I’ve stopped contributing to my daughters’ 529 plans

How is you net worth much greater? So at college time, you had maybe $1M in 401k and a house worth $500k and no other savings. How did it go from that to $6M or $8M a few years later. Maybe you had your children very young I guess. Other than that, it doesn't add up. You always get emotional and condescending when most of us truly being calm and factual.

[sigh]

I owned my own business, and my wife was away from working for 15 years while she was a stay-at-home mom.

While she was NOT working, I built up the business to an acceptable income level and work level on my part. I started the business to work LESS, not to make more money. For the much of the time I ran the business, I worked 30 hours per week, paring that down to half that the last 10 years or so, and then retiring last month at age 55. When my oldest started college, my wife was a half-time professor. However, full-time tenured professors at the 4-year university she works for do not make $200,000, and many of them make just over $120,000 or so MAX. She is not tenured and will not be as she wants to profess for just 5 more years, so she doesn't even make that. Being a college professor is her second career. She began her working life with the Federal Government working for Tony Fauci at the NIH. Neither of us cared to chase big money. We just invested a ton of what we made and worked only as much as we wanted to. We are in Ohio after all where the cost of living is not bad.

Your assumption is wrong in all kinds of ways. For one thing, my house today isn't even worth $500,000. When I was paying for the mortgage (we own it outright now), our total per month including taxes was under $1,000. Our net worth is in our investment accounts (retirement and otherwise).

We started investing in 1989. Half of our income for the first 7 years of our marriage and then averaged over 25% of our income since then.

Good information. Makes sense.

You didn't explain how your net worth went from a relatively small amount at the time your kids went to college to an amount of say $6M today. Now that you state that your house isn't worth a great deal, you had only maybe $200k in equity at college time plus $1M in 401k? And you put down posters who had several million $. What do you expect people to do with their money if they are maxing out retirement accounts and buying cars for cash and paid off their house? Telling them to just throw money away is bad advice.

I never said what my net worth was when my oldest went to college. You don't have the total net worth high enough for today either. I have never told people to throw money away.

My situation is real. Some people have peobably even figured out who I am. I enjoy discussing this topic because it is a sore spot for me. The Ivies punish people like me who chose to save while they reward those who did not. Flagpole and and a few other always recommend that people like me not save, but what else is there to do with significant wealth if already maxing out retirement accounts? The house was updated and paid off. I am not going to purchase a piece of artwork or a yacht. I will always assume that my children came out ahead with the money/assets rather than having spent it on an Ivy. My oldest got her first job earning $100k and she will have $300k of assets once I complete the transfer of the remainder. The next two children will hopefully land similar paying jobs and will be in a similar situation. I have no way of knowing if the decision was better because I don't have a time machine or crystal ball. But the 3rd option that would have required me to spend the money, seems like the worst of the three.

If you are maxing out retirement accounts, you have thrown all the money you can to either pay off the house or do necessary repairs/updates to it, and you have bought all the vehicles and other big ticket items you NEED or just really want without being frivolous, and you STILL have tons of cash sitting around, then go ahead and pay $70,000+ per year to send a kid to college. That was not my situation. My net worth came from investing, not a large income. My brother makes $1 million a year. They own two houses. He paid cash for his oldest to go to college and now does that for the second one. He can EASILY afford to do so.

Your situation was either different than most, OR you made a bad decision to save for college.

What was your household income when your kids were in college? Could your kids even have gotten into an Ivy League school? Lots of people like to think so, but it is not easy and not guaranteed to anyone.

The Ivies aren't punishing anyone for saving. That's what people get for not researching how this all works. They look at ability to pay based on income and non-retirement savings. Period. If you saved a ton to try to pay for an Ivy League education, well then, that's on you.

No you didn't but you said you had no cash or savings outside of retirement accounts. You also said your house is not worth a great deal. So even if maxing out retirement accounts, your net worth wouldn't have been above $2M at that time but somehow is now $10M? Why not just lay it out? This isn't meant to be controversial. Some people with similar incomes were able to accumulate so much more wealth before their kids went to college. I don't understand how you did not but you did after the kids went to college. I assume you learned as you matured. Most people do.

This is hilarious. The guy never had household income above $210K and his net worth is $4 million and flagpole is bragging that he made even less money and has a net worth much higher than $4 million. Good stuff.

You really seem to not fully read things that others post. I have one graduated and two in college. Income was about $210k when the 1st one started college. We maxed out our 401k accounts. You said you put a large amount in but did not say you maxed it out. We paid off our house which is worth more than yours. We have new cars and bought new cars for the children. In additin to all of that, we had $900k. All three children were National Merit Finalists. Two had 35 ACTs and one had a 36. All three were recruited by the Ivies althought the third not as heavily after the first two did not choose them. There were many more top academic schools that recruited them. I recall the call with Coach Vigilante questioning her decision to reject Princeton's financial aid offer. They literally offered her a discount of $2k!

Yes the Ivies punish savers and reward spenders.

I am late to the discussion. Did Flagpole mention his slip and fall at Walmart?

Yep, and as such, you were smart to send them to cheaper state schools and give them the financial head start rather than paying full price for the brand diploma.

Unethical, “brother.” You played the system, congratulations. Not everyone is in a position to do so, and, even if they were, they wouldn’t choose to. Like me. I’m not going to go buy a 3 million dollar house and spend or hide all of my liquid net worth just so my kid’s diploma can say Penn or Amherst on it. Simply not worth it.

The point is you COULD HAVE afforded your daughter’s entire college bill, but that’s for someone else to pay, if not the college’s endowment then the government through grants. Typical liberal mindset.

Let me put it this way. There is a good, private school where we live that has a “pledge” to instate students at certain tiers of income. We are above the top tier and therefore eligible for nothing. I spoke to both their admissions department and financial aid office about a theoretical situation where we only made $1000 per year over the top line. They told me, sorry, it’s a hard and fast pledge. Even after I told them about my neighbor. Even after I told them about my daughter’s boyfriend, who is fourth generation Hispanic, went to a private school, and the parents have multiple nice homes and gave the kids nice, shiny new cars at 16. The kids even have blonde hair & blue eyes because of the mom’s Scandinavian heritage. But they wrote their essays about how difficult it was growing up as mixed race children. They got admitted to a fairy elite school w a nice “Hispanic” scholarship. Just ridiculous.

But, most are unethical and willing to play the game. You see, I’m not. There is nothing smart about it.

By the way, every Ivy League grad my wife and I have encountered or been in a position to vet for a job or promotion are either not good at getting along with others or incompetent because they are so beholden to the theoretical framework the Ivies inculcated in their brains. This made our decision for our children easy. A brand name is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Seriously. Just look at Rojo

Rojo no one cares what you have to say about money. You get thousands of dollars a week from a trust fund.

That describes some of the registered posters on LetsRun.