Some eye openers there for me. They saved 40k for their kid and on average parents save 18k for their kids?! We saved exactly $0.00 for my oldest. My middle kid

Some eye openers there for me. They saved 40k for their kid and on average parents save 18k for their kids?! We saved exactly $0.00 for my oldest. My middle kid is a freshman. $0.00. And my youngest is 9, also $0.00. The number one thing you must save for is your own retirement. I just this last year started funding that adequately due to life circumstances. We are just recently able to help out with education costs and do plan to open 529 plans this year. The (very massive) downside to not having saved for the kid's education is that for us to help now, we are spending like nearly $30k a year to cover our oldest's classes. She is working part time and saving, and we are asking her to pay us back 50%. The other option is loans. We would have to cosign for them anyway, so no reason to use her poor credit. But having recently paid off all our debts sans a small mortgage, I'm not excited to take out any more debts. I had told all my kids since they were young that they were going to pay for their own college. It is hard to follow through with that when the loans they could get are terrible and I still have to cosign for them. Glad I finally have the income to help.