Tag: roth ira for college tuition

How to Save for Your Child’s Education

On this episode sponsored by IBERIABANK/First Horizon, Tim Baker and Tim Ulbrich talk through strategies for saving money for your children’s college education. They discuss phases of planning for educational expenses, how to project how much to save, and various options for saving for kids’ college including 529s, Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, UGMA and UTMA Accounts, and Roth IRAs.

Summary

On this episode, Tim Baker and Tim Ulbrich talk through strategies for saving money for your children’s college education.

They discuss phases of planning for educational expenses including how to project how much to save. The two main phases of planning for educational expenses, the accumulation phase and the decumulation phase, are explained. In the accumulation phase, even before your children are born but before they begin attending college, parents will need to first assess their overall financial picture and situation, select the savings vehicle that fits the needs of the financial plan, actually fund the account, and check in regularly to make sure that the plan is on track to meet the educational financial goals. In the decumulation phase, parents are actively making financial decisions that directly impact the cost of the child’s education. The decumulation phase also includes actually paying for college. In both phases there are numerous ways to plan and save, each of which should take into consideration the retirement of the parent as well as their wishes for funding for the child(ren)’s education.

Tim and Tim also break down various options for saving for kids’ college including 529s, Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, UGMA and UTMA Accounts, and Roth IRAs, how they work, as well as the pros and cons for each when predicting the future expenses for your child’s education.

Mentioned on the Show

• Learn More About IBERIABANK/First Horizon’s Pharmacist Home Loan and Start the Pre-Approval Process
• Register for Free Webinar: Investing for Beginners: Where to Put Your (Legal) Drug Money with Joe Baker, MBA
• Baker’s Dirty Dozen: Principles for Financial Independence by Joe Baker, MBA with Lindsey Jordan Baker
• YFP Planning: Financial Planning for Pharmacists
• Book a Discovery Call with YFP Planning

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Baker, glad to have you back on the show.

Tim Baker: Good to be back. How’s it going, Tim?

Tim Ulbrich: Good. I’m excited about this episode, one that we I know get lots of questions about from the community, from clients. I think it’s an anticipated episode. As I mentioned, a topic around college savings for kids that I believe is top-of-mind for many folks, of those that either have children or those that are thinking about having children down the road and the question is how do you best save for your child’s education? And as pharmacists, we’re all aware — acutely aware — how expensive school can be. 2020 graduate, $175,000 is the median debt load. We all know what that means in terms of our own education and therefore I think it’s probably front of mind as we think about our children’s education as well. Tim Baker, I suspect this is a topic our planning team gets lots of questions about from our clients. Is that accurate?

