I was also lucky. Undergrad funded by my parents. Grad school funded by assistantships with most tuition waved. I got a PhD with zero debt. My father could pay

I was also lucky. Undergrad funded by my parents. Grad school funded by assistantships with most tuition waved. I got a PhD with zero debt. My father could pay for college himself back in the 50's and 60's a summer job and with a part time job during the year. His parents were poor and uneducated, yet He got a PhD with no debt. Now my kids are facing college. The landscape has changed and it is not good. I am very well paid but I make too much money for financial help, but not really enough to pay for 4 years of college for all my kids. I have saved money and have paid off my house, but I don't have another $600K set aside for college. I don't want them getting out of school with debt, so I will make sure they don't do anything stupid with large student loans. But I imagine they will all have to take on some debt. The sad thing, college is not better (actually worse in the liberal arts -- that is a different discussion) and the inflated costs are insane. The money is not going towards better professors -- I was a professor for 18 years and I didn't see a proportional growth in teaching and research. Almost all of the extra money went into the bureaucracy.