Everyone Thinks Everyone Else Has a College Fund

Turns out, that's not exactly true. | Round Table #3 with Substack's favorite mothers

When the topic of college and our kids comes up—usually during playground chats or at a BBQ—someone inevitably says something like, “I mean, college probably won’t even be a thing once our kids enter college.”

I understand where this comes from; I’m pretty sure at least 5 kids in my son’s second grade class wrote they wanted to be a “YouTuber” when they grew up. But seeing as my oldest is a mere 10 years out from college—which is somehow the same distance between 31 and my current 41 (the first time I've written that...today's my birthday)—it seems likely that college will still be somewhat of a thing.

Currently, the average cost of college is $38,270 per student per year. So, if one of my three kiddos goes to a 4-year school, that would be a cool $153,080. Of course, that’s not including financial aid or the athletic scholarships I’m pretty sure 35% of the parents at every youth lacrosse, basketball, and soccer game I’ve attended in the past three years are betting on.

Because topics like this makes me feel wildly behind and wonder if everyone else actually has a few hundred grand in the bank dogeared for college, I asked moms with very different financial situations—some who've saved tens of thousands, some who've saved nothing, and plenty somewhere in between. I think you’ll read it and realize…we’re actually all in this together.

---

The Big Picture

Before we get into the numbers, I wanted to understand how everyone was thinking about college in the first place. As you'll see, very few people are treating a four-year university as the only path anymore.

Ladies! Thanks so much for joining me today. Let’s kick it off by sharing the basics: how are you thinking about college, education, or future training for your kids?

Tricia Torley: I could talk about this forever, truly. I’m a high school counselor, so a lot of my work involves helping students think about their lives post-graduation, and what type of education or training that might involve. That said, I feel like we have no idea what college and job training might look like in 10-15 years.

So much has changed even in the last few years, and it honestly feels a little scary. I do hope that my kids have the opportunity to go to college, if it’s what they want. I loved college so much more than high school, and it was a really formative experience for me. But if they want to do a trade, I’d be completely supportive. I mostly hope they find something they like doing that can keep them safe and secure.

Haley Greathouse: It was very important to us to plan for a future in which our child followed our exact path, choosing to attend a four-year university AND one in which she did not, but might choose alternative education (a 2 year college, a trade school, to open her own business, etc). We did not want to lock in our school savings for her to a path she ultimately might not choose. This helped us prioritize WHERE to save, outside of just a 529.

Mindy Isser : My husband and I both went to Temple University in Philadelphia, but only I graduated. He dropped out because he couldn’t see a future in what he was studying, and was staring down a lot of debt. He became an electrician and now has a stable union job that he will presumably have until he retires. He makes a high hourly wage and will receive a pension from railroad retirement. I also have a good job, I work in the labor movement as communications staff, and I probably learned a lot of my writing skills in college.

All of this is to say that I think college is important and I wish young people could go to learn and socialize outside of navigating the job market, but that’s not possible in our current society because of the high cost. If our son wants to go to college, we will support him, but we won’t be able to pay for it, at least not entirely, unless something changes in our political system.

I think we’re lucky because we see success in both paths: what a college degree can provide and what you can have without one. Unless he wants to be an engineer, doctor, lawyer, or pursue another career that feels like a “sure thing” for good pay and stability, we’d probably encourage him to pursue a union construction trade like his dad (as long as he is interested in that of course!)

Julie Schechter: I’m assuming Jude will go to a four-year college, but mostly because...that’s what my husband and I did, and what our siblings did, and most of our friend group. It’s the path of most commonality, I guess is what I’m trying to say. If he wants to go into a trade or do something completely different, though, we’ll be very supportive. I do not think that a four-year college is the be-all and end-all experience some people do. I went, I liked it. He might be a troubadour instead. As long as he’s happy and has a reasonable take on how he’ll support himself as an adult, I’m okay with whatever choice he wants to make.

What are your hopes for your children when it comes to money and work? Are there lessons, values, or experiences you’d like them to have growing up?

Mindy: My parents never talked to us about money and I really did not want to repeat that. I want our son to really understand hard work, saving for the future and for things you want, and being generous and charitable. We often talk about how much things cost in relation to his dad’s hourly wage. I know he doesn’t understand it now but I hope it eventually sinks in. Mostly I want to be transparent about money and how it works and why we say yes to certain things and no to other things.

