Is the 529 enough for a $100,000-a-year school?

Who

A widower in his mid-fifties, a senior executive at a large bank, raising a son who is a sophomore at a private high school in Texas. He is thinking about retiring from the bank when his son finishes high school. He didn't want a full financial plan at this stage; he wanted one question answered well, so he engaged Mercer Street on a limited-scope basis.

What they came in with

• A specific target: he wants his son to be able to attend the most expensive private college in the country if that's where he gets in, so the planning assumption is an all-in cost of $100,000 a year in today's dollars, growing with college inflation.
• A 529 plan he had funded steadily, and a UTMA account in his son's name, with no clear picture of whether the two together would get there.
• Significant private high school tuition today, and a question about whether the 529 should help pay for it.
• A possible retirement at his son's high school graduation, which would cut his income sharply in the years the college financial aid forms look at.

What we did

• Ran the numbers against the target. We projected the 529 and UTMA balances against four years at $100,000 a year in today's dollars, inflated to the son's college years, and identified the gap and the monthly contribution that would close it. The answer was a number, not a feeling.
• The 529 and private high school. Since 2026, a 529 can pay up to $20,000 a year per beneficiary of K-12 tuition federally tax-free, up from $10,000. We laid out the trade-off plainly: every dollar used for high school is a dollar that isn't compounding for college, and the college target is the harder one to hit. The decision came down to whether his cash flow could carry the high school tuition on its own for the two and a half remaining years.
• The UTMA. The UTMA is legally his son's money. On the FAFSA, a student's assets are assessed at up to 20%, against a maximum of 5.64% for a parent's assets, including a parent-owned 529. We mapped how and when to spend the UTMA for the son's benefit so it does the most good and the least damage to aid eligibility. See the college planning guide for high-net-worth families.
• Retirement timing and need-based aid. The FAFSA uses income from two years before the aid year. If he retires when his son graduates from high school, his income in that first retirement year is what the forms will see for the son's junior year of college. At a $100,000-a-year school, a sharp drop in income can open the door to need-based aid even for a family that assumed it would never qualify, though assets still count. We built the timeline so he can see which college years would be affected and what his retirement income would need to look like.
• Where this could go. The work so far stops at the college question. Retiring from a bank at the end of a long career raises its own issues, from deferred compensation and stock awards to health coverage before Medicare, and he can bring those questions to a later session if he chooses to.

Outcome (so far)

• A clear answer to the original question: whether the current 529 and UTMA will cover a $100,000-a-year school, and what it takes to close the gap.
• A decision framework for using the 529 for private high school tuition, with the cost to the college goal made explicit.
• A college aid timeline that connects his retirement date to his son's junior and senior years, so the two decisions are made together.

What it cost

See the fee summary at the top of this page. Mercer Street does not manage the 529, the UTMA or any other account.