My oldest is 15. I will highly encourage him to go the IU-Indianapolis route and stick here at the house the first few years at the very least. Having a $120,000 debt for a state school is an anchor that will take forever to get out from under. You can greatly reduce those costs by eliminating room and board costs.We just got our numbers for IU undergrad next year. It’s now over $31k instate. Federal student loans are capped at $5,500 a year. We got $0 in aid under the new FAFSA formula. The 529 will be depleted in 2 years.
Now that the FAFSA formula does not consider how many kids you have in college at the same time, I’m not sure what the hell I’m gonna do when I have 2 in a couple years. Writing checks for $50k each year seems untenable.
This is the generational issue. College is now outrageously expensive. It’s not just students and their debt load. It’s the parents trying to figure out how to pay these large bills each semester.
Frankly that kind of expense for all but a select number of degrees is a pretty bad investment. Paying $120k for like a psychology or teaching degree is just stupid.