Parents want to do everything they can for their children. But is saving for their college education going too far, if it means short changing yourself by cutting into money you should be putting aside for retirement?
Work + Money reached out to financial advisers for their advice — all of whom who told us it almost never makes sense to prioritize saving for your kids' college tuition over your own retirement.
"College costs can be defrayed by securing need-based or merit-based scholarships or selecting a less expensive school," said Benjamin Sullivan, a certified financial planner with Palisades Hudson Financial Group in Austin. "However, there are no scholarships for retirement, regardless of how much need or merit a retiree demonstrates."
Still, with college costs expected to double in the next 10 years, saddling your kid with a six-figure tuition bill can seem extreme. So our financial planners offered advice on how to do both and how to limit the sting of those tuition bills sometime down the road.