Fast forward 20 years, she still doesn’t have much savings though thankfully she has a govt pension. I know I will likely have to provide financial support for her in the future and I’m happy to do it. I even have a trust set up to take care of her, just in case anything happens to me. The sacrifices she made for me in my youth have helped to make me a pretty well-off adult. You might say that her bet paid off and we’re both the better off for it.

I have to admit, that when parents look at education from a practical dollars and sense perspective, it is puzzling for me. But, then in some respects, I think most of this readership can “afford” to look at it this way – your kids will be getting help from you in so many ways, college is only one part of the package. My in-laws are a case in point. Since they are well-to-do, they’ve been able to provide little boosts for their kids along the way (paying for college, placing phone calls to get them that 1st job, helping with down-payment on a house, bridging short-term cash flow problems, gifts for the grandkids, inheritance down the road, etc.). Studies have shown that this kind of parental support adds up more than people think it does. My sibling in-laws didn’t need Ivy educations to become affluent adults because they already started out that way – it was theirs to begin with so long as they didn’t screw it up. I did not have that luxury – which is why my mom intelligently saw fit to provide the one economic gift that she could by sending me to the best school I could get into.

Certainly parents shouldn’t go into debt, but if their income is upper middle class or above, yet they failed to save for their childrens’ education, they are pretty irresponsible.

As for graduate school, we were on our own. His was a questionable investment, mine paid off very well. I will note that I ran the numbers substantially and did lots of research before going (considering opportunity costs of not working full-time while in school, projected salaries, understanding where I needed to place in my class, etc.) In my case, educational loans were a great investment, but I would urge anyone going to do similar research.

Second: Education debt is the BEST debt you can be in.

This reminds me of something a more famous PT said, but seriously, education debt CAN be the BEST debt you can be in, and it can also be the worst debt you can be in.

I have student loan debt, a minimum wage job, $30 annual principal reduction, and even bankruptcy won’t make it go away.

But I wish they’d been more forthright and more educational about paying for college. I wish they’d discussed the difference in cost between the very expensive private school I went to and a state school. I know they didn’t want me to pay for any of it, fair enough, but I wish they’d discussed the finances of it more. I would have been able to make a better-informed decision, and I would have been better-equipped to face the world financially when I graduated.