00:00 Speaker A
a record 41% of parents you report now plan to pay their children’s entire college bill. 41%. What what’s the practical sort of like rule of thumb here, Carrie? Like, I want to help my kid pay for college, but what do I first need to do making sure for myself?
00:15 Kerry
Yeah, I mean, truthfully, the best gift you can ever give to your kid is to be financially comfortable to pay for your own expenses as you age so that they’re not stuck with your long-term care costs at the end of life. This is something you do not want to burden your kids with. So, what you need to do right now, yes, it feels like, oh my gosh, I really want to help my kids out. I don’t want them to have the debt uh that I have. But frankly, uh what you need to do is, and they and a lot of people are already, you know, pulling back on their own retirement savings. They’re slowing it down or they’re actually borrowing from those retirement accounts to help pay for their kids’ education. Bad idea for most people. Seriously, take care of yourself first. So, you need to max out your own retirement account savings, and then if you have extra, by all means, you can set that aside for your child’s education. And there’s all kinds of great vehicles out there that do that. There’s 529 plans, which the money grows tax-free. There’s the new Trump accounts now that not specifically for education, where the the 529s are, but again, it’s ways to start saving for your child and set money aside. But the number one thing is take care of your own retirement first because you’re not going to get a scholarship or financial aid for your retirement. Your kid can get a loan and all of those things for college education.
