re: Cost of college projections are scary

The huge increases in Cost of attendance is due to a great number of factors. Lower public funds being made available, growing bureaucracy, increases luxuries/amenities available and general inflation in spending habits on food etc


Lower Public Funds- If you look at the current $ value increases since 1980 of public vs private, public schools saw increases in costs of 7-8x since 1980 compared to private schools which is around 2x. This would be a solid representation of the lower $ amount provided from public/state funding


I used to have an excel spreadsheet with every Auburn University employee's salary. You would be shocked that ehre are positions like "Associate Provost of Women's Initiatives" that get paid in excess of 300k per year. What is worse is no girl/"woman" I have spoken to knows the position exists nor what the position does. She gets paid a lot for doing effing nothing



The luxuries and amenities available are the building of new dormitories, dining facilities and rec centers for students. This "arms race" to provide the best living accommodations is huge at schools and driving up the price.

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GoIrish02

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This is what I was going to post. The system is already starting to crack - and it's cracking in the insanely high priced yet not exactly a brand name private college market - which Loyola of NO and Spring Hill are in.

My parents didn't save any money for college for me. I didn't go to a private school, and a combination of scholarships and loans are how I funded it. I'll be paying on those loans for a while.

That's sort of the philosophy I have with my kids. Tuition rates can only stay so high if there are loans, etc available. Otherwise, no one will be able to afford to go.

The cost of college projections are scary for my kids and there's no way in hell I can afford to $125,000 or so for each kid and fund my retirement accounts as well. My wife and I chose to fund our retirement accounts and save whatever we can for our kids' college needs. We project that we might have $40-50K per child.

My kids are only 9 and 5, but I'm trying to teach them early to work hard and do well in school so when the time comes during high school, they will already have this work ethic inside of them to perform when it actually counts to securing a scholarship. If they want to be able to go to any college of their choice, they better work hard in school to get a scholarship. They will have only a limited amount of funds from us to contribute towards their college education.

Both my wife and I attended undergrad and came out of it without any loan debt due to having scholarships. I also had a part time job and my parents helped me with living expenses with my off campus apartment. We came out of undgrad without any debt and we're preparing our kids to do the same. Whether or not they do it is up to them. We can't do the work for them. So far they are responding well, especially my 9 year old.

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My wife and I chose to fund our retirement accounts and save whatever we can for our kids' college needs

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I've heard several financial experts say this: You can always borrow for college, but it's much harder to borrow for retirement.

Where ever they want hopefully

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I'm more worried about paying for high school than college

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A-rated public education where I live. One of the reasons why I live where I live. I didn't want to have to send my kids to private school when I already pay taxes for public school. We just chose to move to an area with good public schools instead of paying "twice" for our kids to go to school.

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I have a feeling straight line projections won't be very accurate. My guess is there will be a tuition collapse soon. I don't see how it can sustain this rise in cost. It will be something like 40 straight years of absurd increases at that point.

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I would tend to agree. Something is going to happen, the increase is unsustainable, especially since most of that tuition increases is funneled to administration activities/nice facilities, and not the actual education.

What we need to see is the gov't stop offering financial aid for things like english, or comparative literature. First two years you can get financial aide for anything, 2nd two years you have to pay for it yourself unless its something where you can pay back your loans.

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And actual attendance/fees per semester is only $4,975 at Alabama.

Auburn is $5,100/semester.

Auburn ties in your estimated car/fuel/room/board/books/fees and personal expenses to reach their $29k

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Precisely. I've put one through college (Christopher Newport University) and have one currently in college (Old Dominion University) with the first one going back to graduate school (George Mason University) and my costs have not approached those given in this thread.

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I'm not sure of the high school costs here but elementary is running me about 6k a year

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That's about right for the BR area.

Grades 6-12 generally runs $7-15 annually.

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My son's apartment cost is $425 a month for his share plus about $60 more for utilities and satellite and internet. We chip in $150 a month for food

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So that's $635 a month on "board" that would be covered by 529 funds. 9 months (2 semesters) = $5700.

$10,000 tuition/fees
$5,700 room/board
$1,200 books

$17,000 total per year, $68,000 for four years.

17 years from now, that will be $53,000 and $215,000. Better, but I still won't get there.

Here's hoping things change.