Tim Baker: Yeah. And it really comes from a place of like, I don’t really know how to approach this. So it’s more of a — I think more so than other things, it’s more of a blank canvas. Some people we kind of direct them if like, hey, if you don’t have a strategy here, we can talk through it. Some people are like, I don’t want my kid to go through what I experienced. I’m going to do whatever I can. And there’s every shade of gray here. So it is definitely something that we talk through with clients who are kind of in the phase of life where they’re just having kids all the way up into where they’re starting to go to college and trying to crack that nut. So it’s definitely something that is top-of-mind for a lot of the families that we work with.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think it’s important before we get into account options and strategies — and we’re going to talk about 529s, probably the most well known option in the group, we’ll talk about coverdell account. We’ll talk about some taxable options, Roth IRAs and so forth. But i think before we get there, it’s important we zoom out for a moment, talk about really two phases of planning for educational expenses, the accumulation and decumulation phase. So Tim, talk us through these two phases, what they are, and thoughts that folks may have as they’re planning for kids’ college in these two phases.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so planning for education is very similar to planning for retirement. You know, we as employees will have a 30-, 40-, 50-year career, whatever that might look like. And typically, the overwhelming majority of that is in the accumulation phase where you are gathering assets and then you go through a decumulation or a withdrawal phase as you go into retirement. The same is true, to a lesser degree in terms of timeline, from an education perspective. So you have an accumulation phase, which is — could be before your kiddo is born all the way up until they’re 18 where they go to college and then you transition to a decumulation phase or a withdrawal phase where you’re actually paying for college. So a lot of families, especially with multiple kids, Tim, you’ll experience this with your boys potentially where you have four different one of these kind of rolling at the same time. So the accumulation phase is when you’re kind of just trying to assess what are your goals with respect to the education planning. So for a lot of people, it’s like, I don’t want my child to experience what I’m experiencing right now. For some people, it’s like, I think they need to have a little bit of it but to a lesser extent. And for some people, it’s like, that’s not part of my AO at all, like I’m not necessarily concerned about that. It’s kind of going through the process of organizing and selecting the appropriate investment vehicles to basically meet the goals that are in front of us, how do we want to fund it, so what is — how are we going to basically put dollars in those appropriate funds? And then just kind of those check in regularly along with the rest of the financial plan to see if we’re on track or off track, just like we would do for retirement and the like. And then really transition to the decumulation phase where it’s more about — and I kind of think about this in terms of the financial plan where you’re not a reactive spectator as I was when I was kind of going through this. I was kind of just I’m going to try to get into the best school that I can and I’ll figure out the price tag and everything later on but more of you’re making empowered, informed decisions about college. I think that’s needed, especially because of where the price of school has gone. So just being more in the driver seat and really work on saving on the cost for college, not just for the cost of college. So one of the big things that we’ll talk a bit about is just college is so ambiguous in terms of what it costs. There’s no price tag for everyone. And potentially help be that objective third party that’s removing the emotion and making an irrational home buying decision and do all this while you are taking care of No. 1, i.e. you and your retirement. It kind of goes back to that idea of put your mask on first before you can put your child’s mask on. The same thing is for education planning. So we don’t want to rob your own financial plan for your child’s college tuition. So those are really kind of the two broad phases that have different nuances as we’re going through them.

Tim Ulbrich: And one of the things you mentioned, Tim, in the accumulation phase is assessing the goal, starting to identify what the need is. And as a parent of a young child myself, multiple children, I struggle with the concept of projecting into the future to estimate educational expenses 5, 10, 15+ years into the future, although I know it’s important to begin to think about that and put some numbers around that as well. So how do you walk through this with clients when it comes to projecting the need?

Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s similar to like retirement. You know? Like we don’t really know what the cost of A, B, or C will be. We know that there’s going to be a factor that’s going to be inflation. We know that over the course of the last few decades that the cost of college education has increased threefold over a 17-year period meaning when your child is born, if it costs $40,000 to go to college today, by the time they’re ready to go, multiply that by 3 and that’s basically what a four-year education will cost. So you know, again, this goes back to the whole idea of like investing and time in the market versus time in the market and the time value of money. And for a lot of us, it’s just — it doesn’t necessarily need to be a completely balanced equation. It’s more about am I on track? And am I funding the education funds that are kind of in line with what my goal is? So there are some individuals — and I’ve actually had conversations with individuals where they’re like, we would love to have more kids, but we’re going to stick with the two that we have because if we add another one, we’re not going to be able to have that 100% solution for education. And those are conversations that I want to really dive into a bit more and really see if there is a potential way around it. So you know, just like retirement, we’re going to be tracking if we’re on track or off track. We do the same with education. The problem is that the cost, again, is ambiguous. There’s lots of components to the cost. There’s not like an itemized list that parents can go and say, “OK, this is exactly what it’s going to be. I’m going to know what that’s going to be in 17 years.” We’re just basically using all the tools, the data, we are making this almost just like we would in retirement. And we’re building the plan around that.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think that’s an interesting point, Tim, the ambiguous costs that are involved. There’s the sticker price of an institution, which from my alma mater, they’ve evolved that approach from big sticker price, discounting it with lots of scholarships, so the true cost is not anywhere near the sticker price to others where the sticker price, you’re in in-state tuition without scholarships and other things might exactly be that amount. And you’re looking at that times three or four or however long it takes. So talk to us about types of costs, types of expenses. What are things that folks need to be thinking about here in terms of the factors that would inform what that overall need may be? Or at least to project that need.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so you know, I think the way that a lot of the tools are built, the financial planning tools that this is kind of what we walk through clients on, you know, you have these different sectors of school. So you have maybe like a private nonprofit four-year on campus experience, which may be the most expensive. So like today’s dollars, it’s like $49,000 is the grand. And then we break those up into the different components: tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation expenses, and other. So we have that but then we have all the way down to the public two-year kind of in-state commuter student that it’s a fraction of that, $17,000 all in. So we have the ability to, using the data that we have with some type of inflation number, to say OK, if you want your student to go to Ohio State and you’re in-state, it’s going to cost this much. And then we can build a plan around that. If you want your child to go to just the average four-year out-of-state or in-state, it’s going to cost this much. So you can be very, very granular on this. But really, the things to look at is tuition. So they say a rule of thumb is out-of-state tuition is roughly two times more expensive than in-state. Sometimes it’s a credit per hour, sometimes it’s a flat rate. Room and board, I’m going to do the don’t cut across my lawn, shake my cane at you — but like I remember looking at schools in the early 2000s when I was graduating high school and it being very much a bunk bed cinder block, not necessarily a great cafeteria expenses. And then listening to some of my younger cousins and saying like, “They do what?” And it’s kind of like an arms race, so to speak. And I think that’s one of the reasons that — you’re competing for students — but that’s one of the reasons why some of these have gone up. So room and board, does the school require on-campus housing for freshmen, even sophomores? That’s becoming more and more of a thing. A lot of schools have talked about freezing tuition, but room charges kind of remain unchecked. And a lot of these amenities kind of inflate the cost. It could be food where there’s meal plans. Typical meal plans could be $1,000-2,000 per semester. It could also be things like different fees that are for courses or parking or student ID and orientation, library, legal services, student government. It goes on and on. And these are things that can kind of just start really increasing — it could be textbooks. I know there’s a lot of things that are trying to disrupt that in terms of rentals and things like that. And then just transportation or personal expenses. I know you’ve seen back in the day like oh, like do you use student loans to go and travel and do that? And a lot of people are like, you know, let me live. A lot of people are like, I don’t want to do that because I don’t want to have that inflated student loan number at the end. So it’s very much a layered process in terms of what you’re paying. I think to be able to have some guidance and some counsel on this — and there are financial planning practices that specialize in this alone, especially for a lot of people that are working with Gen X individuals. So I think to have a person to help coach you and your teenager, which can be a little bit different. I know if I transport myself back to that, I’m like, I’m doing what I want.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Tim Baker: But I think if we reframe some of the conversations — and we see it when we talk to schools of pharmacy. If we’ll say, “Hey, the average debt load is $175,000,” that’s like funny money, right? But then if you actually equate it to like what does that cost per month in student loans and then you maybe multiply that by 12, which is close to $2,000, a year $24,000 if we go to the standard plan, that’s where you’re like OK, like maybe we need to have a more rational, less emotion, and make sure that, again, if you’re in pharmacy, all of that education equates to a higher income. But that’s not the case for everybody. If you go study something different that you’re not necessarily aligning what you’re paying in tuition with the expected salary.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, one of the things you said, which is something that I’m struggling to think through — Jess and I — with our boys is I’ve heard you talk about taking current costs and projecting out for some factor of growth that we may expect and certainly we’ve all seen the numbers of tuition and fees, important point you made up — fees that are going up that far surpass inflation and historically have gone up at really incredible rates. But it’s important to note there is somewhat of a national conversation going on about the need for more affordable higher education or even perhaps in some cases free education. So this is something that I feel like I’m struggling reconciling is might I be overprojecting the need? And what’s the opportunity cost of that in terms of where else that money could be used and if it’s tied up in this account or that account? We’ll get into that a little bit with individual accounts, but what are your thoughts on that? Not asking you to crystal ball higher education over the next 20 years, but in projecting the need based on going forward and what we’ve seen historically with growth but also some discussions around perhaps this might be more affordable or in some cases free.

Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s a great question. And you see a lot of the political discourse around this in terms of like a more progressive political movement to forgive student debt and then offer free options. I’m going to talk out of both sides of my mouth in some degree. So like I think from a planning perspective, it’s tough to — you know, I kind of always default to the status quo. So just assume things are not going to change. But then when I talk about the 529, I’m kind of talking out of the other side of my mouth in that I think that over the last couple years and I think projecting the future, the dollars in those accounts are going to be able to be used for more liberal purposes even than what they’re used for today. So the free college discussion, I do think that there is a very real possibility that by the time, Tim, our kids go to school, that’s going to be an option on the table, an option that I think that a lot of people should seriously consider. I’m kind of putting myself back in that, like would I want to do that myself? And the answer is probably no, I wouldn’t have. But it might make more rational sense to do that, especially if you don’t know what you want to do, which again, most 17- or 18-year-olds don’t really know that. I think that’s going to be the real — the first big domino to fall is going to be kind of that free two-year community college. And I don’t know what stipulations are going to be on that, but I typically from a planning perspective, I plan as if it’s the status quo and hope that potentially there is an improved reality. So like one of the things they just announced with the latest bailout package was that they’re changing some of the rules to the income-driven plans that if you get forgiveness for a non-PSLF strategy between now and 2026, that that’s tax-free. Like you don’t have to pay the tax bomb.

Tim Ulbrich: No tax bomb, yeah.

Tim Baker: But the caveat to that — there’s not very many people because those are 20- to 25-year plans. There’s not many people that are in that boat. So it’s nice, but is that something that they’re going to extend permanently?

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Tim Baker: Maybe, but do you say — you look at that, and you’re like, do you stop saving for the tax bomb? I don’t know if I would feel comfortable telling the client to do that. Now, the nice thing about the tax bomb was typically in a taxable account that you can use that and say OK, no more tax bomb, let me go buy a vacation home. That’s great. If it’s in a 529 account, maybe not so much. So yeah, I think it’s a great question. I think one of the things that a lot of people — and I had these conversations with prospective clients that were like, ‘Yeah, I’m kind of just waiting for this election to see if Biden gets elected what he’s going to do on the student loans to kind of push forward on my strategy.’ And I’m like, in my inside voice I’m thinking like, I wouldn’t hold your breath. And again, like could he forgive student loans? Maybe. But it doesn’t sound like he has an appetite to do it from an executive action. And if it’s — it’s going to be I think for most pharmacists very inconsequential. And again, I don’t know if I would hold up my life, my strategy, to wait for the politicians to come in and save it. So you know, whether that’s $10,000 or $30,000, it’s tough. So I think the big thing to kind of follow, which I think will be — is like that two-year. But then what are the stipulations for that? And then does your student, does your kiddo fit into that? I don’t know if that’s a — if it really, really affects my plan from an education standpoint. So that’s kind of what my take is on that.

