In 2015, CollegeAdvantage celebrated its 25th anniversary. In honor of this milestone, many longtime account owners shared their Saving Stories and how using CollegeAdvantage helped them achieve their goals. We are fortunate to have these encouraging stories of how families prioritized their children’s higher education and are sharing them again.
My wife, Denise, and I had tremendous support from our parents which allowed us to attend college and law school, graduating from both with almost no debt. We married immediately after we passed the Ohio Bar Exam in 1981 and within 4 ½ years were proud parents of three beautiful children; four years later came another one. We never questioned whether or not our children would go to college. We were both successful in our careers. We knew we would need to save for college but never, ever imagined how expensive college would ultimately be.
When we first learned of the CollegeAdvantage program, we immediately enrolled each of our children (well, the youngest might have had to wait until he was born!) and then we invested aggressively. We lived well but within our means. We did not drive expensive cars and buy a lot of luxury items. But we did funnel any extra money we had into the CollegeAdvantage accounts. When grandparents gave the kids money for their birthdays, we invested that, too, noting that the house was already overwhelmed with toys. Ultimately, we were able to have enough for four years of in-state college tuition and fees saved for each of our kids. This created a tremendous amount of peace of mind for Denise and me, as we knew that whatever happened to us or to our careers, the kids would have their educations.
In the end, our oldest graduated from the University of Notre Dame, and the other three graduated from my alma mater, Bucknell University. Our oldest went on to graduate from the University of Toledo College of Law and our other daughter is currently in a master’s program in Educational Administration at the University of Dayton. We are proud of our children and thankful that we were able to give them the same educational opportunities that we had been given.
The CollegeAdvantage funds did not cover everything, and I have to tell you that I was a little stressed the year that we had three kids in college at the same time, but we could never have accomplished this without CollegeAdvantage. So, it is my pleasure to send this email sharing our appreciation for the program.
And there is a very happy final chapter to our story. Our oldest and her husband have blessed us with two beautiful granddaughters. Although they live in Atlanta, they were both enrolled in CollegeAdvantage as soon as they were born and they will share the benefits of this program!
Stuart Cubbon
Toledo, Ohio
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