If you have kids now. save 500K for college.

[werepossum]

House prices in CA are not the norm. $300k will get you a very nice home in most of the country.

Buy the house now; take out a 15 year mortgage. Instead of a college fund, give your kids a house when they graduate. Not only will they have the title to their own home about 30 years before most of their friends, but according to you they'll have a few hundred grand in equity as well.

Again, anyone thinking about putting aside $300k+ in a college fund needs a basic lesson in math and finances. At some point, the cost/benefit ratio of going to college doesn't make sense anymore.

Doesn't that really depend on the child and the skill set though? If one has the money to spare and one's child is going into medical school, setting aside that $300k+ is a pretty good thing. As long as you don't put it into the child's name, if the child is not mature enough to make the grades and get the education then buy yourself a Ferrari.

 

[mect]

While I'm not familiar with the causes behind tuition increases at private universities, at many public schools tuition increases are necessary to offset decreases in state funding. While I'm sure there is a wide range of situations, at many schools funding from the state has been decreasing in terms of raw dollars (not even adjusted for inflation) for the past 20-30 years. At the same time, many of these schools have increases in the number of students, and therefore increases in the number of faculty, and also increases in the cost of benefits due to the increasing costs of healthcare, and tuition has to go up. All the money these days goes to k-12 education, and its leaving the universities in a hard situation.

 

[stlc8tr]

Again, anyone thinking about putting aside $300k+ in a college fund needs a basic lesson in math and finances. At some point, the cost/benefit ratio of going to college doesn't make sense anymore.

You could make that argument now. College is already expensive. Stanford or any of the Ivy's are already $250K-ish (or more). Having that double in 18 years is not totally out of line.