“I want to go to the Royal College of Music,” my son Solomon told me last summer.
“I bet that’s expensive,” I said.
I probably should have been more supportive. Solomon is a virtuoso when it comes to music. You should hear him when he sits down at the piano. I am sure my wife Katie was more supportive. She usually is more supportive than me.
My son Samson wants to go to Penn State. Samson was born in State College. Samson wants to be a star quarterback. Star quarterbacks at Penn State don’t have to pay tuition. It is not easy to become a star quarterback. Especially with the genes I’ve handed down to Samson. I’m 5’3” on a good day and 3’6” on a bad one.
Did you know that employees at Penn State get a 75 percent discount on tuition for their children? Did you know that employees at the University of Iowa don’t get any discount on tuition for their children? That fun fact becomes more important as Solomon finishes sixth grade and Samson finishes fifth.
Recently, I wrote about paying off my student loans. Congratulations, Sam. Now that my education is paid for, I turn to thinking about my children.
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I want to support Solomon and Samson when they go to college, but the honest truth is there hasn’t been much wiggle room when it comes to finances over the last fifteen years. Or, really, ever. Each financial decision I make seems less lucrative than the last. Such is the life of a humble, public educator that comes from modest means.
I think my father would’ve helped me pay for college if he could have. I think my mother would have helped if she could’ve too. There are lots of reasons why Dad and Mom didn’t help me pay for college. Instead, I took out loans that characterized most of my twenties, all of my thirties, and the first half of my forties. For those of you who, like me, aren’t any good at math, those loans hung over me for a long, long time.
The people who loved me always told me I was smart enough to get scholarships. I’m sure I was, but I had no idea how what I was doing when I was a teenager. The people who loved me did not have much financial literacy, so neither did I. Instead, I filled out my FAFSA, applied for loans, and that was that. I spent the next twenty-five years paying off those loans instead of putting money away to help Solomon and Samson pay for college. So it goes.
Solomon and Samson are smart enough to get scholarships, but I don’t think scholarships will do the whole job. I am going to try to support them however I can.
My hero Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that a good way to piss your parents off is to go into the arts because there is no money in it. Kurt also said you could piss your parents off by telling them you are gay. I always thought those two lines were funny. Solomon and Samson won’t piss me off if they go into the arts. Or if they tell me they are gay. Solomon and Samson are autonomous beings with freewill. I will love them and support them however they use that freewill. Whether they are rich or poor.
Ultimately, I want to help my children exercise their freewill and move through the world the best that I can.
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I was lamenting paying for Solomon and Samson’s college a few weeks ago. I’m an open book, so other people often hear my lamentations. Like you, kind reader. You’ve heard years of my lamentations. Are you better for reading all of that lamenting? It’s impossible to say. Are you annoyed? Maybe.
A friend of mine overheard my lamentations about paying for my children’s college tuition, and asked me if I had an I529 plan. I told them I didn’t. I also told them I didn’t know what an I529 plan was. This kind friend invited me to their office in the hospital. They have two kids in college. I sat with them for 30 minutes, and they showed me what a 529 plan was. In fact, I learned more about paying for college than I have in all the previous minutes of my life. Thank you, kind friend.
I opened one I529 plan for Solomon another for Samson last week. $25 dollars a piece. Better late than never. Better something than nothing.
And this next thing I’m going to do is very funny to me. Do you know how content creators capitalize on engagement? Well, I don’t. I can assure you that I have not capitalized on all of the literary content that I’ve poured into the universe. A few royalty checks that never came close to what I made as an insurance agent. Still, if after reading this blog, you are thinking to yourself “man, I’d love to donate $8,333,999 to Solomon and Samson’s I529 plan,” do I have some news for you. Click here and pay it forward, friend. Solomon’s code is D0T-X8D. Samson’s code is X6X-P5H. Make an account and contribute today, for the low price of $14,222,991. Or don’t. Honestly, I’m happy having you here with me, on the other side of this blog, moving with me through the universe, listening to my lamentations. That’s more important than money, kind reader, whoever you are.
All of this is to say that I am proud to have opened an I529 account for my children, no matter how small that account will be when they start college. Less than 10 years away. Geez.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 