<p>@princess202 Having money available for them once they are in college may also determine the illusive ‘success’ you refer to. Freeing up money for lots of study abroad, summer quality internships or volunteering in different cities, etc. has a clear value too. Some families might advise their student to consider a less costly very good alternative to provide less financial stress and more financial freedom while in college and even beyond (lack of loans to repay, start up cost in life, graduate school money, etc.).</p>
<p>mom2and: $100,000 for retirement would be a great deal of money for some people. There was a survey that 36% had less than $1,000 saved for retirement :(</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some research findings suggest that no significant financial return is likely as a result of choosing a more selective college.
<a href=“http://www.changinghighereducation.com/2011/04/stacey-dale-and-alan-kruger-recently-have-done-a-very-interesting-study-trying-to-estimate-the-financial-return-to-an-individ.html”>http://www.changinghighereducation.com/2011/04/stacey-dale-and-alan-kruger-recently-have-done-a-very-interesting-study-trying-to-estimate-the-financial-return-to-an-individ.html</a></p>
<p>Alumni of more selective schools do tend to have higher average incomes. However, this may be due to “selection effects”, not “treatment effects”. In other words, the more selective schools are cherry-picking students with the highest earning potential.</p>
<p><a href=“Retirement Calculator”>http://www.buyupside.com/retirementinvesting/retirementcalculator.htm</a></p>
<p>Here’s a calculator for determining how much your savings might bring you per year.</p>
<p>Your $250,000 will bring you $15,000 a year at 6%. Reinvest that $15,000 and life is good.</p>
<p>Our boats have already sailed, but to a parent beginning this process and looking for a good merit money option, I would suggest choosing the financial safety with care, AND getting a good grip on what your student wants to learn while in college. (Even pre-meds ought to have to have a plan B in mind.) Many of the financial safeties are far better in some areas than others, while a full pay school (except for the tech schools) is more likely to offer a wide variety of viable majors.</p>
<p>sax: Where are you earning 6% interest?</p>
<p>Hey, Ukrainian government three-month notes are pricing to yield 15.5%. You can always find yield. The question is how much principal risk you want to take. </p>
<p>Our kids are very grateful they were able to graduate debt-free AND not imperiling our retirements. We did this by being careful with the Us that S applied to, so that he was able to get significant merit award (>50% tuition x 4 years) at his U. D didn’t get any awards when she joined him, but by then my temporarily increased income was able to help a bit toward the increase in expenses.</p>
<p>When we made our decision, we were careful to be sure NOT to jeopardize our retirement, taking into account all the resources that we would have upon retirement (not including anyone else’s money such as any gifts or inheritances, which would be gravy). We didn’t want to saddle our kids with having to pay for us as we age, when they would be having expenses of their own.</p>
<p>We paid the funds partly out of savings and the rest out of current earnings. We also did use the available payment plan offered by the U, so that we had 10 big payments instead of one or two huge payments. That helped us be able to better spread things out so more was taken out of current income. H & I kept reminding ourselves that these increased expenses were temporary and would end once the kids graduated. Fortunately, over the years the kids were in college, H’s salary slightly increased as well. S also worked part-time (and full-time over summers), as did D, which contributed toward their costs.</p>
<p>We were glad that S chose to discard an acceptance he received that included no merit award, out of hand, so it was never discussed (he was mainly interested if they swayed him by a huge merit award). He did NOT consider one full-ride merit offer, but we were OK with allowing him to choose among the Us we could afford and rejecting the full-ride. We never had a discussion about whether we could afford the school S discarded, but it would have been a huge stretch and were glad we never had to consider it.</p>
<p>I guess we were lucky that our kids grew up wanting to attend our big state u’s. We were unwilling for them or us to go into debt for a college education. We saved enough over the years for each kid to go to a state u. debt free. So when S1 got a fullride to big state u. of his choice, it was a happy day. He graduated with a healthy bank account. Two and a half years out of college, he bought/remodeled a house (one block off the beach) and a year later was able to buy a new truck to replace his thirteen year old truck. He could not have dreamed of having those things(at age 26) if he had big college debt. He doesn’t regret the path he chose. He absolutely loved his big state u.</p>
<p>S1 was full pay at a different (instate) big state u. Loved it. So while he didn’t have as much money left in his college acct. as his big brother, he had some to get him started in life. He was able to be totally self-supporting within 4 months of college graduation…could not have done that with loan debt. He is sharing a house with two friends and building up a healthy savings account.</p>
<p>DH has worked hard in our 31 years of marriage. We have always lived(frugally) within our means while saving for college and our retirement. Now that the kids are out on their own, we’re planning to retire to our dream home in a couple of months. I am 51 and DH is 54. This wouldn’t be happening if we had to help with college debt. </p>
<p>Every one has different values. I guess there’s no right or wrong. </p>
<p>sax: sorry, I should have spent a few more seconds phrasing my question. I wasn’t trying to be jokey. If there is a possibility of 6% return (with no risk to principal) I honestly want to know. Thank you.</p>
<p>If the best interest I can get is less than 1%, I do have to think whether principal might be better spent on education. Maybe somehow the long-term educational benefit beats inflation. Of course for those (like sax) whose kids get the full-rides at the excellent schools where they get unsurpassed opportunities, that isn’t a question to consider.</p>
<p>When I became a first-time mother in my thirties, I did not consider that I’d be sending that child off to college at the same time my parents and in-laws would be moving into assisted living &/or memory care. D has seen one set of grandparents struggle financially and require assistance from their children. She understands very clearly why it is in her long-term best interest for us to have adequate retirement savings as well as for her to be able to graduate debt-free and begin her own retirement savings at an early age. The staggering increase in college costs over the past generation has been compounded by the increase in living much longer and with debilitating conditions requiring expensive care.</p>
