Hey everyone. Quick background, I am Class of '05 with three kids, current ages 5, 3, and 1. I contribute $150 per child each month into 529 accounts which invest in target funds based on their ages. Obviously the market is volatile recently, but my accounts don't seem to be doing much. With college cost projections for 12-15 years from now looking ridiculous, I'm afraid my savings will hardly make a dent.

So I'm curious what other parents with young kids are doing to save for college. Do any of you use the Texas Tuition Promise Fund or other pre-payment plans? I don't seem to hear much about them, but they seem like a good deal.

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated!

Bernie

Yeah, Bernie in charge would bankrupt the country by the time his kids reach 10. Hope this is sarcastic.

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Yeah, Bernie in charge would bankrupt the country by the time his kids reach 10. Hope this is sarcastic.

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I'm a small business owner and want to remain in business, so I'll let you decide.

Sorry to distract from the topic btw.

Yeah well, Bernie wants to make it free for everybody. That sounds great, I'm sure everything will go just perfectly for my kids with that plan.

Anyway, back on topic. What should we do if a legitimate candidate actually wins the election? Oh wait...

Also class of '05 but with 2 kids, 2 and <1. We contribute $150 a month to each of their 529 plans and started each with $2500 at opening (I use South Carolina's because of the income tax deduction). I hope to be able to sustain that with more kids. If I can't I pan to reduce the monthly contribution at similar ages so that the contributions over time are as equal for each kid as I can manage.

There is a private college 529 plan (PC529) which seems to work by building up semester credits for private schools which participate in the plan. It doesn't really make sense to me unless you're set on pushing your kids into one of those schools. My parents were one of the early participants in the Texas Tomorrow Fund but that was frozen after tuition was deregulated. Luckily they were able to transfer it into my sister's name since I had some scholarships.

I don't have aspirations of fully funding my kids' college with the way costs are going up, especially if they go the small Catholic school route like my wife's family did. It will be up to them to cover remaining costs by scholarship/loans/grandparents.

Currently have all of our investments with Fidelity and I enrolled in the UNIQUE 529 for our son. We put a few thousand to start and now contribute $50 per month, or as our budget allows. Grandparents kick in some every so often. We definitely do not expect to fully pay their way but would like to give them a chance to pay the rest working through school.

We use the Utah Education Savings Program (UESP) for almost all of our clients. Low fees, excellent investments, what more do you need? Alternatively the Nevada 529 through Vanguard is a good option too.

Whatever you do, don't buy an 'advisor-sold' plan that many states offer.

Uesp here. Kids are 4 & 3. Happy with it.

Another one for UESP. Kids are 4.5 and 1.5. Been putting in for a bit over a year for bothe of them.

Another vote for UESP. Two 2-yr olds. Throwing in about $200/mo and plan to increase contributions each year. We'll see what that adds up to when the time comes.

We did Utah and supplemented with TX Tuition credits. The ROI in the TX tuition credits has been almost 16%. We used it as a pseudo FI asset allocation. We do $500/month (125 a week) for each, and then buy $2000 in credits per year lump sum. We are on track to be fully payed for with excess for post grad.

have been on Utah's UESP for 9 years now...

It came down to Utah and Iowa for us, both of which come highly recommended by Clark Howard.

What's the advantage to just opening up a very small interest savings account and contributing $x a month instead of a 529 plan?

Utah here as well.

Tax free growth if used for educational expenses. If not, 10% penalty to withdraw.

I haven't looked into. Is it a pain to roll your money over into a different 529? Say you are with Utah now but want to switch to Vanguard or vice versa?

Not hard at all as long as the owner and beneficiary remain the same.

UESP allows you to do the whole process online.

Opened a 529 for both my boys soon after they were born (1995 & 99), believe it was Smith Barney back then,
it's Morgan Stanley now.
I pretty much put in $100/acct/month for all these year other a span of about 4 years where I put in $200/month.
Oldest son graudated from HS in 14 and will be transferring to A&M in fall 16.
So far I have used approx. $6000 of the fund tor WCJC tuition and books and hoping I can stretch his next 2 years and have enough for my second son to go the same route. 2 years living at home going to WCJC then transferring into A&M.
At the peak I was right at $53K, pretty sure it will go alot faster once they both move away to CS but I sure would hate to be staring 8 years of college tuition and expenses in the face without the head start we had.
I think I can manage whatever we are short once the youngest is finishing up.
Best piece of advice my Dad every gave me and helped me to open.

