I will agree that college tuition has risen a ridiculous amount since I was in school, ('79-'82), but even then there were different attitudes about how much parents should pay all the bills. Lots of kids had parents who paid for everything, now it seems like that is just a given thing among young parents looking towards their kids' college.

My Dad had a tough childhood during his formative years and joined the Army, (Korean war), so he used the GI bill for college and law school. It made him a hard-ass when it came to paying for expensive colleges, he would not do it. His attitude was that we either go to the public university, (which was a big 10 school), or get a scholarship to Harvard. With the exception of me, the gearhead, all 3 of my siblings were 4.0 students and major scholastic achievers. (Sisters are MD/attorney and brother went to Stanford for Phd). None of it cost my Dad hardly a cent, and believe me some of his friends were paying rent+tuituion for all of their kids at ivy league schools. My dad used to say, "are they quadrepilegics? Do they require bedpan service?" Like I said, he was a hard-ass.

Make 'em work and use public schools+take student loans unless you are truly rich, then do whatever you want. It just makes me sick to see people who are definitely not rich thinking that they have to provide for their kids like they were a Rockefeller, ie. all-expenses trip for 4 years to private schools, $8k @ year pre-school, (in L.A.), etc.......

You take my post to literally. My desire was to illustrate that babies and toddlers have minimal material needs. On the other hand, transitioning adults consume more than an education. (And so did we when we were in college.)

Every once in a while there's a real nugget of genius that comes out of panning in these silty streams. I think I just found one.

Brilliant.