In a county where 95 percent of parents want their children to go to college, Jean Sanders has this piece of advice for couples: ”When they get pregnant, they should start saving.”
Sanders, of Wheaton, apparently knows what she is talking about. She and her husband have had two daughters in college and a son who will begin this fall. They financed the costs with proceeds from investments that paid all the bills even though tuition soared.
While not every family is as efficient as the Sanders in meeting the daunting challenge of college expenses, many Du Page County parents say they are wasting no time in setting aside money for the children`s schooling.
In a wide-ranging Tribune poll of 617 Du Page County residents, almost 70 percent of parents said paying for their kids` college education was one of their top economic worries.
Paying for adequate medical care was the only money worry to top it.
In response to the spiraling cost of college, parents appear to be saving money earlier than a generation ago.
Jenny and Ronald Giambalvo of Naperville, for example, started investing money to pay for college education before either of their children started school. Their son now is 10 and their daughter is 8.
”We both had to work to put ourselves through college, and that took away from our college experience,” Jenny Giambalvo said. The Giambalvos want to ensure, with early planning, that they will be able to pay all the college costs for their children.
Fully 70 percent of Du Page parents surveyed said they have started saving for college, and, like the Giambalvos, 51 percent began saving before their children started school.
The parents themselves are well-educated. Among respondents in the poll, 34 percent are college graduates, 21 percent attended college but did not earn a degree, 4 percent went to a trade school, 19 percent are high school graduates who did not pursue higher education, 5 percent did not finish high school and 5 percent declined to discuss their education.
The aspirations they have for their children is one thing; the financing to help make those dreams come true is another. About 7 in 10 poll respondents said they worry about how they will raise enough money to finance college for their youngsters.
During the last 12 years alone, college tuition has risen 114 percent, according to the College Board. It says the average cost for tuition, fees, room and board at a four-year public university is $5,279 a year, and those costs average $12,167 a year at a four-year private university.
Some Du Page parents with three children who will not complete their education until after 2000 expect their college costs to exceed $100,000.
Others shudder at the prospect that the annual bill at top private colleges might soon reach $25,000 for their youngsters. Such a number is almost incomprehensible for those who recall their college cost as $4,000 a year.
But many couples have crafted financial plans early to prepare for the heavy financial load.
The Giambalvos, both teachers, have a two-pronged plan. They bought stock in the names of their two youngsters, and they also purchased ”zero coupon bonds,” college-savings bonds offered by the state free of income taxes.
A bond bought last year for $1,921.75 will be worth $5,000 at maturity in 2006.
Jenny Giambalvo recalled how she had to work in a grocery to raise $4,000 a year to attend classes at Northern Illinois University.
Her husband worked in a tool-and-die shop to put himself through Chicago State University.
The Giambalvos want to be financially prepared to pay most of their children`s college costs.
That hope is shared by Lori McGrath, of Glen Ellyn, who has children ages 10 and 8.
McGrath and her husband want their two girls to be able to attend a private college, if that is their choice, and she notes that ”it`s nothing to spend $20,000 and more now for a private college.”
”Everything we read says college expenses will increase,” she added.
McGrath herself is a 1974 graduate of St. Mary`s College in Notre Dame, Ind., where she said the annual $4,000 cost was considered ”outrageously expensive.”
When the younger child was born in 1983, the McGraths signed up for an annuity plan that she hopes at maturity will finance up to two years of college costs.
T.J. Sarlina, of Warrenville, expects his three children-now 9, 4 and 2 years old-to attend public universities. Even so, he foresees an annual cost of $12,000 per child, or a college bill totaling nearly $145,000.
”I have friends who don`t begin to save until their children are 13, 14 or 15 years old,” Sarlina said. ”Then they get into a crunch for expenses.” Sarlina and his wife want to avoid that. They have studied college planning guides to develop their savings program, which is a payroll deduction for an annuity.
”I got started when my oldest daughter was 4,” he said.
William Bernath, of Clarendon Hills, the father of a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old, half-joked about college expenses. ”I hope my kids will do the same as my wife and I did and work their way through school,” he said.
But turning serious, Bernath said he expects the annual cost of college to reach $25,000 a year, nearly six times the amount he paid as a student at Georgia State University in the 1970s. He has invested in stocks, hoping they will be worth enough to pay the bulk of college costs.
Rosemary Krol, of Naperville, the mother of four youngsters between the ages of 5 months and 9 years, also is saving for college expenses, but she expects her children to pay some of the costs.
”I would hope we could have at least 50 percent of college costs for each child,” she said. Because of the ages, the Krols twice will have two children in college at the same time.
Before the first youngster entered kindergarten, they began a college savings plan with certificates of deposit. That will help, but Krol thinks the youngsters can help as well.
She recalled that she worked for a year after high school graduation to help pay for the cost at Northern Illinois University in the 1970s and that she said she may suggest the same for her children.
”I don`t see why you have to rush out of high school into college,” she said.
Carol Jensen, of Bensenville, mother of a 6-year-old girl, said her family`s current financial situation precludes saving for college now.
But when the time comes to pay the college bill, Jensen, like other Du Page parents polled, said she would take a second job or borrow against her house if necessary.
