Our school holds college planning meetings every year - the invitations are sent to the entire school and parents are told it’s never too early. We went during my son’s sophomore year. It included a talk from a local financial person, which I realize was a marketing stop to get people to sign up for his services, but he brought up a lot of good information and gave me a good place to start in the planning process. We also started 529 accounts for both of our kids at birth, knowing it wouldn’t cover everything but at least we’d have something.