@BooBooBear I am not surprised. As a banker, I have seen many financial statements loaded with big houses, vacation homes, and expensive cars that were largely funded with debt. Those statements usually also showed little cash, significant credit card and student loan debt, underfunded IRA/401K/SEP accounts, and annual incomes greater than $300K.
@lastone03 I am a bankruptcy lawyer, so you can guess my attitude about non-savers.
My wife and I always planned to pay for college for our 2 girls. I did start savings funds years ago and just did a direct deposit each paycheck. Neither one has a fully funded college fund as I didn’t understand the cost of college back then so knowing what I do now I would have put more in. As for my girls contribution, they each have had jobs and that money went into their savings and helps to pay for things like sorority dues, and any other not essential items they may need. As of now, my one D in college should get to her senior year with no debt but we most likely will have to have her take out the Federal Loan her senior year to help but I plan to help pay that off if we do get to that point.
Daughter two will probably be in the same boat although she is looking at an OOS school but one that does a lot of Co-ops so not sure how that will all work out. Still two years to go for her to start college. Graduate degrees I hadn’t thought much about. I paid for my own Graduate school while my parents paid for my undergraduate with the exception of a small student loan I had that took me two years to pay off.
@doschicos 100% agree with your stance. We often say we brought them into this world- that was our choosing, we are both college educated and we knew it was part of the deal.
Even though I feel that way, I still understand that with how expensive college has become, that others can’t keep up with costs. I know lots of very fiscally responsible parents who can’t 100% pay for college, but they have warned their kids. The one’s mentioned by @BooBooBear are the ones that I just can’t understand.
When my kids were young, my son used to complain about how our family never went on fancy vacations, while all his friends’ families did.
Years later, when he was about to graduate from college, he realized that most of his friends had undergraduate debt and he didn’t. He said, “Mom, now I understand.”
My husband and I were fortunate enough to graduate from college with no debt. It was a high priority for us to make sure that our two kids had the same advantage. We skimped on other things (like vacations) to make sure we had enough money to pay for college.
We didn’t help with graduate school, even though we could have afforded to. That was my husband’s decision, and I don’t really agree with it. But he feels extremely strongly that it harms young people’s development into independent adults if parents help financially after they get their bachelor’s degrees.
Our philosophy is to pay for their education so they can be self-supporting adults, and then we can enjoy our so-called “golden years” without having to worry about their ability to make a living. In other words, pay for education now instead of having to help support them the rest of their lives!
We saved for college before we could even really afford to be saving for it. Our goal was always to not put any obstacles in their way to finish college. College costs, especially private college costs went way higher than expected but we earned more so we were able to save more. We also sent them to private school k - 12 - when the youngest is done it will be a big raise for us. We always put their education ahead of our toys and fun. It’s why I resent people who made more than us not saving and expecting things for free. I’m over it, and I’m glad our kids were able to get through school without loans.
Don’t you know any “regular people” who are just getting by, ordinary paycheck to ordinary paycheck?
There are a lot of families who are not poor, but who have very little left over after the bills are paid. These families are expected to shoulder more and more of the costs of raising a family, and retirement. Large deductible health insurance plans without dental or vision. Childcare. Maybe finding affordable housing means living in a school district where private schools are the best option. People get divorced. People lose their jobs. People get sick and become buried in debt.
If your income is “ordinary”, putting aside a couple hundred a month is not easy & it’s a tiny drop in the bucket for what will be needed ahead. It’s not even going to cover in-state costs in Illinois for one kid (+$120k). Don’t get me started on retirement.
You sound like you live in a bubble and all your good fortune is attributed to your superior planning and decisions.
Life hasn’t humbled you.
As a family of two professionals with solid upper middle class earning potential, we always figured that college savings was part of our commitment to parenting. By the time each kid was off to college, we had about $200,000. for each of them – not enough to cover full pay at privates, but close. Each kid focused on affordable alternatives that was consistent with their preferences: one went to what became his dream school, an out of state public that was less than full pay at a comparable private school and the other went to a mid-tier LAC that gave him substantial merit. Goal was that each kid would have enough to not only cover regular college costs but also have the flexibility to take the unpaid internship, more expensive study abroad option etc., with no one taking on debt. Both kids had jobs in school year and summers to contribute to their spending money and personal expenses.
To get there, we didn’t travel, except by car to visit family, neither kid has been to Florida etc., neither had a car in high school and our second family car was a junker. No upgrades to the latest “must have.” I would have liked to have had a 3rd child, but circumstances were such at that time that we knew we could not duplicate the savings for a 3rd child. So that window closed.
We’ve been saving since our kids were born. We also worked out our mortgage to have that paid off before our oldest enters college (he’s a junior, so we’re almost there). So our intention has always been to help our kids launch to adulthood. That said, the price of a college education has really gotten quite outrageous and it’s not surprising to me when people figure out that the dream college for their progeny really is going to be out of reach. But better that then trying to wrap their mind around crippling debt.
So we will be paying and helping quite a lot with undergrad. Merit will probably play and may my oldest more options. We will see for my 2nd - she is 13. I feel lucky that we have a couple good state options that are affordable for us. They are not affordable for everyone.
I have no idea on grad school. I don’t know if my kids will go. I don’t know what our finances and health will look like or what we will spend for undergrad. I can see us helping some if we can. Though,I do know people who’ve gotten some very well financed grad school degrees with careful research so I’m a big fan of that.
“I am a bankruptcy lawyer, so you can guess my attitude about non-savers.”
Thankful that their attorney fees are paying for your kids college? 
Your obligation is to be honest with your children about what you will and will not pay for as they grow, and to pass along your values. If these values include a college education, communicate this to them throughout their childhood, and as they grow, explain your financial perspective so that there are no surprises on either side when it comes time to apply to college.
Way back in 1997, my DH and I read an article that projected the cost of a college degree at a private college to total about $250K by the time our kids were old enough. It was horrifying, but we believed the projections. We started saving and investing for college right away, because we wanted our kids to have their choice of college, and we had no idea if they’d qualify for scholarships or aid, or if they would go to state U or private LAC. Everyone assumes their kids will be brilliant, but since ours were only 2 and 6 months at the time, we had to be honest with ourselves and not assume anything.
@Twoin18 I usually got paid by the banks. No guilt there.
It is the responsibility of the parents and the the child. I would love to say we have a large amount saved for our children for college, but that is not the way it turned out. It started out that way many years ago but sometimes the best laid plans go off the rails. It is not because of debt or living above our means. We haven’t had a vacation in many years, drive older vehicles, modest home, etc. Sometimes there are things that are out of your control; health issues, economic hardships, death, etc.
My daughter knew very early she was going to have to chase merit and worked very hard to attain the opportunity that has been offered to her. She received a full ride at her first choice school and is very excited to be starting in the fall.
Are we supposed to feel bad about that?
Midwest, I agree with your well thought out post. It is easy to sit in one’s perch and proclaim “If I can do it everyone can”. And yes, I know plenty of regular folk.
But- one must also concede that there are choices people make which limit their income potential or reduce their long term “economic viability”-- and people need to make those choices (in Blossom’s ideal world) understanding the pros and the cons.
Would my kids lives have been less stressful growing up with only one working parent? Probably. Ending up in “after care” after school when a kid just wants to kick off his shoes and read a book on the couch is surely easier on the kid than yet another go-round of a group activity. Is it easier to manage coughs, colds, flu, ear infections when every sick day doesn’t involve one parent calling in every professional chip on the table so that the doctor visit can happen when it’s supposed to happen? For sure.
You get my drift. Yes, it’s easier to raise kids with a full time parent in the house. Yes, two full-time incomes for 18 years yield more available cash flow (in most cases) to pay for college.
I’ve got a relative who is an elementary school teacher. She was tapped for a selective program to train Superintendents (prestigious, and most of the tuition costs for the doctorate are covered by a fellowship) but declined. She likes her summers off; she feels she’s got many great professional options with a Master’s degree; she doesn’t want to work that hard (direct quote). In her current district, the Superintendent earns five times what a classroom teacher of average tenure earns (and of course, the retirement, etc. all build off the latter years of higher income). So turning down a professional opportunity like this isn’t just saying “I don’t want to work that hard”. It’s also saying “I am comfortable forgoing a much higher income for now, and a significantly higher income in retirement”.
Choices have consequences.
Always felt it was my responsibility to pay for my children’s undegrad education-- provided their choice of school was something their dad and I agreed was affordable and made sense (i.e., sorry, not paying $70K a year.) We saved some, but mostly put ourselves in the position where we lived off one salary, with much of the second salary covering tuition/expenses on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Of course, we were lucky: lucky that we were both employed, lucky that we didn’t have dramatic debt so that we could pay-as-you-go. There are no guarantees in life, and I can see scenarios where even the best laid plans don’t pan out, and parents have to say to their child, “I’m sorry. I can only afford community college and the state U.”
This is just a very poorly thought out dea, but how about a system where low interest federal loans were available to college ready kids sufficient to fund 4 years including room and board at a state institution. This way, kids would not have to depend on whether or not their parents were willing or able to fund college. If we feel that that is too much debt for a kid to take on, aren’t we really saying that the value of the education isn’t worth the cost?
Bernie Sanders. 
Your second paragraph. People needing to make those choices, in your ideal world, & understanding the pros and cons.
Maybe I’m an outlier here, I don’t know. I’m about to run payroll for a company I work for. These are adults. Some working full-time at the company, some working a couple part-time jobs to put together a living. This industry just doesn’t pay that well, and there aren’t any benefits. But people get locked in. Maybe they got into the business when they were young and just haven’t found a better path.
I honestly don’t know how the employees are managing. The net pay is so low. It’s the working poor.
Anyways, I don’t want to get off-topic. It’s easy to think of those examples where people are living the high life and then cannot fund college or retirement. But I see examples all around me of people who are just getting by. Working really hard and just getting by. Did they ever really have a “choice”?
Threads like this make me really sad.