Oh, one thing that I would do differently relates to me not understanding. I didn’t really understand how 529s worked. I thought you could only put a certain amount of money into it each year. I conflated the limit on how much you could get the state tax benefits from - which is limited - with how much you could put in the 529 - which is unlimited.
Not that I would’ve had zillions of dollars more in those early years, but I had money that I just put in a savings account and it’s fine, it was saved for college. But if I had plugged it into the 529, even if it was only a little bit, it could’ve grown. Money invested early grew a lot, unlike the money in the savings that just basically sat.
So it’s not really a “would do college” differently, but more “would do saving for college” differently.
Your comments are totally what I had in mind when I created the thread. Come back, if you want.
I mean, if ds1 had stayed in-state, he probably would’ve gotten a degree in something business-y, like logistics. Maybe he’d gotten a job at a multinational company and lived on another continent instead of in another state. We can’t ever know, right? His BIL is married and living in Denmark. Whenever I feel sorry for myself I think of how it could be worse.
I am going back and forth on whether I have any regrets about my kids’ college choices. Our DS was not a very strong student, and it was very difficult for him to graduate from high school and a state college. He didn’t use his degree at all. However, he is extremely successful in a field that doesn’t require a degree—he runs his own web marketing company and is doing very well financially.
Our DD was voted ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ in high school. She was accepted to every college she applied to, including a few Ivy League schools. She ended up attending the #1 university for science and technology, with us fully covering the cost. In her field, the prestige of the university she graduated from is not critical, but it still opens doors for her. Financially, it took her just a little over a year to earn in salary what we paid for her four years of tuition.
However, another factor we didn’t consider at the time was that attending such a prestigious university allowed her to be accepted as an equal among intellectual elites. Her partner’s family has four generations of graduates from a top Ivy League university. People in their social circle include top politicians, journalists, and lawyers. While this may not have been the primary reason they got together, it certainly helped.
We started 529 early and used that and current income to pay for college for our 2. To me the most important thing you can give your child is an education. (I didn’t say they had to go to college).
Just wished maybe we put more money in so we didn’t have to use so much of our current income. We have nice retirements in our profit sharing for our business but it’s never going to be enough especially the way the world is.
But both kids got merits. So somehow we have a decent chunk of 529 left and my son is forfeiting his portion since he feels he’s good financially and he wants his sister to use it for grad school. Sometimes your kids surprise you.
I probably wouldn’t of been such a helicopter parent. I caused stress when I didn’t need to.
Both are launched and have actually been paying their own bills with minor assistance since college.
I regret not setting up a weekly FaceTime call with our oldest when he was in college. We did it with our other two sons and as a result are much more closely in touch with them.
THAT is something with which I struggle! I want to hear from ds1 and his wife more often, but I vacillate between asking for what I want and seeming too needy. And then, lo and behold, they call last night on their way back from a happy hour and we talked a long time, including making plans for the holiday already.
And just now, I texted the boys about some business, and they texted back that they are on the phone with each other! Man, does that make my mama heart happy.
Anyway, I think dh thinks that if they lived close to us all would be sunshine and roses. I’m not so sure, but his sister has her boys over for Sunday dinner every week, and we both are a little jealous of that.
For younger S, not really. The only thing I wished is that we knew about the full scholarship deadline at JMU earlier. It had passed by the time he applied for the school. He did wind up with 50% off tuition and that was great for us. But he applied to the schools that made sense to him and got into all 4. JMU was perfect for him. I am so proud of how he matured and grew up. He was my kid who said every day school was stupid from about 1st grade to high school. He loved college and wound up top of his class in his major, and is living a wonderful life right now.
Older S - he wound up at a great school for him. I wished I knew now what I knew then about the application process. Ironically I didn’t find CC until after younger S had received all his results. I was trying to find info on the Madison scholarship amount lol. But I think I could have helped older S package himself better and maybe would have nudged one of his Ivy waitlists to accepted. And I also never knew the NPC existed! I relied on the tables that said if you make in X range then you will pay Y. Duke was off by $10-15K which was enough to make it unaffordable to us. But as I said, he wound up in the right place for him with a great full tuition scholarship and had done well after school. So no real regrets either.
I soooo get this!! Do you know how happy I am that younger S and GF -when relocating to their new city - chose to move into older S/FIL’s apartment building?!
I was a SAHM, had the downside of really not having any extra $, but not the benefit of any financial aid. We were not planning on having so many kids, even when they were in school I still had to deal with illnesses, appointments etc. x5. It helped that I could cook meals every night, clean, do laundry, shop etc. without any help. Then my mom passed so I became my dad’s caregiver, running his household, appointments etc. H had a 10 year salary freeze, got a position with a much better annual bonus the year before #1 went to college, so our leanest years were pre fafsa.
I dont know if we’d do anything differently. Family members think we’re nuts for sending our kids to out of state colleges rather than our cheaper state universities. The way we look at is we can leave our kids money when we’re dead or give it to them to pay for college (if that’s what they want…which they did).
We were a bit of helicopter parents when they were younger but have lengthened the leash as they got older and they now seem to make decent decisions and typical but not life altering mistakes.
I’d be less worried about what other people thought about D’s decision to forgo applying to our alma mater and the reachy schools we visited and she hated.
I’d have checked Blackboard less and relaxed more about classes, schedule, and grades.
I would have been more flexible when D wanted to change activities without so much angst and worry about “how it would look” to colleges.
I would have started saving earlier. We were able to afford our daughters colleges with very small student loans, but if we’d been more financially savvy, they wouldn’t have had to take any and our personal costs would have been less.
Sometimes I think I should have encouraged my oldest to attend one of our large state colleges instead of her seven sisters college so that she’d have a larger number of majors to choose from. Her major has low odds for being lucrative and she’s struggling a bit. But SHE’S happy with her school choice so I guess that’s all that matters.
Once D got to college, the other issue was all the extras that had associated costs. Societies, the sorority, alternative spring break…it really added up. I wish I had asked more questions about some of the activities. It was a lot to keep up with.
I didn’t realize how much we didn’t know with our first. We would have been in real trouble if I hadn’t figured things out financially before 2 and 3. Thanks CC! We benefitted greatly from financial aid and got savvier about it and what made sense for our family. Thanks Robber Barons! I hated having the girls 3000 miles away during college and we couldn’t afford many cross-county trips but they did well. And now I have 2 living in the same metropolitan area as we do and one only 600 miles away!
In the past 30 years, we paid for 2 undergrad degrees, 4 masters’, and 3 doctorates. Some were partially or fully funded with scholarships. Do we regret this? Nope. Although we could have bought a personal tropical island with those $$ had we invested them in some high flying stocks.
I do not think that I would do anything differently.
We set a solid budget and insisted that our daughters stick with it. This did rule out a few schools, including a couple that our older daughter was accepted to that were over budget (ironically she later switched to a major they don’t have), and a few our younger daughter just didn’t apply to because the likelihood of being affordable was very low.
We were a big cautious about the specified budget, which turned out to be a good thing (for example this allows us to help with graduate school expenses). As @sabaray has very correctly noted, there are extra costs that seem to show up.
Both daughters largely drove the process of applying to schools, found a university that was a good fit for them, that had a good program at least in whatever major they ended up with, and that fit the budget. They both did well.
Then they both ended up at very good graduate programs (where they are right now, one in her first year and one in her last year).