Tim Ulbrich: Great discussion. And I think it’s important for folks to consider that on their own as well. And let’s shift now into talking about some of the accounts that are available for kids’ college. We’ll spend a decent amount of time on the 529. We’ll also talk about the Coverdell accounts, the UTMA accounts, taxable accounts, Roth IRAs, so different options here that we might consider. Tim, let’s start with the 529s. Obviously they come up in conversation probably the most often from my experience. What is a 529? What type of contribution limits are out there? How can it be used? And talk to us about these accounts at a high level.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so the way that I think about these are these are essentially like retirement accounts for education. But it’s really going to be dependent in terms of — so why do I say retirement accounts? Because most retirement accounts have tax-preferred status. Like if you put dollars in here, you can save taxes. But every state’s going to be different, right? So one of the big things that makes this attractive for a lot of parents is that the parent essentially owns the account. So a lot of these other ones that you mentioned, it’s like, these are Coverdells, UTMAs, UGMAs, these are custodial accounts that really belong to the student. So these are like retirement accounts, but for education that the parent owns. And one of the big things that I think is exciting that really happened over the Trump administration is that they’ve loosened up what these 529s could be used for. So back in the day, you would use these for a long accumulation period. So you would say, “Hey, little Johnny was born in 2000. He’s going to go to school in 2018.” And for those 18 years, you would basically put money in there and then whatever is left over, that’s what he would use for qualified education expenses. Now with some of the changes to the Tax Cut and Jobs Act under the Trump administration, you can now use it both as an accumulation account, so in future like when Johnny goes off to college, but then also today when Johnny starts kindergarten and he’s going to a private school or all the way up through 12th grade. So under the federal law, savers can now throw up to $10,000 to pay for students K-12 tuition. Now every state is going to be different in terms of what they allow. So that’s important to know what your state does allow. The other big thing that the 529 account — so this was under the SECURE Act, basically that it now allows, which is crazy that this is even a thing, but it now allows qualified student loan repayments up to $10,000 per beneficiary from the 529. So before this, if you had $10,000 in a 529 and you had $10,000 in loans, you couldn’t use that money without a penalty, without a 10% penalty to pay that off, which is crazy talk. Like there shouldn’t even be a $10,000 contingent on that. It should be if you have money in there and you have loans, you should be able to pay it off. And then the last thing that the SECURE Act does is it allows you to use the money for like apprenticeship programs. So like we talk about education — I know Tim and I, we talk about this kind of behind closed doors about like what does higher education look like in the future, what’s this going to look like for us versus our kids, and is there going to be a swing back to more of the apprenticeship type programs and that type of thing. And the 529 is opening up that. And you might be surprised by this, but even — like even when I started learning about the 529s, they didn’t allow you to use it for like a laptop or things like software, so it’s been a gradual thing. So I think that the restrictions are going to continue to kind of be loosened up, just because of the need to kind of solve this problem. So the 529, think of it as a retirement-like account that you can put in money and get a deduction on the state level, depending on the state, and basically grow that money tax-free. So if I put in $10,000 over five years and it grows to $20,000, I don’t pay capital gains tax on that as long as it’s used for qualifying education expenses. And I don’t pay any tax on the back end. I do pay a penalty if I use it to buy a car for my kid or something like that. The other big things in terms of flexibility is that let’s say Johnny doesn’t want to go to college. Let’s say he wants to start his own business, which I might be a big proponent of, maybe buy a franchise and learn that. So he can’t use the 529 for that. But maybe Jane, our second child, can. So you can basically use those — and let’s pretend Jane doesn’t want to go. Then maybe their grandkids do. You use it for that. So the money can sit there and grow. A lot of people think like, oh, I’ll never be able to use it. Like you can just keep changing beneficiaries, essentially, and use it for the children or the grandchildren that do need it. So I am a big proponent of it. I know some people, they kind of feel bound by some of the rules because it’s like, what if you don’t use them for qualified education expenses? But I think it’s a viable way to not only get a state tax deduction based on the state that you live in but also to allow those moneys to grow tax-free without paying capital gains that you would see on like a brokerage account or something like that.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and the way I think about these, Tim, just to draw another example to how you explained the tax considerations, I think about these as like a Roth IRA for educational savings. So money going in has already been taxed dollars, it’s going to grow tax-free, you can pull it out tax-free for qualified expenses, which you outlined. I do want to just mention because I think it’s worth further explanation, you gave the example that these can now be used for not just higher education but let’s say I have a child who’s in a private education K-12. And some folks might be hearing that saying, “Well, what’s the purpose if I don’t have the long-term investment or gains?” If I have a 5-year-old or a 6-year-old, 7-year-old, they’re in private school and I put money in and then I turn around and take that money and spend it for that education, what’s the point without the gains? And really, the value, Tim — correct me if I’m wrong — would be on the state income tax deduction, right? You’re essentially passing it through, taking advantage of that state income tax deduction. And then of course if there is any time period of growth, you’re going to get some of that growth as well. But is that the main benefit of that type of approach?

