“Haven’t had to worry about it. My kids understood early that they are going to pay for their own college. The have worked hard. My eldest is getting a full ride.”
Merit based full rides are rare, and I salute your kid on his/her accomplishment. My oldest is a 7th grader who gets straight A’s but works her butt off to get the grades. Given the competition I am not sure that she will get much in the way of merit based scholarships - those usually go to the top five or so of the graduating High School class. My bosses daughter got a 35 on her ACTs (along with great classroom grades, good extracurricular activities and outside work) and went to a state university, but she did not get much financial assistance.
I am putting aside $175/mo for my oldest and her sister right now (of course with the market crash it is worth less than the amount which I have set aside). I have been doing this about two years now. The numbers don’t look great for their college even for one of the state schools if I can’t get some traction against the rising cost of tuition. I do expect my daughters to work 10-15 hours/week during the school year, and 30-40 hours/week during the summer once they turn 14.
The one thing I do not want them to do is borrow money to go to school.