What is the cost for college going to be in 18 years?

The cost NOW is highly variable because it depends where your son will go to school. There are public institutions in your state that probably cost less than $10,000 per year and there are private schools that are topping $40,000 per year.

You should probably figure on a minimum of 5% escalation per year. Enter a number like $15,000 in your calculator, and then multiply by 1.05. That’s how you escalate. Do that 18 times. You’re going to get a big number. Upper estimates on the escalation are close to 10%. Some schools have been posting 10% increases for the past few years, but it’s hard to imagine how this can continue in the long term.

Now remember, your earning power is going to increase too. So what really matters it the difference between the cost escalation and the escalation in your salary. If you are investing, then what matters is the difference between the cost escalation and the return on your investment. I don’t think it’s hard to maintain a 5% return, but a 10% return takes some skill and probably cannot be achieved without substantial risk.

You should look into two things. First, if you have an individual retirement account, that is a tax-sheltered way for you to save money, and it may be possible to withdraw money from that for your kids’ educations without penalty. You should ask your benefits officer about that. Second, you should look into something called a 529. That’s a special saving account for school.

Check the link provided for a glimpse @ fees. This is the school from which I graduated. It’s small, about 13,000 students, but noted highly for engineering, nursing, teachers, etc. It’s a really great school.

You can be assured it’ll be rather high.

Just for example. I graduated in 1996. The fee total for my registration, lab fees, computer use fees, etc, came to about $550 for a full course load. This is just for one quarter. The year consists of four quarters if you attend during the summer. Many students only go three quarters per year and work during the summer.

The school I attended was on the quarter system where 12 hours, which is about four to five different classes, was usually the maximum one could take during the quarter. With special permission you could take 14.

I just went back in the summer of 2006 to take a computer aided drafting course and the fees for a full course load had jumped up to $1400.

That’s $550 in 1996 for a full load of courses to $1400 in 2006, only 10 years later, for a full course load.

This was “ONLY” for classes and does NOT include dormitory, food, etc.

10 years time and a 2 1/2 times increase. Or in % a 250% increase. I was “shocked” to say the least.

i would say an average of 30K to 40K

75k