Tim Baker: So if you live in the state of Ohio and you know that you’re going to have $10,000 in private school costs, you could put that money in, that $10,000 in, and then at least in the state of Ohio, I think it’s — what is it? $4,200 per kid. So you could at least take that off. So if you make $100,000 that Ohio recognizes income and you basically use it as a pass-through, so it goes right into that account and then you take it out and now the state of Ohio sees that you made $97,400 if I did my math right. Yeah. So $95,400. So the idea is that you use that as a gateway to lower your state income tax. So you’re not really getting any growth at all. It’s just a way to basically contribute, get the deduction, and then use those in more of the near term. It’s the same thing like you could argue with an HSA.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: So the beauty of the HSA is that you can put those dollars in there. So if you put $2,000 into an HSA and then you use it right away, you’re not really getting any growth or tax-free growth on the accumulation of the asset, but you are getting the reduction on your federal and state income in that regard, which can be very beneficial. So and that’s the dynamic that has changed recently under the Trump administration where it wasn’t there before. It’s a great benefit, especially for those individuals that are sending their kids to private school K-12.

Tim Ulbrich: I’m still waiting for them to add the homeschool provisions, by the way.

Tim Baker: Yeah, that keeps getting cut out. And typically at the last minute too.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’ve got to dust off my lobbying skills. So get down at the statehouse. So some of the disadvantages I think about, you mentioned one of these with the 529. If it’s not used for educational expenses, which it has been broadened out as you alluded to, 10% penalty and tax on the earnings portion of that investment. Other things that come to mind here, Tim, would be as you’ve alluded to, not all 529s are created equal. So they’re based in different states. And this is where you hear folks say, x state’s 529 is the best one. So is it fees? Is it investment choices? Is it flexibility? Like what are the differences that we see in terms of state 529 offerings?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so like unlike some of these other accounts like the Coverdell and the UGMA/UTMA, the 529s are typically administered by the state. So the 529 will say, “Hey, Fidelity or Vanguard or American Funds, we’re hiring you to take care of our state’s 529.” So just like different custodians and institutions, they’re going to charge different fees and have different investments, the same kind of flows through to the 529. And it’s the same with the 401k and the 403b. So some companies will hire companies that are really efficient. So they’ll have good investment selection and cheaper fees. And some where that is not the case at all. Now, sometimes it’s inconsequential because even if the 529 is not great, the state tax deduction is such that it does make sense to pay the lesser fees to get the tax break. But that’s not always the case. And then there’s some states like North Carolina, they don’t care. Like they don’t have any benefit at all. What you essentially want to do is go out and find the state with the best 529 plan, which is often like Nevada’s typically at the top of the list of — the Nevada 529 because theirs is run by Vanguard. It’s typically lower fees and things like that. So a lot of it goes to fees, a lot of it goes to kind of investment selection that is really the driver of like, what constitutes a good 529 plan and what constitutes a not-so-good 529?