Nicole Prince: I want my kids to recognize the work of earning a dollar and not expect handouts, but I also really don’t want money to feel stressful to them. I started babysitting in 5th grade—which is hilarious, because I have a hard time even trusting a high schooler for my kids—and once I turned 14, I started working at an ice cream shop in town and began paying for my clothes and using my wages for “fun money.”

Because both of my parents were laid off in both high school and college and we were in a recession, I felt extreme pressure to pay for as much as I could (which my parents surely didn’t intend, but it’s hard to hide it when you’re stressed). From late high school on, I often worked 40-50 hours in the summer and once I was in college, I usually worked 25-30 hours per week at multiple jobs.

I want my kids to know money comes from work—but I don't want work to overshadow childhood the way it sometimes did for me.

Tricia: I hope that they can find careers that feel fulfilling and provide financial security. I absolutely love my job and I can’t imagine doing anything else, but there’s obviously not a lot of money in education and I’ve felt that strain at times. My parents taught me to be frugal and to take good care of what I have -- those are values I’d like to instill in my own family.

At the same time, I hope to find ways to be transparent about money and what things cost with my kids. I don’t feel like I had a concept of what a comfortable salary would be, or what my mortgage or bills might cost. I moved out on my own as soon as I graduated college, and that was a crash course in personal finance. I hope to help my kids learn to save, to be mindful about what they spend, and to set long term goals for their money and their futures.

I also think it’s really important for them to start working as teenagers, if they can. I started babysitting weekly at 13-14. I worked full-time at a water park when I was 16 (it was a character-building hell), and worked at a diner until I graduated college. Those jobs were so important for my sense of financial independence and responsibility.

Haley: I was raised on hard work and the value of earning your dollar. I started helping my dad out at 5!! Yes, 5, working in a snack shack at a baseball field my uncle ran. I learned how to talk to customers, multi-task, and make change at a very young age. Eventually, at a more reasonable age I got a job in high school and worked on and off throughout college to earn my own spending money.

I really appreciated these experiences, particularly working in retail and as a server in a restaurant and think that all children need to experience customer service jobs to best understand the world around them. It’s very important to us that money is not a source of stress for our children but a source of pride in what they can accomplish. As a teenager and college student I felt a lot of pressure to contribute, and I found money conversations to be stressful. This translated into my own adult relationship with my husband who had a much calmer relationship with money. We want to find the balance.

Also, I have had a side hustle (creator account) since 2018 that has provided additional income to our family while also covering the cost of things we like to do (dine out, travel, etc). It didn’t start out big, and still isn’t a large income, but it’s provided us with a lot of opportunity. I would not be able to balance all that I do had I not learned the value of creating my own future / paycheck from my parents.

Julie: I want him to be self-sufficient. That being said, if it turns out the real love of his life is in the arts or some other field that doesn’t pay well (he’s only 2, it’s too soon to tell) I really want to be able to help subsidize him following that dream. My husband and I both have tech jobs, but if our families were independently wealthy, we’d be writers. The arts need patrons now more than ever, and I think it’s crucial for the retention of our humanity (lol can you tell I feel strongly about this) that we continue to have working artists.

---

Your Own Experience

What was your experience with college or post-secondary education? Did your parents help pay? Did you receive scholarships, financial aid, or take out loans? Looking back, is there anything you’d do differently?

Mindy: I had a mix of help, financial aid, scholarships, and loans. I wish I understood what loans actually were, because as a 16-year-old, it all felt like “free money” to me. I was also assured that I’d get a good job and I’d be able to pay my loans back quickly. That was the promise of a college education in the early/mid aughts!

Tricia: I was the first in my family to go away to a four-year college. I had initially committed to attending an in-state school on a partial scholarship, but ended up changing my mind last minute and going out of state. I worked as a waitress and a part-time nanny to pay for part of my tuition, and my parents paid for part of it. I took about $40,000 in student loans over my four years. I also worked as an RA for three years, which fully covered my room and board and saved me around $30,000.

Looking back, it was kind of crazy to give up my scholarship to pay out-of-state tuition. I graduated college in 2010, when everyone was still struggling to get a job following the recession. When I couldn’t find a full-time job, I joined AmeriCorps and applied for grad school. I ended up getting into a fully funded graduate program, so I didn’t pay for my M.Ed. The only reason I paid my student loans off before I turned 30 was because my husband didn’t have any.

