A few years ago, shortly after the birth of our first child, our financial advisor recommended $350k in case we wanted a private college. We're nowhere near mak

A few years ago, shortly after the birth of our first child, our financial advisor recommended $350k in case we wanted a private college. We're nowhere near making that goal, nor do we have any particular preference for a private school, but it's an interesting number nonetheless. But I think the trend to keep an eye on isn't the price of an undergraduate degree, but a graduate degree, as an undergraduate degree won't be nearly as useful as today, which already isn't as useful as 20 years ago in many fields. Indeed, both my wife and I have graduate degrees. My wife came from a middle-class family that was college oriented. I came from a working-class/poor environment. My mom sent me off to college with $200 and a suitcase, and I subsequently paid for everything else, including housing and tuition, myself. But I barely made it through; I just wasn't culturally or academically equipped to do college. For example, my first week of school I was preoccupied with finding a job, I always prioritized working over school even when, financially, I didn't need to, and I didn't appreciate the value in developing relationships with professors (that felt more like cheating, reflecting not enough time spent studying). So what concerns me more than college right now is primary and secondary school--preparing my kids so the transition to college is seamless and natural. Fortunately, San Francisco has many excellent public and private schools. The public school district has language immersion programs in several different languages in addition to non-immersion early language programs, as well as other enrichment programs; and the parochial private schools in particular are relatively affordable--cheaper than daycare, even. (Though daycare can be crushingly expensive--whether run out of a garage or attached to a fancy private school, rates are similar--so I guess that doesn't say much.) So the price of college? Meh. That's poor people thinking. My goal is to put my kids on a college trajectory and let that carry them through--hopefully to graduate school. Of course we'll save as much as we can, but that's not something I'm concerned about. In my hometown middle school and high school counselors often discouraged kids from college because the costs were presumed insurmountable for most families. In truth 1) they were ridiculously misinformed and misleading about the options and alternatives, and 2) setting kids up for failure whether or not they ended up going to college. Nope... worrying about cost right now is counterproductive.