Actually, I was just looking at an article: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/07/16/How-A-Family-Loan-Pool-Helps-With-College-Costs I forgot about the tax issues. I seem to remember that there is a cap of $15,000 which can be lent to people in general without considering tax issues. The simplest would be to take out loans, 'tho, that itself can be problematic: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324532004578362290396501134 > From: Robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert> > Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 14:15:40 -0700 > > > From: ", Flora" <http://www.state.vt.us/~Flora.> > > Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 21:03:24 +0000 > > > > The $51,000 includes grants and scholarships. Would you like me to send you the > > spreadsheet that I created? This includes all estimated costs that the colleges > > gave us minus the grants and scholarships. This gives us what we pay with > > savings, loans, and monthly payments. > > Yeah, that would be useful. > > However, I would like to understand something, still. > > It seems like there are 2 paths: > > 1) You pay for everything. In that case, you get grants and loans, and > then the remainder is paid by you. That's straightforward. > 2) You get help from family members. In that case, you get less in grants > and loans, and the remainder is paid by you and the family members. > > Am I correct in my analysis? > > If it is correct, does #2 have a lower and upper bound? It would be ideal > to see a graph based on different scenarios with varying contribution > amounts versus the total amount paid for college. > > It seems like there would be tools to do this for you, right?