A lot of frantic threads asking:
Is it worth it to pay/borrow/steal 60-70k/yr for dream school v a fullride to excellent other school?
To put that amount of money in perspective, what else can you buy for a quarter of a million dollars?
A nice house in some places in the US.
A third of a nice house in some other places in the US.
List price for the next two or three kids at an in-state public university.
An airplane!
A nice house is one thing.
But 15 airline tickets, or 4 years at a dream school - the dream school sounds like a deal.
Four years of medical school… (And a great family vacation to Hawaii.)
You’re leaving out the part that the FIRST class airline tix also includes 4 years of education at excellent other school
From the Star Alliance website:
Round-the-world ticket: NY zurich dehli beijing LAX NY
250k buys: 15 first class, 26 bz class, or 57 economy tix
I am seeing about $16,500 per ticket, so 250K only buys the flights, no education at any other school.
Forget the luxuries, in most of flyover America $250,000 buys a reasonably nice house. The FHA limit is $271,000, so the bang for the buck really increases over that.
I don’t know how much help we will be able to give our two children, but whatever it is, they will both get exactly the same. So one child could very well graduate with enough money left over to buy a big car or small house while the other will graduate in debt. In any event, it will be their choice.
The original post:
It’s an interesting question. I would say if you have the money, save it for a house, car, grad school, wedding, investments, etc., or some combination thereof. If you don’t have it, try to avoid borrowing it since debt is can be so crippling.
But I would not advise stealing the money. That’s just a bad idea all around. 
True, I missed the fullride bit, that’s just too far out of my experience. One could splurge for a few years in advance, claim poverty, and get good financial aid, I suppose.
We have been fortunate enough to send both of our kids to private schools full pay.
I never think about what we could have done with the money otherwise.
At 6% I can invest that kid into 3.8 million retirement, which is more like1 million bucks in 40 years. Nice, very,very nice.
Honestly, the real question to me is how much do you have to work to save $250,000 after tax, after living expenses.
For most people that would be years.
Years ago my dad knew someone who gave each of his kids the same amount of money for college. One didn’t want to go to college so instead he bought some heavy machinery and started a business.
@gouf78, did that guy go on to have a happy personal and professional life?
If we had to choose between using it to fund our kids’ education or splurging it on a trip with first class tickets, that is a no brainer. We’d invest in our kids education over a trip or a different house anyday. Hands down. No brainer.
With 250K, you can invest to generate about $5000 of annual pretax income in dividends from the S&P 500. In theory, that should last forever, and will, over time, rise to keep up with inflation. It works out to $420/month, pretax.
Happykid would have taken the trips and the free education - hands down. Especially considering that that many first class tickets would have meant the whole family and several friends could have traveled together.
Since expensive travel is an essential part of the post graduate life of a musician, this equation was an important part of D’s financial planning. She chose schools that gave substantial financial assistance. If you have blown your budget on an over priced over hyped conservatory---- how are you going to afford travel in the pursuit of work? How are you going to afford the coachings and lessons that never end? Just this next month she has auditions in Berlin, Paris, Prague and Copenhagen. Plenty of talented grads are stuck with massive debt and are not be able to afford this.
You cannot buy 5 (FIVE) Porsche Boxsters! Can’t even get 4 for $250k. I would rather have 4 years at my dreamy dream school than 3 1/2 well optioned Porsche Boxsters. I would probably go with 1 Porsche turbo tho.