<p>@yaupon wow, good point.</p>
<p>@alh</p>
<p>Sorry. I missed your question earlier. </p>
<p>I can give my son $14,000 a year. My spouse can give my son $14,000. We can do that every year with no taxes involved. We can also give him stock instead.</p>
<p>He can fully fund his 401k. He can contribute to a Roth. He can buy his own stock.</p>
<p>If he contributes to a Roth he can later take that money out ( not the interest) and use it for a house down payment if he wants.</p>
<p>I have tried to instill in my kids the importance of funding your retirement and showed them in charts just how beneficial it is to save this first decade of their working lives.</p>
<p>My 6% figure was a very moderate rate of return for a decent retirement plan. </p>
<p>I believe a kid can get a great education at most schools if he puts his head down and gives it his all. Internships, research, awards etc. </p>
<p>Anyway, we all have our bucket of money. $200,000 is a great deal of money in my bucket. </p>
<p>Many people would say we were foolish to let such a promising kid go to Penn State instead of Cornell, Duke, Swarthmore etc. It worked out just fine.</p>
<p>I think one of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is THEIR OWN financial independence. </p>
<p>My parents worked hard, saved and lived very frugally. Sometime, in my opinion - to frugally. However, one of their deeply held beliefs was that their children should not be on the hook financially for any of their age related needs. My father lived to be 93 and my mom is 88. Both needed, and will continue to need financial resources during this life phase.</p>
<p>I held some rather strong resentments in regards to my parents being what I referred to at the time as tightwads. That said, I (and H) are so very very grateful that our lives are not and will not be driven by a negative financial status. </p>
<p>We have held up this goal for ourselves and have talked about it with our children. As a like minded friend puts it …Do you really want me to do something financially today to make your dreams come true…at the risk of you having to have my hospital bed, walker, diapers and bib in your living room when the time comes?</p>
<p>@ChocoChipMom - I would be careful about choosing Tulane over Grinnell based on the desire to not attend a party school. It could be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. I know it is a sample of 1, but the D of a friend (from NEern midwest) transferred out of Tulane after a year. My perception is that she loved it on visiting and move-on but the pervasive party atmosphere and culture shock ended up making it not a ‘fit’ as the year progressed. She went in with a very generous merit scholarship and had excellent grades so was able to successfully transfer to a location that was a better fit and garner some merit aid. Grinnell does (or at least did) have sub free housing.</p>
<p>I am at a loss trying to understand how a party school affects a non-partier. I went to a party school but never ever went to a party or was I ever pressured to attend one. Have times changed?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Common complaints I’ve heard from friends who attended/transferred out of party schools:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Noise/vandalism issues which disrupts studying/sleeping in dorms/nearby off-campus residences and other areas…sometimes even including the libraries. Especially bad for students who are serious about their studies and have 8-9 am classes. It also affects working professionals who are unfortunate to live nearby such campuses as I’ve heard and to some extent…experienced after college. </p></li>
<li><p>Critical mass of anti-intellectuals within the student body so being a serious student/non-partier is held against you by classmates which can leave one isolated. It also means lacking a critical mass of classmates who share similar/same intellectual interests to even have relaxing conversations. </p></li>
<li><p>Strong peer pressure to party/drink. </p></li>
<li><p>Anti-nerd/academic achiever attitudes common in most mainstream US high schools end up being carried over and sometimes amplified in such campus environments/cultures. If one happens to be a proud nerd or academic achiever, this could just be a continuation of HS bs most such students hope to leave behind when they start undergrad. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Incidentally, all the folks who related those experiences attended the party school in question because they received a free ride/near-free ride, parents with the “all colleges are the same mentality”/loved that particular party college insisted they attended, or their HS GPAs were too low to gain admission to colleges which had campus cultures with a better fit. </p>
<p>I guess times have changed somewhat. I attended UMD in the 80s and the partying was almost legendary. The campus would sponsor parties and Frat Row was alive and partying on the weekends. But all of that meant that the libraries were completely available. It meant an easy A because the freshman classes had some students who weren’t serious about academics. But most students were impressed by the academic achievers. My only issue was the vandalism. Finding vomit and poop in the showers and bathrooms were just unacceptable.</p>
<p>So, are you saying that the expensive schools (non/near free ride) have less of these problems?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not necessarily as having a party school type campus culture isn’t restricted to public colleges or inexpensive private colleges. If anything, equating it with degree of expense of the college or public/private status can be seriously misleading. </p>
<p>It really depends on the individual college and its given campus culture. </p>
<p>Some of the more expensive colleges with party school campus cultures like Syracuse or Union College can offer near full/full rides for students with high stats or those from academically reputable high schools. </p>
<p>In fact, one common tug of war I’ve observed among some well-off HS classmates closer to the bottom of my graduating class and heard about from my suburban NNJ relatives is one between students intent on attending the expensive private schools with party school campus cultures like Syracuse as full-pay/nearly full pay as opposed to going to local public colleges with same/better academics because the students wanted the big sports/party campus experience. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>UMD is big enough that it should not be a party-dominanted campus culture – the fraternity and sorority systems are large, but only make up about 15% of the students, so there are plenty of other students around for a non-partier to hang out with.</p>
<p>In contrast, a small school where the majority of students are in fraternities and sororities (e.g. Bucknell, Dartmouth, Depauw) may be a much less pleasant place for a non-partier, particularly if it is in a more remote area with little else to do.</p>