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On Campus Blog
Alex Friedrich

Should parents simply invest their children’s college money?

Go Deeper.

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Dahl

Barry Dahl, senior community manager at Desire2Learn and former VP of technology at Lake Superior College, wonders whether it would make more sense for parents to skip paying for college and instead invest the money into their child's retirement fund.

Children of parents who invested $40,000, he writes, would find upon retirement that they had $700,000 to $4.9 million saved up, depending on the average annual rate of return and some other factors.

(Government analysts) estimate that a holder of a bachelor’s degree will make $900,000 more than the holder of a high school diploma over their entire working life. YMMV. Compare that number with the amounts that the not-college investment will grow to, and the bachelor’s degree is not such a no-brainer.

You can read his blog post -- with his explanations and caveats -- here.