Tim Ulbrich: So I don’t want to spend as much time here, but just high level overview of the Coverdell education saving account, the UGMA, UTMA accounts, what are the main differences of those accounts from the 529s?
Tim Baker: Yeah, and to be honest, Tim, like I’ve seen this with clients. I can probably count on my hands how many times I’ve seen these accounts. So these are both custodial accounts, basically like self-directed. So where I was describing with the 529s are kind of administered by the states, you would just go to a financial advisor or even yourself, work with a banker or custodian, and you would say, “Hey, I want to open these up for the benefit of my kiddo.” So if we start with the UGMA/UTMA, these are just really trust accounts that you invest — basically you help invest a child’s money until they can take over it. So it’s owned by the child, but they don’t necessarily have control of it until they’ve reached the age of majority, which for every state it’s going to be different. So that can range anywhere from 18 years old to 25, depending on the state. So these accounts, what you contribute as the parent or the grandparent or whatever, it’s an irrevocable gift that basically means you can’t — there’s no takebacksies. So you give it and then you have no more control of that asset. So in a lot of ways, you’re kind of bound by the gift taxing limits. So these, you typically see these with very wealthy people that are trying to like spend down their estate so they’re not hit with a crazy estate tax. There’s not a whole lot of like tax benefit. So like if you put $10,000 and it grows to $20,000 for that child, they’re paying $10,000 in capital gains. And this could negatively affect the financial aid of the child because the asset is owned by the child. So I don’t really see these much because of the advent of like things like the 529. The other big thing is that I don’t think — then you can use it anything. So if Johnny reaches 18 and he’s like, I don’t want to go off to college and that’s what this money’s for, but I think he can spend it on whatever he wants. So he’s not bound by the education. The Coverdell, these used to be called Education IRAs. The name was changed. These contributions are not tax-deductible, but it does grow tax-free. So they’re very much like Roth IRAs in that the gains are tax-free and they’re self-directed versus state-directed. So you know, they’re — and the withdrawals are tax-free if used for those qualified education expenses, which are also K-12. So this was even before the 529, that was a thing, the Coverdell did have that. But the big downsides for these is that you can really only put $2,000 a year per student. So it’s very low contribution limits. And then you typically phase out like once you reach $220,000 as a married filing jointly or $110,000 as a single taxpayer, you can’t contribute to the Coverdell at all. So for many pharmacists, you know, you’re very quickly kind of out of that, especially if you have dual income. So I don’t really see these anywhere. I mean, I think primarily I see people save for their kids’ education either in a 529, a Roth IRA, a brokerage account, or I’ve even seen some people do it with real estate, which is an interesting concept as well.

Tim Ulbrich: What would be the advantage of a brokerage account? I want to get to the Roth here in a moment, but these ones, we’re obviously talking about some tax advantages that can be associated with them. So what would be the thinking of a brokerage account as a primary vehicle?

Tim Baker: I think for a lot of people, it’s just — it’s that perceived flexibility, which is there. But I think from a Roth, like you can take whatever you contribute to a Roth out any time penalty-free. Tax- and penalty-free. So that’s one thing that a lot of people don’t understand is that if you contribute, you can take that basis out of the Roth IRA. It’s when you start getting into the earnings, that’s when you get into the penalties. So I think for a lot of people, it’s kind of that idea of just flexibility. The problem is that once you start adding up — like if you’re saving for Jane and Johnny’s college over the course of 20 years or so, you could see real capital gains tax there.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: Hopefully they’re long term capital gains so they’re taxed at a preferred maybe 15% versus a 22%, 25%, 30%. But that’s still money that you have to account for when you’re going to use that for education. So again, I like the 529. It’s not investment advice. I think for a lot of people it makes sense because of the flexibility that you can — you know, if one kid doesn’t use it, you can give it to the next one. It’s just my kind of go-to.

Tim Ulbrich: Speaking of flexibility, one of the things that I’ve thought of that I want to get your input on — I suspect our listeners may have as well — is the Roth IRA as an option for thinking of saving for educational expenses with the understanding that qualified educational expenses are an exception to the early withdrawal penalty and as you mentioned, the basis or the amount that you put in a Roth can be pulled tax-free without penalty at any point. So talk us through that strategy. I think of something like a Roth versus a 529, perhaps more investment options, perhaps an option to keep fees down depending on what you have in the 529, the idea that if Johnny and Suzy decide not to go to college and I don’t have anyone else to transfer it, I can continue those savings on for retirement. Downsides of course would be of maybe we’re not using that as the primary or one of the primary vehicles for retirement and savings. So where does that fit in in terms of strategy of folks when you’re thinking about where a Roth may or may not fit relative to the 529 specifically?

