. Or kids from rural areas. Or kids with leadership backgrounds....schools tend to skew their web calculations to look appealing - best case aid.
Yes, and you have zero control over those things! Your kid can present himself in the best light possible, but if the school "already has enough" kids in his demographic, it might not do a bit of good. No use worrying over what you can't control.
If the money is held by a grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling or another person, the money does not count against the student.
Well, not really. If you earned $150,000 last year and have essentially no savings, the financial aid people are going to say, "Too bad -- you had it, and you should've saved some." They won't be fooled by hiding the money in someone else's account. Unless you are genuinely poor, don't count on financial aid -- and then it's not going to pay everything.
You're better off working and saving from a young age, like the OP is doing.
So, I started researching it to the best of my ability. I've read a bunch of articles on colleges, FAFSA, loans, scholarships, grants.....you get the idea. The best thing I found was that some colleges have estimators right on their website that will tell you what you are likely to receive in "help" based on your income and assets. I stayed up one night messing around putting higher or lower income, higher or lower savings, etc., etc.
