Oh my, fine, have my upvote!

Yeah, it’s all a game of chance. My feel is that the combination of legislative risk + risk that those funds would not match at all their plans is low-ish enough, lower than it was or I thought it was a few years ago, that it threw me over the fence now. I was firmly against getting 529s until recently (mostly because of my annoyance with scammy colleges, which is most colleges).

Ultimately I fully agree with everything you said. They will build their own projects and ambitions, and our role as parents is to build around to support those ambitions, whatever they are, that is what makes kids successful. In fact, my sudden interest in the 529 is exactly to that end, to be sure they get opportunity if their ambitions happen to be aligned with what 529s are helpful for, while being sure that it is not too harmful if they’re not aligned.

So what if they’re not aligned and they can’t use those funds in meaningful ways for their goals? Well, right now they can transfer it to a Roth; or transfer it to any family member. Those rules can change, but they’re more likely to be that way a while than they were a couple of years ago when those rules weren’t yet a thing; and even if they do change, I feel it is reasonably to expect that there will be similar-ish ways out, hopefully. Otherwise, they can use some of the funds to buy various roughly educational things, like computers and similar expenses. And otherwise, if it’s really terribly unaligned and the law changed so much that those funds are locked as heck, there’s always the possibility to cut our losses, and take them out paying the 10% penalty; but hopefully that won’t be needed, who knows.

Oh, yeah, I’m glad you’re bringing that up, thanks; my state (Illinois) allows to deduct from state taxes up to $17k per year per account in donations, which ain’t bad, and is in fact more than I’d be willing to put in, I think. Which is useful, because it goes to show that even though I’m confused and feel like I have no idea what a good amount is, I do actually have some idea of an upper bound I probably wouldn’t go over.

Yeah, that is a very good reminder. I’m definitely worried about being dependent on them someday, I really do not want that to happen. Thanks for highlighting how front-and-center that is.

This is a good suggestion, and I am definitely worried about college degrees being overvalued. I’m totally gearing up to having to talk with them about the various choices and how financially reasonable each is, in quite a bunch of years. But ultimately, I also know that the outcome may be a compromise between financial reason, and their desires and ambitions. Their choice might not be ideal, and while I would probably disagree to help fun a frivolous degree, I want to have prepared for them to have various opportunities, not just the optimally least risky ones.

Damn, being a parent is hard.

Yeah, I’ve been delaying putting money into a 529 exactly because of college degrees being overvalued. But now I’m regretting that choice, considering they indeed can be used for other stuff like you said, and also because of the new ability to transfer to a Roth IRA without penalties. Also, I’ve learned that in my state (Illinois), only ~5% of the money placed on those 529 count towards getting grants and loans; so basically the more you put money in there as opposed to just giving it to your kid from a regular bank account, the more money you get from elsewhere. Pretty compelling.

But yeah, at the end of the day, unless the landscape changes dramatically, I fully intend to have the “colleges are mostly scams” talk with my kids as we get closer.

Oh, I like that line of thinking! Thanks a lot for that.