Every parent asks: Will we be able to afford college? | THE MOM STOP

I'm probably like a lot of parents of children in elementary or middle school: The thought of sending my kids away to college seems to be a far-off, distant idea.

Since my husband and I both have college undergraduate and graduate degrees, we hope our children will follow our path. All our parents went to college. Our grandparents — even my great-grandmother, who was born in 1900 — went to college. It’s a long-held belief in our family that higher education is both a life experience and a preparation for careers that we want our children to experience.

But beyond that, how prepared are we?

The average cost of college tuition and fees is currently between $10,423 to $39,723 a year, according to U.S. News and World Report. That’s an average of $39,723 for private colleges, an average of $22,953 for out-of-state students at public universities, and $10,423 for in-state students at public universities. And those costs may not include residence halls or meal plans; and they definitely don’t cover college apartments or being a member of a fraternity or sorority.

Two decades ago, my mother was a single mom who was somehow able to send me and my sister off to an out-of-town state flagship university, where we both became part of the Greek system. She did this with some financial help from my grandparents, and I also received some financial aid, both for my undergraduate degree and my master’s. But at the time, tuition at my university was $1,500 a semester. Today, in-state tuition at the same university is $5,950 a semester — a 296% increase in 20 years.

And there are reasons why, which are much better explained in other articles. For instance, state and federal funding of higher education institutions has decreased over the last 30 years. Also, universities now compete for higher-paying out-of-state students, and must offer nicer, more luxurious campus accommodations and glitzier campus amenities as a result.

I could easily sound like an old fogey when saying “back in my day” — but the days of very basic shared dorm rooms with communal bathrooms or even sleeping in a “sleeping porch” with 30 other women in a sorority house are long gone. I never would have dreamed of seeing multiple gyms on campus with floors of cardio equipment — let alone multiple rock climbing walls to choose from — when I was a college student.

But this is where we are. I’m not going to debate high tuition, the impact of student loans or federal student loan forgiveness.

But I am five years away from taking my oldest kid off to college. Because she is in eighth grade, it still seems like a far-off dream that will one day become reality, but that fog is starting to clear. And even though I have a 13-year-old who is more concerned with middle school and playing on her virtual reality headset — I can feel the rush of the next five years. I know from my experience so far as a parent that I will blink and we’ll be unpacking in her dorm room.

Are we financially ready? I can easily answer that. No. We opened 529 college savings plans for all three of our kids when they were still infants. We’ve been blessed with family members who deposit money for college in those accounts for things like Christmas or birthdays. We are also lucky to live in a city that financially supports dual enrollment for high school students, something I’ve already started to talk to my middle-schooler about. But I know that in order to afford college, we have to prepare better.

We have to save more if we want to put three kids through college in the next 15 years and offer them the same opportunities we had. Because if one thing is evident, it’s this: The cost of college is only going to go up.

Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News. Reach her at momstopcolumn@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Every parent asks: Will we be able to afford college? | THE MOM STOP