seattle prattle wrote:
True that.
But as a slightly different approach, I believe i posted earlier, at least some schools, my son's included, allows payment of all four years as one upfront lump sum payment, thereby locking in this year's tuition rate for the duration of the four years. That is like locking in a 3.5 to 4% rate of return (the usual rate of tuition increases each year) in so doing. Yes, that is less than one might make in the market, but it is not subject to chance nor market fluctuations - it is guaranteed, done, locked in.
This is for tuition and room and board only.
Sounds like a good deal to me.
As a follow-up now that tuition payments for the fall semester are due or even past-due, I found out that the pre-payment option for tuition and mandatory fees becomes tricky if you plan on using a 529 account to do it with. My reading of the regulations led me to the conclusion that you basically cannot, except for the current semester. If anyone approached this differently, i would be interested to hear about it.