Haley: My parents helped pay for college, and thanks to a well timed sale of property my grandparents owned that my mother inherited I left college debt free, though I had taken out loans throughout my four years. I worked throughout my time in college to create my own spending money and did not ask my parents for money outside of rent and tuition.

I am extremely fortunate that they planned ahead and made this happen for me and it’s important to me that I can create as much of this stability for my own children as well. I would not change this experience. I know I am unique and incredibly fortunate and I take this into account daily.

Julie: I went to public college, in state, and then a private law school. I received financial aid at both, and my parents took out some loans to help, but they weren’t able to contribute otherwise. I am still paying off loans now, and will be for a while. I don’t think there’s anything I could have done differently; I applied for all the scholarships and took everything I got, but the answer (especially for law school) is just that loans are a (horrible) fact of life. I do not want Jude to have this experience. I don’t view it as “being self-sufficient” to pay down mountains of debt. Education should be free.

Nicole: I went to a private college in my Michigan hometown and after some scholarships and financial aid, ended up with around $30-$35k in student loans.

Like I mentioned earlier, I worked nearly full-time in college to pay for tuition, gas, and rent—otherwise it would have been much more. I still remember how badly my parents felt because they couldn’t help out very much—they’d contribute when they could, which was really kind—and I never was upset with them over that. I think it just made me that much more determined to not be a financial burden.

Honestly, if I could do it again, I would take on a little bit more debt and tell myself to lighten up and go to a party and maybe study a little bit less, just for a week or two, LOL.

---

The Plan

What does saving for your child’s future look like right now?

Tricia: Right now, we don’t put much money into our kids’ college funds because we’re still paying over $2000 a month in childcare. My in-laws generously started college funds for each of our kids when they were born, and it’s our plan to contribute more regularly to them once we don’t have a daycare bill.

Nicole: I’m with Tricia—we just got our preschool tuition bill for next school year (my oldest is in public school, but the youngest two are 2 and 3). It made my eyes water to the tune of roughly $43,000, which somehow feels both impossible and very, very real.. (We love it, but it’s not fancy…childcare is just insane!) Needless to say, savings for their future is not happening at the moment.

I did just text my SIL who is a financial advisor for 529 advice though so…making small strides.

Haley: We are working with a financial advisor and have been since before we had our daughter. They help us understand the best places to save based on our above wants/needs, which currently includes a 529, a mutual fund, a guardian account, and life insurance.

Julie: We contribute to a 529 monthly. It’s an automatic deduction from our checking account, and I’ve bumped it up by a little every pay period. Right now we’re contributing $100/month, and also put more money if/when there’s extra money (my husband is in sales and his compensation is highly variable).

Mindy: We do a few different things. We have a 529 that we put $100 a month in, a “bucket” in his name in our high-yield savings account that we plan to use for eventual summer camp and things of that nature that we contribute $60 a month to, a custodial savings account at our credit union that we put small amounts of money in (think birthday checks from family) mainly to teach him about banking/money, and we also have a custodial brokerage account that’s in an index fund because when he was born a relative gave us $1,000 with those instructions -- we hope to show him that account when he’s older to illustrate the importance of saving and investing and not touching your money. I know this all sounds like a lot but it’s all small amounts -- we contribute less than $200 a month.

Are you contributing to a 529, investment account, savings account, or something else? Is there a specific dollar amount or percentage you aim to save each year?

Tricia: Each of my kids has a 529 account. Right now, grandparents and other family members have contributed to the accounts for birthdays and other celebrations, and I have been so grateful for those contributions. In five years, I hope I can put away at least $500 a month for each of my kids.

Haley: All of the above. We aim to max out our tax savings on the 529, and save a set amount that we determined fit our budget into the other accounts. In total 15-17% of our paychecks go to savings MONTHLY, but this also includes Roth IRA’s and other retirement funds for ourselves, too. However I think saving for retirement IS saving for your children because we do not want to have to burden them with our care or finances when we are older.

What’s one thing about saving for college or education that surprised you?

Mindy: That you can’t do enough lol. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky and we also know that we won’t ever be able to pay for the entirety of college unless things significantly change.

