I totally get it. We don’t know where OP is a professor. It may be MIT and not Garbage Dump U.While this is generally true, it's not a good idea to rely on it. Those programs can disappear. Your kid may want to go to school elsewhere, and even if they do take advantage of the tuition break, it doesn't help with living costs if they don't want to live with you. Some people will put conditions on how much they help their kids. When the kid gets admitted to an Ivy League school, it's hard to tell them to go to Northwest Garbage Dump State U because it's cheaper.#3 If you are a professor, can’t your child get discounted or free education at your institution?
Also, it is far more important for OP to have enough money for retirement and not be a burden to their child as opposed to paying for college where loans can be taken out. If OP is struggling with quality of life, a compromise needs to be made. The compromise may be the child works or takes out a small loan to help
pay for college.
Although we all want to set up our kids, sometimes it is not 100% feasible. We do the best we can with the resources we have. After all, most kids don’t get a free ride for college from their parents. This “we must save $500k for the possibility of a Harvard education for each child,” is a boglehead phenomenon. I came out of grad school with a school loan of over $300k and I turned out just fine. Plenty of other kids in similar shoes do just fine as well.
I will admit, my kids will have a more or less free ride for college. But I also made well over $140k a year during my peak earning years.
Statistics: Posted by EnjoyIt — Thu Feb 12, 2026 2:51 pm — Replies 14 — Views 1227