ndsmeetad

  Okay. You caught me. Indeed most of the time not saving for college is a bad idea. Now and then I'll run into a parent who tells me they are not saving for college in order to increase the chances their child will get financial aid. The thought is that having money makes colleges and the government figure you can afford to pay for college and therefore no aid is needed. This, to a limited extent, is true. If you have millions in the bank I'd rather not have my tax dollars taken and used to pay for your kid's college so that you can spend the money on first class tickets to Vail. However, assuming that saving for college will mess up financial aid is short-sighted and makes many assumptions. The first one being that there will be financial aid available for your child. We don't know what the government will have in the way of aid in 5, 10, or 15 years. You should also realize that the majority of financial "aid" is in the form of loans. You very well could be