25
Planning For College While Your Kid Is In Diapers
I don’t care what career my child has when he grows up. He can be any kind of lawyer he wants to be.
I’m kidding. Really. I truly don’t care what career my child chooses when he grows up, as long as it brings him joy and fulfillment…and doesn’t harm anyone in the process. What I do care about is that he gets an education. Going to college will be something that I expect my child to do when he grows up, no matter what career he is interested in pursuing. It does not matter if he is Bill Gates, Jr. or some sort of celebrity child-star (not if I can help it), I will be disappointed if my kid does not graduate from a 4-year university.
In anticipation of my future college graduate, I’m planning now because I know first-hand how difficult it can be when there isn’t a college nest egg waiting for you. My parents struggled to put three kids through college and it certainly didn’t help that, at one point, all three of us were in college at the same time. Knowing that I would be responsible for some of my college and living expenses, I worked from my sophomore year of high school and all through college. I graduated high school nearly a year early, which allowed me to work almost full-time while taking classes at my local junior college. Once I transferred to a 4-year college, I continued to work just as hard. By my senior year, I was working 30 hours a week while trying to maintain my GPA and some semblance of a normal college social life. It was a huge challenge, to say the least.
That’s not the end of my story.
Although we managed to get through college without much debt, my sister, brother, and myself all went on to graduate school. Our parents, both of whom have graduate degrees as well, encouraged us to seek further education…with the understanding that we would have to cover all expenses on our own. Between the the three of us, we have 12 years of graduate school under our belts. Needless to say, we all have a great deal of school debt and two of us married people with school debt as well. Years after I graduated from my last MA program and the Dude graduated from law school we still owe tens of thousands of dollars. As we’re saving money each month for our child to go to college, even more money is withdrawn to go towards our school debt. Between our mortgage, car payments, and raising and investing in our child, the school debt will not be paid off anytime soon.
I do not want my child to have this kind of debt. The only thing I want my kid to worry about while he is in college is getting good grades and whether or not that cute girl in class will go out with him.
We set up a 529 College Savings Plan for our son last year and we now automatically deposit a set amount into the account each month. When grandparents or other family members want to buy him a gift for special occasions, we request that they donate to his college fund instead. The Monkey won’t care about those really cute t-shirts or toys when he is 18. He has enough of that stuff already. What he will care about is whether or not we can afford to send him to college. By the time he leaves our nest, we expect to be able to fully afford his tuition and all living expenses. And if he decides to go on to graduate school, we hope to pay for that as well.
Need more info on 529 College Savings Plans? There is a lot of information out there, but I find the website Keeping College Within Reach to be one of the best resources for college savings plans. Skip the pricey slings, expensive baby clothes and toys, and the designer diaper bags. This is what matters when it comes to spending money on your children. It will be one of the best investments of your life.
and thankfully an unused RESP can be rolled into mine or my husband’s RRSP minus any contributions made by the gov’t.