Should your kids even be going to college?
It's John from Financial MD. Welcome to today's Didactic Minute.
In our financial planning conversations with our doctors, we talk about saving for college, education goals – things like that – that you're supposed to do as a financial planner and as a responsible parent. But is it really a thing anymore? Is college worth it? I mean you guys know this as physicians. A lot of you are looking at these 200, 300, 400,000-dollar student loan balances and thinking, "Was it really worth it?" Would you go back and do it all over again? Or would you do it a little bit differently? Would you go to a cheaper undergrad? Would you go to a cheaper med school? Would you find ways to cut costs? Would you not maybe buy food and a car with your student loans? I don't know. Maybe you did it right. Maybe you had to. But just thinking through that and maybe learning some life lessons that your kids don't have to learn the hard way. Should they even go to college is the first question, and if they do decide that they're going to have a profession where they need to go to college, does it need to be a super nice, expensive college? Or can they go to LCC and get some credits done and then can they go to a cheap in-state university? I'm telling you, I've seen this enough times that it matters hardly at all what college they go to. Now some professions, does it matter? Probably. But most by and large, it really doesn't matter, so evaluate that on a case-by-case basis. But right now, if you've got young kids and kind of what their career is actually going to be is way down the road, that's not as much of a concern as – okay, I know I have to save something. I may have to pay for something. How do I save that? What do I do? We'll talk about this in a future video; whether it's a 529 plan or a prepaid tuition or just an investment account or a combination of all those things – those are the types of questions that we get and I have an answer for you. So, stay tuned to the next one but I just wanted to pose that question and I want to hear some comments from you. Should kids still be going to college? Does it matter where you go to college? Should they get their Masters? Should they even become doctors?
I'd love to hear your comments, so comment here. We'll chat about it.
It's John from Financial MD. We'll see you next time.
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