The Huffington Post – Staff Writer
“Ten years ago I was flipping through a magazine at the doctor’s office when I came across an article about the best ways to save for college. It was a topic I’d been thinking about… a lot. Even though my kids were young — my daughter, Jai, was 10, and my son, Matthew, was 7 — I’d been putting about $25 a month into a college savings account for each of them since they were born, as well as every dollar they’d ever been given as a gift. I’d also opened South Carolina state 529 accounts for each of them, where I was depositing about $125 a month. And I was contributing to a state tuition prepayment plan too. I knew I was doing the right thing by saving so much, but I constantly wondered if it would be enough. I was starting to hear about skyrocketing tuition prices from friends who were also worried about whether they were putting enough away for their kids’ education. When I attended Spelman College in 1981, the tuition was just $3,000 a year. But when my daughter was in kindergarten 18 years later, that tuition had already shot up to nearly $12,000 a year — and I knew it was only going to increase.”(more)