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The indoctrination at college is quite a challenge for parents like me expected to pay for this rather expensive "gift" for all my children.

Two in college and two in private school is not for the faint hearted or poor.

And all for just the purpose of extending adolescence or resisting indoctrination from messianic lefty humanists

When I was at Ole Miss in the late 70s, tuition was about 600/semester and nice two bedroom apartments rented for 150/month

I'm ambivalent about this. I don't want my children left behind as far as this societal indulgence takes them, but sometimes it seems like fancy or even some public colleges for middle and upper middle class kids are a social rung sorta. Something for them to have and parents to tinkle glass over at holiday parties with neighbors who are engaged in the same pursuit. I'm living this precisely right now.

Unless your child wants to do something "professional" like medicine or law or teach at an advanced level then I'm really ambivalent about all this. I got mine in Poli Sci with the intention of law school...took the LSAT...did great...got letters.....but left the country more less for 16 years and never looked back...was tired of school.

Now I own self storage and car washes and other mundane investments that have Sam Hill to do with college...

And don't get me started on spending a fortune on daughter's college and even grad degrees so that by late 20s or early 30s they can rightly so get all fuzzy about mothering and drop it all to raise their children....which I support completely but you wonder was it worth 250K for them to be able to articulate English Lit or God forbid Women's Studies with their soccer mom pals....which is probably something they would never do anyhow.

I had this very conversation with a neighbor at our Halloween party. He's a doctor. She's a mommy with a Hollins degree (Hollins was not cheap even in the 70s). Anyhow....they have one at Washington and Lee, one at Clemson, and daughters at the toniest girls school here which may be more expensive than out-of-state at Clemson . I asked her "why do it"? She looked at me like I had no clue and declared it was a "gift"

I've been thinking about that. I'd rather "gift" them a nice home or a business start then just burn money especially with the rampant leftism at colleges.

It was an easier accommodated gift 30 years ago.

Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but I have never seen a serious explanation of why the cost of a college education has tripled/quadrupled (???) since the 1970s. Few other commodities have experienced such an unchecked inflationary ascent. I have heard people say that this is the result of bloated budgets and administrative costs at colleges and universities, but I have the feeling that is only part of the picture. Of course, this price increase is only more galling when you consider how much the quality of education has declined during the same time period.

Anyway, what is more puzzling than the cause of this problem is that it doesn't seem to have had much of an effect. In a nation where almost everyone can/does go to college (at least for a while), where is the outrage at this ridiculous price increase? Egged on by the media, people pitch a hissy-fit every time gas goes up by $.50, but for some reason the same folks sit silently by while the cost of an elite college education bumps up $10k in 10 years. Color me confused b/c I just don't get it.

One other thing. I do see one tangible effect of the cost of college on people's lives. I see it factored into the mental calculus married couples use in deciding how many children to have. In fact, based purely on what I hear people say, I would say it is the primary economic reason well-to-do couples choose to have 2 or fewer children these days.

It's sad really, that people would choose to have fewer children in response to this problem than organizing and trying to find a way to stem rising prices in this market.

Yeah, SirKit doesn't think much of that 'gift' attitude about college. He was expected to pay for his own college because his parents just couldn't afford it. He jgot loans for his undergraduate work, and got a fellowship for his 4 yrs of Grad school. I was fortunate in that my Mama worked for Southern Miss as a transcript clerk and I got free tuition. Of course, it was only $159 a quarter back in 1971. ;o) But, I didn't pay that much attention to it because I wasn't paying for it. I did feel an obligation to do well because it was Mama's hard work that allowed me to get a degree for free.

Our kids are getting loans and will pay them back. If we end up coming in to some money from stocks or something, we may help them as we can, but we're not telling them that so they're not expecting it.

They are VEY SERIES about their college work, since they're paying for it.