When I graduated from college twenty four years ago (gulp!) my parents gave me ten shares of IBM stock as a gift. (My father was a lifetime employee.) I really didn't think about it at the time, just put it away and forgot about it.
Until two years ago. That's when my older daughter was entering college. We had saved for her to go, diligently putting money into a 529 every month since she was just a little girl and barely reading. It was hard to believe, back then, that she would ever go to college. She was still wearing a size small dress and was scared of dogs.
But grow up she did. And during her senior year of high school, as she applied to college, my husband and I knew that even with that diligent saving, we were far behind where we needed to be to make up the difference. We knew that we would need to pay for eight semesters of college for her, and then turn around with no break and pay for eight semesters for our younger daughter. And every year, college tuition, room, and board jumps about four per cent. So where was the rest of the money coming from?
I remembered the stock. My husband and I decided we should sell some of it. I didn't know how many shares the ten had morphed into, but I figured, it was something at least. So little by little over the last two years, we've drained that account, filling in the deficit we face every August and December when we need to make a payment.
Yesterday I got a letter in the mail that the account was closed. Apparently we've used those entire ten shares up (and whatever they've morphed into) this week. I was a little sad -- we'd held onto that stock for twenty four years, after all! -- but mostly, I thought it was so cool. My college graduation gift had gone to pay for my daughter's college education. What could be a better way to spend it? Now, just to get through the rest of college payments without it. . . .
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