College for our kids is like high school for us--it's an automatic expectation and I plan on paying for tuition. However, there will be conditions, just like any other scholarship--max number of semesters, minimum GPA, etc. Grad school's up to them.

Flash and I both funded our own college careers 100% independently from our parents, and managed to do so without incurring any debt. But in order to pull it off, we went to a cut-rate school. As our paths have diverged from those of our friends who went to better schools, we've wondered if we shouldn't have just taken out the bazillion dollars in loans to go Ivy.

Anyhow, point is, we want to give our kid more options than we had, so we started a college fund for Jeff when he was six months old. It has done quite nicely. For Charlie, well, he won't have use for a college fund but we've established a fund more appropriate for his long-term needs.

Mike, you have absolutely nothing to lose by establishing an education fund. I assume you're trolling again.

Umm, maybe because I don't think being among the privileged rich elite is the main thing in life.

Good luck creating your own private Obama.

That would take an awful lot of melanin.

It doesn't matter whether he uses it to go to an elite school. A fund is just as useful at BYU or OU or Appalachian State or Idaho. And if it's not exhausted in undergrad the kid can use it toward grad school. And dad gets the benefit of the tax breaks. Honestly, I've yet to hear you offer a single argument against a college fund.

Or perhaps you just want to keep the extra money to expand your apiary?

We started establishing a college fund for our daughter at 6 months old as well. We put away a pretty good sized portion of every pay check in her account. My goal is for her to have at least 100k in their by the time she is 18. That shoudl get her through school, and if she chooses to go to state school or BYU, then she can have some money left to maybe jump start her family as well.

I do not want my kids to struggle like I did, I dont think they will take education for granted either, I have enough faith in my parenting skills for that not to happen.

It sounds like someone does not think they are a good enough parent to instill values and hard work in their children without bribing them.

i live in a lottery state, so all the people who don't understand math are contributing to my kid's college fund.
Pretty sweet deal, and not a dime from my pocket.
Where else can $0.00 turn into 4 years of college?

Beat that Warren.

Given that SU has sent his daughter to Washington State, I want to hear his opinion on this.

I recently attended a conference where we had the top VISA economist give a presentation on the short and long term expectations for the US economy and one thing he touched on that I thought was VERY interesting was in the area of education. He said that there's a very large generation in the college age group right now (17-25 IIRC and due to baby boomer generation?) that is working it's way through the educational system and that college enrollment levels in this country on going to take a large hit in coming years and that many smaller colleges, etc will have difficult times staying afloat and that education prices will more than likely come down or stagnate.

Not sure if that will actually happen or not but interesting......

they could come down if prices are responding to market forces and trying to attract students. Or they could go up to make for the lost numbers. Experience tells me they will go up.