Tricia: I cannot believe how much more expensive college has gotten. I spend a lot of time looking at financial aid packages with students and their families. Some universities now cost $90,000 a year! That’s usually the sticker price, and there’s often a lot of aid offered, but it’s insane.

Even the state university costs nearly $50,000 for tuition, room and board this year. I feel like we’ll never be able to save enough for our kids, but I’m also aware that things could look totally different by the time they’re choosing their career paths.

Haley: How no matter what we save we probably won’t have enough with today’s rising costs / it’s so hard to predict what our child will want to do when they are older when you start saving at birth!

Julie: That we should have started saving when we met, rather than waiting until Jude was actually born. How silly of us. [Ed. note: LOL. How silly!]

Nicole: That I should have started saving as soon as I paid off my student loans in 2013—pre-engagement, pre-kids…

---

The Numbers (Because We're All Wondering)

How much have you saved so far?

Tricia: I’m a little embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know (beyond a ballpark estimate) before getting this question. I asked my husband to show me the accounts -- my daughter has about $25,000 in her 529, and my son has about $5,000 in his. (This was a good reminder to be more of an active participant in the family finances!)

Haley: We’re on par to cover four-year tuition & books for our first child based on how we are currently saving. This is a projection provided by our financial advisor that accounts for the adjusted amount of money it will cost when she graduates high school.

Her grandparents have significantly contributed to the investment income in her 529 and that is not included in our projections, so providing that current number would not be representative of all that I’ve stated here.

Julie: About $10k.

Nicole: Approximately $0. I hope this makes anyone else feel a little better.

How do you feel about that number?

Tricia: I feel grateful, and sometimes a little weird about it. My family did not talk about money growing up and I struggle to feel secure about having enough money saved. Sometimes I still don’t feel like I have a concept of how much is enough. Still, my kids will inevitably be in a different financial position than I was after high school. I would love it if they didn’t need to take out student loans, but I also know that’s the reality for most.

Nicole: I mean…not great, but that’s life! Between IVF, fertility treatments, a surprise pregnancy after those treatments failed, another very surprise pregnancy, buying a house, and then my layoff...college savings just hasn't been the priority yet. Do I wish we had funds started? Absolutely. Am I stressing about it every day? Nope. Do I occasionally buy a lotto ticket? Yes.

Haley: Honestly, it’s very satisfying, and why I was motivated to respond to this post. This has been a VERY large commitment by us both to be on track for this. We’ve given up things, changed our lifestyles, and made significant prioritization to get here. It is NOT easy and we are very, very fortunate to have engaged with a financial advisor when we had a large amount of expendable income pre kids. This set us up to continue to save post-kids and learn how to live very much within our means.

Basically, we didn’t change much if any of what we were contributing pre-kids and learned how to change our budget and our priorities to afford both this saving level and all the things kids need. This includes things like buying presents and clothes second hand, cutting back on how much we travel, paying off a car and keeping it, etc. Will it be enough? We’ll never know, but I feel very solid with what we’ve done so far.

Julie: I’m really glad we’ve been socking it away, and I also know it’s not nearly enough. Every time I look at a college cost calculator, I die a little inside.

---

The Reality Check

What other financial priorities are competing with college savings right now?

Tricia: Childcare is our biggest expense right now, after our mortgage. We also have spent the last year building up our emergency fund and my husband and I are both saving for retirement. In theory, we’ll both receive a pension, but the teacher pension situation in our state is not in great shape right now so we have our own retirement accounts as well. We sacrifice a lot of things -- we don’t take vacations, we’ve put off expensive renovations in our old house. I hope there’s time and money for those things some day, but right now it’s not in the cards.

Nicole: Childcare is a huge expense, because we have two toddlers and need full-time care. Our mortgage is our biggest expense due to the crazy mortgage rates when we bought. We want to do a renovation on our 1970s fixer-upper. Also, ra$pberrie$ and other fruit spike my grocery bill like nothing else.

Haley: Childcare, and the idea that our public school system is closing a local elementary - unease about where our child may attend elementary school (do we need to save for a private option???). Also, my husband recently started working for himself as a consultant and that is a big challenge as we are used to have two stable incomes and his income is now fluctuating. This makes it harder to save than if you just save directly from a single paycheck each month.

