How to Choose Between College and Retirement

...you need to teach them how to swim first. That is, if you're going to make them responsible for saving up thousands of dollars towards their college expenses, you need to give them some guidance not only about good saving habits, but about how they can earn the money in the first place. Help them find a job or start a business or something - most kids are not born with the ability to seek these things out.

My parents gave me very little guidance in this area. In my senior year of high school, they sprung it on me that they'd saved enough for me to go to state school, and that if I wanted to go someplace more expensive, I was responsible for the rest. Fortunately, I got a scholarship, so I graduated from college with money left over, but I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't. College tuition was an unfathomable amount of money to me back then, and I was completely unprepared to earn it by myself.

One more thing: If these parents who are retiring early to enjoy their golden years are stiffing their kids' college funds in order to do it, that's not cool, in my opinion. If the only way you can afford to retire early is by saddling your kids with so much student loan debt as to ensure that *they* *won't* be able to retire early, then maybe you can't really afford to retire early.

Johanna of MD 2:50PM March 03, 2009