Tim Baker: Yeah, I mean, I’d probably default more so to the 529 first, at least get the state tax deduction. But there’s some people that are just like, I want to really use — because that is one of the exceptions in the IRAs that you can for higher education expenses and I think it’s cap, I don’t know if it’s the same for first-time home buyers, if it’s $10,000. I’d have to look that up. But I think it is. I don’t know, I think we talk about accounts like the HSA that has this dual purpose. But sometimes when you have a dual purpose, you have no purpose. It’s almost like when you have two quarterbacks, right? So for like the Roth IRA, like I look at that as a retirement account, not an education account. But it could very much be used as such. I think that yeah, to your point, is there more flexibility in an IRA versus like a 529? Absolutely. Is it even cheaper? Yeah, potentially. But I think that where the 529 is going — and I think you can have both, really. Some people will never reach their state’s benefit in terms of what the state tax deduction would be. But yeah, I think this is more of a conversation for clients that don’t have that benefit, like I said, North Carolina where the Roth is — or even the brokerage account, but I would probably say the Roth first would be the first avenue. So you know, I kind of, again, default rightly or wrongly to the 529. But I think the Roth can be a viable way to at least put some dollars aside for that purpose.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I like the thought on the 529 for the state income tax deduction. Maybe you build it from there, maybe you look at a Roth. The other thing, which I think goes without saying, is that if there is a way to earmark your Roth specifically for long-term retirement savings and still contribute to a 529, we can let that money continue to grow as you say on repeat on this show, it’s time in the market that matters, right? So if we can not have to pull that out for college expenses and let it continue to grow, obviously we’re going to reap the benefits of that compound interest. Last question I have for you, Tim, as we wrap up this discussion on kids’ college and savings: One of the thoughts that I have is coming out, I’ve talked about my story and journey on this show many times before, but I suspect for many other pharmacists that have six figures or more of debt, is there a tendency for folks to overcompensate for kids’ college savings at the expense of other areas of their financial plan, specifically for those that have come out with very high debt loads and because of that experience, might lean in that direction of hey, I don’t want my child to have to go through it, at the expense of their own retirement, at the expense of other financial goals that we might traditionally think come before kids’ college? Is that something you see among clients?

Tim Baker: I think that yes, I do. But I also see like a bit of every kind of approach on the spectrum where it’s like, I don’t ever want my child to ever have to go through this again or go through what I went through. But there’s also like some of it like I went through it, so they have to go through it. And then there’s some reservation of like, just because my loans are so bad, I don’t think I’m going to be in a position to help them.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Tim Baker: Sometimes there is kind of the reaction, you know, equal and opposite reaction type of approach. But it’s all over the place. And I think for the most part, the default has often been I want to help my kids as much as I can, but I also need to make sure that I’m taking care of myself. And I wouldn’t say it’s uncommon, but you know, there have been not as many conversations as you would think where I’m saying like, we have to pull that back. So you know, one of the things that we do as part of the goal setting here is how do we want to go about funding this? And there’s a lot of different approaches where you can plan for 100% or you can plan for something that’s a lot less than that and feel good about that as part of your financial plan. So yeah, it is all over the board. But I think there are sometimes is a push to kind of overcompensate for that or some just like, hey, I had to deal with having to find my way.

Tim Ulbrich: Good luck.

Tim Baker: They do too. Yep. Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff, as always, Tim. And to those listening and college savings may be on your mind of one of many financial goals that you’re trying to work through, we’d love to have a conversation with you about the comprehensive planning services that we offer at YFP Planning. Now serving more than 200 households across 40+ states of the country. Our team is well versed in this topic among other parts of the financial plan. And you can go to YFPPlanning.com, book a free discovery call to see if our services are a good fit for you. And as always, if you liked what you heard on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, please do us a favor and leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to the show, which helps other folks find out about the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

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