What is your college saving goal?

[disneysteve]

We seem to be staying on the college topic this week, so let's talk money.

How much, in dollars, not just percentages, are you shooting to save?

We've got a 529 for DD. We started with, I think $200/month. Then we raised it to $400/month and I just cut it back to $300/month this month. DD is 12 and we've got about 25K in the account. I'm really not sure how much to plan on accumulating in the account. We have no other children so if we overfund the account, we'll have to pay the penalties to withdraw the excess (unless DD goes to grad school).

If she goes to a state school, we'll need considerably less than if she goes to a private school. That makes picking a target amount nearly impossible so I'm curious how everyone else is handling the issue.

[Hot dog]

I have saved about 30,000 so far and I have two kids one is a senior and the other a junior. Needless to say it worries me to death how I am going to be able to afford college for both. I didn't know anything about education IRAs or anything like that when they were growing up. If anyone has any suggestions for me I would really appreciate it. My kids go to a private school and they have no guidance counselors so it is up to the parents I am totally lost and scared to death. I have gone to a financial aide class and i don't think I will qualify. Looks like I have money but I have a huge mortgage because when we moved our other house didn't sell so we rent which gives us more income even though most goes to pay mortgage on that house.

[pearlieq]

Assuming we ever produce an actual child, we're shooting save approximately $75k/child in today's dollars. That would be adjusted slightly assuming kids won't come along for another couple of years.

From a quick run through a bankrate.com calculator, that's about $240 per month, per child assuming a 6% overall return. Of course, the calculator is only planning on 2.5% inflation, which underpaces college cost increases significantly. So it would proabably need to be a bit more.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I have on clue. I guess $10k upon birth and $2k/annually. That's about what I'm guessing.

[Thrif-t]

We have 3 kids and we're so far behind, just opened up 529's 2 years ago have about 4k for each kid :-(..they're 12, 10 & 7 no clue on the dollars. We're going to do the best we can and hope we can at least pay for 2 years for each of them. We're really pushing them to take college classes while they're seniors in high school to at least get one year free. We'll have our house paid off before the oldest goes so that'll free up 800/mo to help.

[moneybags]

I have 2 kids, 11 & 14. I'm shooting for around $70K for #1 and a bit less for #2 in college funds, but these numbers aren't in stone. We fund their 529s on a sporadic basis, but this goal is within reach. I plan on funding 100% of their education (that's a debate for another thread), but I don't want to overfund the education accounts. There are so many variables that it is hard to pick a number. In my ideal world #1 gets a scholarship and some of her funds are left for #2. The scholarship option is never in my financial plans, but it would be a great bonus

[feh]

My son is 8, and we're planning on having about $60K for him for school. The money is already set aside - it's just a matter of it growing over the next 10 years.

How did we come to that number? We figured it was about 60-70% of the total he'd need to attend a very good local public university. We don't want to fund him 100% - we want him to be partially responsible for getting through college.

If he were to choose a private school, then he'd need to provide much more money on his own.

So, that's our approach - we're willing to help, but we're not about to pay his bills regardless of how long it takes to graduate or where he chooses to go.

[Tree0164]

We are putting $100 a month away for each child. Whatever it grows to it grows too-after that they are on their own with loans etc.

[Scanner]

I have 2 sons, 10 and 5 and one on the way. . .I'd like to save 33% of college costs, which is about $40,000, the way I figure.

I was brainstorming on this the other day, with the family who has kids paying off their debt. . .but I don't want to hijack this thread. . . I'll post an idea later to see what you think extended family's role is in college.

[KellyB]

My son is 16 and when he was about 6 my ex and I bought a Florida Prepaid Plan for college, so his tuition is paid in full if he goes to a FL school. If he goes to a school outside of FL they'll pay whatever FL's average tuition is to the other school. In addition, I am hoping to save around $20K to help pay for room and board, etc. Expecting my ex to kick in the same amount, but who knows. The rest will be up to the kid to pay in loans, work study, jobs, etc. Hopefully he will be able to get through with less than $10K in loans, we'll see.

[nanamom]

When our adoption was finalized we started a fund for his college and will do the same with hers hopefully next month. We can only put aside 50.00 a month per child but we hope it will grow so that it helps a bit. Without interest we will have about 9000.00 for each of them. We have it invested in a fund that isn't earning alot but at least we aren't investing in stuff we don't believe in.