Hellobee Boards

@caffeinated: I work in higher ed in Canada and most universities that I know of offer free or discounted tuition to children of staff and faculty. At my workplace, our children would receive a 50% discount. At another local campus, their policy is to pay 100% of tuition for dependents of faculty/staff, and if the dependent goes to school at another institution, they will give them the equivalent of their tuition to put toward the other institution's fees.

@Thehistoryofus: Maryland has a prepaid program and we just did it for our LO. Basically we paid what the average tuition is of the state universities here this year, so then no matter how much tuition goes up, we won't have to pay any more. It only covers tuition though, so we have a separate college fund to cover room and board, etc. And if LO decides to go to a private college, then they will give him whatever the average MD state tuition is the year he starts college.

There are a few options for how you pay it. You can either pay the full lump sum ($40k for four years), which we did, or you can pay it over 5, 10, or however many years, but you wind up paying less if you just pay it all up front.

But yeah, college is crazy expensive and I wish I went to less expensive school! Art school was not worth the crazy amount of loans. I also think for certain professions college is going to wind up not being necessary.

I expect my child(ren) to have scholarships to cover a large portion. That was the route I went and my 5 year degree (accounting requires 150 hours in order to sit for the CPA exam) cost about $10,000 out of pocket, the majority of which was covered by a 529 plan (my grandfather left money to me when he passed, specifically for my education). Books were paid for by some scholarship money but I always bought used from other students or traded. I also didn't live on campus... So I'm hoping to use some of these strategies when my kiddo(s) head off to college. We plan on opening a 529 plan as soon as LO is born, and funding maybe $40,000 over 18 years, but I really expect LO to cover a portion through scholarships and student loans.