by John M. Butler
Becoming a dad for the first time changes a person for the better and nothing can prepare you for this. I had to grow up fast! I remember thinking about all my responsibilities including the very distant one of paying for his college education. But that was not for another 18 years, I thought… so I’ll get to it eventually!
As so often happens, life gets in the way and three years later, my wife Karen and I, welcomed our third child and only daughter into the world. Now the challenge wasn’t about saving for one child’s education… but for three! How were we going to manage this, while juggling household expenses, a mortgage and a new career in the financial services industry?
We were in the middle of balancing a very busy life while looking ahead towards the future and trying to grasp the magnitude of how we could conceivably save for our children’s education.
Off the top of my head the math was simple; three kids in college for a total of twelve years, guessing at an average cost of about $15,000 per year… would cost my family $180,000 (this was in 1997). That was an incredible amount of money and the burden of trying to pay for my children’s college education seemed insurmountable. By the way, the total amount we will end up spending when my daughter graduates in 2017 will be closer to $320,000! Ouch!!!
As I shared our dilemma with my family, friends and peers, I quickly learned that we were not alone. In fact, many parents were just as in the dark about what to do as we were. That’s when I knew there was a need for a college planning service intent on helping parents figure out the best, most affordable, way possible to help send their children to college.
That was the impetus for the beginning of College Planning Cape Cod.