Should have mentioned that I hedged by buying into Texas Tuition Promise as well. Should be interesting to compare the performance of both over time.

The other complication is that I'm now in CO, so no guarantee that my kids end up at a Texas college. But there's a decent chance of it...

Just curious if anyone else is doing anything similar to our plan for our kids. We will offer them the following agreement:

• Unless they have scholarships, they will be doing JUCO the first 2 years, then transfer to a public university (A&M preferrably, of course).
• They will use student loans, scholarships/grants/etc. to pay for their own college.
• If they graduate, then we will pay off their student loans for them.
• If they do not graduate, they are on the hook for their student loans.
• They will have a max of 5 years to graduate with a STEM degree - 4 years for some other worthless degree.
• If they take longer to graduate, they are on the hook for whatever extra time it takes them to graduate.

Basically, an incentive to finish school in a timely manner, so we don't end up spending thousands of dollars for nothing if they don't graduate.


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Wow. That's tough.

When you pay for their student loans the Govt will have a field day with your gift tax.

So if your kid got into Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton's business school, but didn't get a scholarship, you'd tell them to pound sand and go to a TX CC? I'm sorry, but that is asinine.

Just had a little one recently and started looking at this...why are so many with the Utah plan vs others?

Have a 2 year old, and another on the way.

Doing Texas Tuition Promise for both (Tier 1, 4 year); have the first paid off and saving for the second. Hope to pay off shortly after he is born. This has been a big financial goal for me and my wife.

Set up a separate 529 for expenses. Contribute $150 per month.

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So if your kid got into Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton's business school, but didn't get a scholarship, you'd tell them to pound sand and go to a TX CC? I'm sorry, but that is asinine.

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Of course not, but I would explain to them that there is no way in hell I can afford to send them to any of those schools. I am dealing in reality here, not fantasy.

If they want their college paid for by me, then they have the options I can afford. If they want another option, they will have to figure out how to afford it.

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my plan is to do everything i can to support their ability to get into a great school, major in something that sets them up for financial stability, and graduate in 5 years or less with little to no debt. that is what my parents did and i am extremely grateful.

i think the idea to force them to JUCO is somewhat misguided. i get what you're trying to do there but i think there is a chance that's going to be very counter-productive. also my employer is going to be disappointed to learn that my finance degree is worthless, that sucks.

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I am not forcing them into CC. I am offering them what I can afford, realisitically. If they want to go to a university for Freshman/Sophomore years, they will have to be able to make up the difference via scholarships/grants/etc.

And no, I obviously don't think a Finance/Business/etc. degree is worthless. I meant if they want to do something truly worthless like Art History or something.

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When you pay for their student loans the Govt will have a field day with your gift tax.

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Gift tax only applies to anything over $15k/year right now. I expect it will be higher by the time my kids finish school. Obviously I would spread out the payoff of the student loan to avoid that.

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Just curious if anyone else is doing anything similar to our plan for our kids. We will offer them the following agreement:

• Unless they have scholarships, they will be doing JUCO the first 2 years, then transfer to a public university (A&M preferrably, of course).
• They will use student loans, scholarships/grants/etc. to pay for their own college.
• If they graduate, then we will pay off their student loans for them.
• If they do not graduate, they are on the hook for their student loans.
• They will have a max of 5 years to graduate with a STEM degree - 4 years for some other worthless degree.
• If they take longer to graduate, they are on the hook for whatever extra time it takes them to graduate.

Basically, an incentive to finish school in a timely manner, so we don't end up spending thousands of dollars for nothing if they don't graduate.


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My plan is to see what their interests and strengths are, and help them achieve goals that would be inline with those interests and strengths. Then I'll do everything in my power to help them get a step ahead, be it financially or otherwise. They should each have $100k or so by the time it's college time for them. I assume they'll have scholarships of some sort. I won't hand hold them or just hand them cash, but I won't lay out a plan that I want for them. My dad helped me and I worked through college, and I ended up leaving with $0 debt, which put me way ahead. I'll help my kids in the same way, and hope they end up better than I did.