I figure that there is no way to plan for what the costs / rules / laws will be 10+ years from now, or what schools my kids might want to attend, so making up some arbitrary number as a goal is silly ... My big concern is figuring out how to keep it "equal" between the two kids.
True, you can't know what's going to happen in the world of higher education in the next decade or more, but you're not likely to be disappointed at simply saving money. As I said earlier, we over-saved. Not a problem at all. We still have the extra money, and it's not going to go to waste.
I worried about treating the kids equally, but in the end they made very different decisions for themselves, and it's worked out fine.
What is the breakdown on this?
Current prices
per year for my daughters' school -- we are in a low cost of living state, and they chose one of the less expensive of our 16 state universities:
Tuition and fees: 7, 116
Standard dorm room: 4225
Standard meal option: 2560
Textbooks: 0, rental is included in tuition
TOTAL: 13, 901This, of course, is in-state tuition.
As I said earlier in this thread, we set out early to save 10,000/child/year, figuring that with that amount set aside it'd be easy to pay the rest with current salaries -- and it has, especially since both our girls are on excellent scholarships. The reality has been that we've paid only a fraction of the above prices.
More and more high quality colleges (they tend to be private colleges) are limiting the transfer credit they accept from CCs. Perhaps even more important is that some graduate and professional programs are limiting the credit they accept from an applicant when they completed specific courses at community colleges or through AP programs.
It's super easy to check on this using this website:
http://www.collegetransfer.net/Search/SearchforCourseEquivalencies/tabid/100/Default.aspxEnter the school you're attending ... enter the school you plan to attend ... and you'll see a looooong list of exactly what will transfer and what'll come in only as elective credit. If you plan, you shouldn't lose any credits.
Incidentally, I'm always surprised to see that people consider private schools to be better. In our state, we have a couple EXCELLENT private schools that're prestigious and VERY expensive (as in one year costs as much as a whole education at my daughters' state school). The others target students who didn't do well in high school but come from well-to-do families who would never consider NOT sending their kids to college; admission is non-competative, but the prices run about 45K per year.
Thank you for the alternate thinking on Community Colleges. Definitely not something I had considered.
We have absolutely found our younger child's community college experience to be second-rate in several ways. While it was her choice, and she really wasn't ready to leave home straight out of high school, I'm glad she'll be moving to a full-fledged university next year as a sophomore.