Believe me I was surprised as well. While nothing in life is guaranteed, transfer rates seem to be more successful than initial acceptance from what I've read.

So three years for the price of one??

I guess my daughter will just end up with two years for the price of ,,,,,,,;)

1). The high-end prices are soaring. That doesn't affect the very wealthy. There will be a tipping point at some time bit it hasn't happened yet.

2). The private tech schools like ITT and DeVry are under federal investigation for high student loan defaults, and no jobs available to pay the fed-backed money back.
What Corinthian Colleges' failure means at for-profits | Marketplace.org
"Corinthian Colleges Inc. announced Monday it would close all of its colleges and cease operations. The for-profit college operator's closing is the end of a long struggle between federal authorities and the for-profit college industry, which has been accused of profiting from student loan debt.

Corinthian had high prices and its degrees sometimes left students with high debt, but few job prospects. And the school recruited poorer students — those most likely to qualify for federal financial aid"

3). Community colleges will pick up for the unwashed masses, even if serving only as high school++, but at those will be good filters for entry level management.

Common sense and real-world wisdom is still lacking, as MRM mentioned.

AFAIK.....
You can gift a child up to12K/yr. as a single parent, or 24K/yr. as a couple. Tax free.
That adds up over 20 years.
A Roth and 529 are taxed up-front but the second has limited usage for education only.

(Not sure about the plan limitations and where they can be safely invested.)
(Not sure about taxes on valuation of securities when they are traded multiple times during this period.)

It is not so much that the community college transfer rates are better than the acceptance rates. It is more like a contract. If you get whatever GPA, 3.0 I think, you are guaranteed a transfer to UC whatever the contract says. You are limited to how many hours you can have when you transfer, if it is over a certain amount, the deal is off, because they don't want people coming in as 3rd year transfers spending a year living in the East Bay and getting a sheepskin that says "Cal" on it. It is a great way to get a University of California degree on a shoestring budget. If you can't make the grades at the JC you lose your deal, but you probably would not make it if that happened anyway.

Things to know if you go to Cal

Lol, you sound like a college recruiter. They no more give a damn at a four year college than a CC, ESPECIALLY when you are taking your gen-ed courses. In fact, I had a lot more personal attention in my 20-ish student CC courses than I ever received in my 100+ student 4-year college courses. Personal attention and networking really don't happen until you get into your degree field courses when you have a small pool of the same instructors and students. You know, after you transfer in from a CC.

As for the college "experience", I'm not paying for my kid to get drunk and party. The college experience is why I took a few years off, and if I have a child that is not ready to take school seriously I will encourage them to do the same.

We, as a family, have been spending a lot of time talking of college. My son is a rising 10th grader. When asked where he wants to go to school: he looks at me and I say "where ever is cheapest"

What is interesting to me, as we research schools, is that it is not just tuition that has skyrocketed, but housing, too. A lot of colleges require freshmen to live on campus. A lot of campuses have outsourced the dorms. They are not the dorms of my time. These have pools, game rooms, rock climbing walls, Starbuck, etc. The cost reflects not only this, but the fact that the dorm is owned not by the university but a private company. These dorms, easily double your costs.

Now there are lots of ways to reduce your college costs like AP Classes and Dual Credits during the High School Years.

Most states have set up a way for high school kids to take college classes or CC classes during their Jr and Sr years. Here in SC the cost is sometimes covered by your HS. Most of the CC will get you scholarships. In SC this is limited to 2 courses a semester but you can go into college with 1 year done.

If you child loads up on AP classes they can get credit for that too. The interesting part is how many credits they get. I will give an example of differences. My son will take the AP Chinese Exam- if he gets a score of 3,4, or 5 at University of SC he will receive credit for 2 Chinese language classes. If he went to Clemson 4 Chinese language classes.

To add to all that cost issue, there are other issues going on right now on campuses: There was an interest article about a Texas A&M prof failing his entire class:
None shall pass: Texas prof flunks entire class, then quits mid-semester | Fox News

The question I never see asked is "Why is college so expensive? Where is the money going?" What is driving the cost up? Seems like it has nothing to do with actual cost, but simply what the market will support. I think the bubble will burst before long. Several of the old schools have 100's of millions in trusts. Yet their tuition costs are among the highest.

Crazy isn't it?? In some instances I understand the sense in a policy like that for an 18/19 yr old out of stater coming in as a freshman but, then again a lot of colleges don't allow freshmen their own cars on campus.

What doesn't make a lick of sense is when one actually lives within a 10 mile radius of the college and is still expected to pay for the Freshman dorms regardless.

Try billions in endowments. I think colleges decide their tuition hikes by spending whatever the hell they want to spend, dividing that number by the number of students they can fit and then calling that the new tuition. There are no cost controls and the gov't. will continue to let kids rack up six figures in student loan debt with nothing more than a signature. No collateral, no established credit, no limit on how long you can take to complete your studies, no requirement on an area of study likely to land you a job that pays enough to repay the loan - just a promise to repay and a warning that it can't be discharged in BK. Where else can I get a loan like that with just a signature?

It'd be nice if politicians stopped trying to convince people that you must go to college to amount to something and even better if student loans were made solely for areas of study where there is a shortage in that industry and/or a likelihood of earning enough to repay the loan.

The devil?