Julie: Paying off our own student loans. Both my husband and I make okay money right now, but that just started to be the case like three years ago. Before that, both of us were on...questionable...career paths (start-ups for me, bartending for him) and so we’ve had to pay down six figures of educational debt. We’d also like to own a home some day, but that seems highly improbable.

---

Final Thoughts

Do you feel good about your current approach?

Mindy: We know we are in the minority in this country in feeling financially stable. We credit our unions for a lot of this, and we are so grateful for the labor movement. I also got really lucky and bought a cheap house with an incredibly low interest rate when I was in my early 20s. This is the house that we still live in, and we have no intention of moving.

We’re really happy in our neighborhood in South Philly and don’t feel the need to “keep up with the Joneses” by getting a bigger, fancier house. This means we have a pretty affordable mortgage that will be paid off in less than 10 years. We also go to an in-home daycare that’s affordable (as far as childcare goes!) and we are sending him to our neighborhood public school. We know we’ll have to pay for summer camp and extracurriculars occasionally, but we’ll be able to cover them even if it sucks.

We feel pretty good about our savings, although of course we could save more. It feels like a delicate balance between wanting to enjoy life now while also thinking about the future, and I do think we do that. We are also only having the 1 kid, which is obviously less of a financial burden/cost/stress than having multiples.

Tricia: I feel lucky, I feel discouraged, I feel completely bewildered about what college and vocational training might look like in 5, 10, or 20 years. I felt like I had no concept of the cost of college when I was 17, and I hope I can help my kids to feel supported and involved when it comes to planning their post-grad lives.

Haley: I feel good because we’ve made this a centered priority in our family.

Anything else you’d like people to know about how your family thinks about money, education, or raising financially capable kids?

Mindy: I want my son to follow his dreams and also understand that we all have to work for a living, even if it’s not exactly what he wants to be doing. We can’t all be a famous actor or singer, you know? Whatever he does, it has to be something. We do not have inherited wealth in which to support him. We also feel like it’s a constant balancing act trying to give him a nice, fun, enjoyable life without also indulging his every whim -- this is partly about money, but also partly about hearing and understanding the word no and internalizing delayed gratification.

Haley: I cannot overstate the power of financial conversations early on in your relationship/marriage. Getting on the same page about your debts, spending habits, and financial literacy is THE best step you can take to a stable divorce free future in my opinion. Plus, as I mentioned it truly takes WORK to save, and starting early when you have expendable income creates a commitment that you can try to uphold moving forward.

I would love to be a SAHM but our commitment to saving, started well before kids, kept me in the workforce, and I am ultimately OK with that considering everything I’ve shared above. Our end goal is to raise financially capable children who are in control of their future and do not feel burdened by money. We want them to believe that conversations around money can be upbeat, predictable, and productive, and do not have to cause stress. Overall, our bottom line: START TODAY. Choose hard now.

Julie: Money is a tool, and that’s how I want to raise Jude to think about it. I want him to understand it well enough to feel confident and avoid silly mistakes, but I don’t want him to predicate his life choices on trying to amass as much of it as possible. I think living in our current society and watching a lot of our institutions crumble around us has made me take a step back from some of the markers I initially thought were crucial for a “good” life.

I just don’t believe any more that someone has to go to college, or have a knowledge worker job, to be successful. I want to teach him that success is about being able to own your own time, having enough material goods to cover your needs, and giving as much as you can to the people in need around you. If we raise a kid with that relationship to education/finances, I’ll be thrilled.

Nicole: I want my children to be kind humans and to be generous with the money and things they do have. I remember many years ago, when my parents were really financially stressed, going to the farmer’s market with my dad. He stopped by a hot dog stand—he knew the owner from high school—and asked him if he liked fresh beans. He said yes and my dad handed him the bag of butter beans he’d just purchased. It doesn’t take a lot to be generous. <3

---

If this conversation taught me anything, it’s that there isn’t one “right” way to prepare your kids for the future.

Some families are saving hundreds each month. Some are waiting until daycare is over. Some are paying off their own student loans first. Some are simply doing the best they can.

Maybe that’s the takeaway: not that we’re all behind—but that we’re all building toward the future from different starting lines. x Nicole

---

Thank you so much for reading Double Dutch. It truly means the world. For more, follow along on Instagram. Connect on LinkedIn. Let’s work together. Buy me a coffee!

Need a place to start? Check out everyone’s favorites: