If my kids had attended in state public schools we probably could have got it done without any student loan debt. But they attended Smith, Stanford, Wesleyan, and Cal Berkley with a lot of scholarships and grants. But they each still incurred some debt. The oldest finished grad school in 2009 and has her's paid off. The youngest acquired some more by attending grad school at Berkley, but she's got a job, so it's manageable. They both had part-time jobs while going to school so that they had a bit of spending money. Those peak $$ years at Stanford and Wesleyan were $34,000 a year, and I hear it's gone up considerably since then. As bad as the costs are, projected lifetime earnings still suggest that college is a worthwhile investment. Well maybe not at Wazzu.

Sg