This. We have a policy of no debt and aggressive savings. Though you get penalized for that, it beats the alternative. We were unable to sell our house/relocate when kiddo was applying, but we sold it last year and moved to a much less expensive part of the state. Life is back to normal now. So, consider how temporary the pinch might be. If we hadn’t already had solid retirement savings, forgoing four years of 401k contributions might not have been an option we would consider. What tipped the decision for us was that, even though we were approaching 60 and those contributions were dear, we knew the setback would probably be temporary, health and job-market willing. And we didn’t mind becoming better home cooks, walking or biking or reading more, or just learning to enjoy doing nothing together more often.