529 College Savings: Wise or Foolish?
Read time: 2 minutes
Welcome to issue #055 of Unicorn Parents. Each week, I share practical insights and reflections to help you build a profitable business without missing the magic at home. If you’re serious about winning at work while raising great kids, you’ve come to the right place. This is a community built for ambitious parents who want both.
“529 college savings? Do it or not?”
Parents ask me this all the time.
Whether to actually start saving for our kids’ future… or not.
Because everyone tells you it’s responsible.
Safe.
The “right” thing to do as a parent.
But what if we’re optimizing for the wrong game?
College is no longer the default path to capability.
It’s the default path to credentialing.
And those are not the same thing.
Unless your child is becoming a doctor, lawyer, or entering a licensed profession, college is no longer the only way to learn.
It’s not even the best way.
Everything you can get in college (knowledge, network, opportunity)
can now be accessed elsewhere.
Often faster.
Often cheaper.
Often better.
So the real question for us as Unicorn Parents isn’t:
“Should we save for college?”
It’s:
“What are we actually preparing our children for?”
Because underneath that…
This is also a capital allocation decision.
Is this actually a wise use of money?
Every dollar we set aside for college
is a dollar we’re choosing not to deploy elsewhere:
into our business
into assets we control
into opportunities we can actually grow
If we’re honest…
Most of us aren’t intentional enough.
We’re defaulting to what’s “normal.”
Not because it’s optimal.
Because it feels safe.
We don’t want to mess up.
We don’t want our kids to fall behind.
We don’t want to regret not preparing them.
So we follow the script.
But the script wasn’t written for entrepreneurs.
Traditional systems are designed for:
→ compliance
→ sequencing
→ delayed permission
They reward obedience and punish speed.
That’s not a bug.
That’s the feature.
But if we’re trying to raise someone who creates instead of waits…
we’re playing the wrong game by the wrong rules.
We all say we value entrepreneurship.
But look at what we actually build into our kids’ lives:
→ over-structured schedules
→ fear of failure
→ reward systems based on following directions
→ zero real exposure to money, risk, or meaningful decisions
You don’t accidentally raise an entrepreneur.
You either design for it…
or you default against it.
So what does designing for it actually look like?
It doesn’t mean pulling your kid out of school tomorrow.
That’s lazy thinking.
It means seeing school for what it is: a tool, not an identity.
One input among many.
Not the path…but a path.
Then you build around it:
→ Ownership early
Real decisions. Real consequences.
→ Real-world exposure
Not case studies. Real operators.
→ Communication + persuasion
Ideas that don’t sell don’t matter.
→ Small, frequent failure
Failure becomes data, not identity.
→ Speed over perfection
Entrepreneurs learn by doing. Everything else is waiting.
And maybe the hardest shift of all?
Stop asking:
“Are they ahead in school?”
Start asking:
“Are they becoming dangerous in the real world?”
Because the goal isn’t to raise a good student.
It’s to raise an extraordinary person who can:
→ create value
→ move people
→ build something from nothing
With or without permission.
So where do I land on 529?
There’s no correct answer to savings and personal finance.
At the end of the day, it’s…well… personal.
But as an entrepreneur, I’ve come to value flexibility and growth over locked-in safety.
A dollar today is worth (way) more than a dollar tomorrow,
especially if you can deploy it well.
So instead of defaulting to a predefined path,
I find myself leaning toward:
→ investing into our own businesses
→ assets that can compound (real estate, Bitcoin, etc.)
→ opportunities we can actively shape
Not because college is useless.
But because optionality and leverage matter more.
The past two weeks, I was practicing my rhythms of rest.
Good to be back!
Would love to hear from more of you.