Assuming you’re American you are really screwing then over by not paying for college. The FAFSA assumes a parental contribution. It’s not just other parents, but the federal government and all the colleges themselves that have the expectation that you will contribute.
There’s no exemption for “I want to teach my kids financial responsibility”. If you’re high income your children will be ineligible for any financial aid and have few options for funding their own education.
The problem was they never factor in the single mom with 3 kids, she made "enough" that I qualified for less grants, but she still had 2 other kids to raise and also help put through college since we were only a couple years apart.
The FAFSA is such a crappy measuring stick for college affordability. I ended up having to make up the difference with loans, now it wouldn't be feasible.
They can choose to go to very good public universities with in state tuition (often around $10-12k per year). We can sit down and discuss the tradeoffs of the degree they are getting vs the earning power of that degree. And the tradeoffs between being a commuter student and one that lives on campus. Or saving money by attending community college the first two years.
NONE of those conversations will happen if I struggle to save 200k per kid and they simply don’t understand the concept of having to pay that back somewhere. Or ever think about whether a particular degree has any real value.
This is part of the problem with just going along with the high fees and running that rat race.
I don’t have time to look up tuitions for each state, but that’s highly dependent on where you chose to live. Something that your children have no control over.
I certainly did not have a “very good public university” with $10k tuition. My state flagship (Rutgers) was over $20k per year. Other states public universities were often even more expensive, Berkeley would have cost more than any private university I was accepted to.
If you live somewhere like CA, Texas, or Michigan then more power to you, your kids should have great options. But it’s not advice that transfers. And again, the government is of the position that that 40-60k is your responsibility. I don’t agree with the way higher education is managed either but you’re not opting out of it, your just passing the costs to your kids.
Annual in-state Tuitions (not counting room/board, so roughly 2x-2.5x if you add these) for a handful of VERY good public universities:
- University of Maryland, College Park ~ $10k a year [1]
- University of California, Los Angeles ~ $15k a year [2]
- University of Pennsylvania, WOW $56k ... that's .... CRAZY for a public University.
Obviously this is not at all a good sample size but I picked public universities in populous areas in states that cover a lot of the population. And I'm picking better known ones. Someone else probably has a lot of good, statistical data on this, like the US Gov Department of Education.
There's always the Post-9/11 GI Bill. 36 months of tuition at the most expensive in-state rate in whatever state you attend school in plus Basic Allowance for Housing equal to an E5 with dependents is quite good.
There’s no exemption for “I want to teach my kids financial responsibility”. If you’re high income your children will be ineligible for any financial aid and have few options for funding their own education.