Author: Tim Lemke / Source: Wise Bread
College and other education expenses can be some of the most burdensome costs you will ever face. Families may find themselves shelling out tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to universities, and many will spend even more on private elementary and secondary schools.
Saving for these education expenses is increasingly crucial, with some people even turning to their individual retirement accounts to help. IRAs have nice tax advantages and have long been used as a possible vehicle for college savings. But is it a smart idea to use an IRA to pay for college?
Using a retirement account for this purpose could be helpful, but has a number of drawbacks. Consider these reasons to avoid using an IRA for education expenses, if possible.
You can’t borrow for retirement
Ideally, you want to save for both retirement and your child’s education. But you should try to avoid letting education savings cannibalize your retirement savings. The last thing you want is to aggressively fund education accounts, only to find yourself unable to retire when you want to.
Any money you spend on education now won’t be available when you are older, and you are costing yourself potentially tens of thousands of dollars in future savings. Remember that your kids can always get loans to help pay for college, if necessary. But there’s no way to borrow your way to a comfortable retirement. This is especially important these days when people have been known to live 20, 30, or even 40 years past retirement age.
(See also: How to Keep Student Loans From Wrecking Your Retirement)Retirement and college funds should be kept separate
You can save for retirement or you can save for college. But it’s a bad idea to try and save for both in the same account. That’s because you are operating with different time horizons in mind. If you are saving for your child’s college tuition, you will likely need that money in about 18 years, at most. Retirement, on the other hand, might be 30 or 40 years away.
This difference in timelines means that you will ideally be invested in different things. The college savings plan should contain more conservative investments than a retirement plan because you will likely need the money sooner.
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